Friday, December 24, 2010

38: Bahir Dar to Debark (Ethiopia)


Bahir Dar, Lalibela, Mekele, Hawsien, Aksum, Debark

Day 260:
The alarm woke us up before the sun was above the horizon on the far side of the great Lake Tana. Our car park camping was peaceful, quiet and safe the night before and the temperatures pleasant. I did hear the night guard walk past our tent every once in a while, but apart from that, there was no disturbance at all. It was nice to be able to sail down a ladder and have access to all our belongings for a change. Boiling water on the MSR Multi Fuel stove once again seemed like an adventure instead of a chose and closing the tent happened as quickly as our trained bodies had managed it before. We hit the road by 8:00 and headed north out of Bahir Dar towards a road affectionately names “The Chinese road”.

The city was a lively bustle of Tuk-Tuks and taxis basking in the early morning warmth and the sheer amount of people around were mind blowing! We did not linger there for long however and within an hour we found the infamous road and started heading into the mountains once again. Signage in Ethiopia was mostly in Amharic, so reading any kind of information was not really possible for us. I wished that I knew which mountain ranges we had crossed in the upside down egg holder of a country, but that information was simply not available to us mere travellers. What we did realize fairly soon however was that no matter what the name of the range was, it was awesomely spectacular!

Now I also found that travelling Ethiopia from south to north used up all my poetic imagination as far as adjectives were concerned long before we got to the really good stuff! I mean, The Omo valley was spectacular! The landscape there however was almost negligible compared to the mighty Bale Mountains with the 4 377m high parking lot, the endless skies and the gigantic rolling hills and massive Sanetti Plateau. Then came the Blue Nile Gorge! Dropping 2000 meters in altitude in a mere 8km, frying the new brakes and wearing our first gear while marvelling at nature’s chiselling glory while being swallowed in the deep gorge. Before this adventure I had set my own two eyes on the world’s second and third largest canyons. Fish River in Namibia and Blyde River in South Africa. They were both pretty spectacular and took the breath away regardless of how many times you visited. I was not sure what the difference between a canyon and a gorge was, but let me tell you, being that close and personal with the Blue Nile on that road made me wonder about the claims of the two Southern African splits in the earth.

Climbing to over 3000 meters from Bahir Dar though perfect tarmac hairpin bends, passing monasteries and tiny villages and churches in unbelievable places, balanced on rocks, was something that no adjectives, previously used or not, could really describe! That was without a shadow of a doubt the most impressive mountain pass I had ever had the pleasure of driving. I had not been to the Alps, but this road seemed perfectly suited for one of those famous James Bond car chases. There were no crash barriers, no warning sings and the tar was perfect as virgin snow. It was as if we were the first and only people to have ever driven that road. Maggie’s bulk and weight meant slow going on the up hills and using the gears to slow us on the down hills, but it was sheer driving pleasure! I have to admit to secretly dreaming about a convertible classic sports car with a massive roaring engine and noisy exhaust, or a super bike to eat up the bends so fast that not even the Bearded Vultures floating on the currents at eye level would be able to catch me. At the start of our adventure we spent a few days driving the mountain passes of the Eastern Cape in south Africa and this was similar in intensity, only 185km long and even with resisting the temptation to stop every minute to take another photograph, it took us about 4 hours to reach our turn off.

I exhaled the deep breath and had a huge smile on my face from that exhilarating drive only to find that that was nothing more than the appetiser… The mountains that lay before us were even bigger, even closer and even more impressive than that! It seemed like the road engineers adopted the theory that the shortest distance between two points was a straight line. It was as if they did not bother with trying to go around hills or mountains if there was a slight possibility of going straight over the top. We had left the perfect Chinese Tar road and found ourselves on a roller coaster of gravel and slippery small rocks. At that point I had no dreams about super bikes or fast cars. Maggie was the absolute perfect choice and I could swear that I heard a purring sound as we flexed and climbed and manoeuvred around the endless switch backs and hair pins. The landscape was incredibly beautiful and instead of looking at a view we were inside the view for another 40km which took us an hour and a half to drive. We did stop often on that road. Sometimes to take some photos, sometimes just to look and even once to give greetings and salutations to the first independent travellers we had seen that day. The last few kilometres took us almost vertically up a huge mountain and tossed us over the top right into the heart of the ancient Rock-hewn church Mecca of Lalibela…

Mission one was finding suitable accommodation. We had been recommended the seven Olives Hotel where car park camping was possible. A quick visit established that they had a magnificent restaurant, but there prices were simply unrealistic and their rooms were really not worth the expense. Marie, our fabulous French hostess in Addis Ababa recommended a place called the Blulal Hotel which belonged to a lady she knew. That was one minute’s walk away from the Seven Olives restaurant, had safe parking for Maggie and charged the same for a room as what the Olive wanted for pitching the tent in their car park… That was a no brainer then!

Next on the agenda was to buy our tickets, entitling us to visit the churches, and organising a guide for the next day. Although guides here were strangely not compulsory, we had learnt from our Harar experience that a suitable guide could really ad to your experience, and keep the perky ones out of your hair. The tickets were quite pricey at about $22 each, but were valid for five days and covered all eleven churches and the guide we found, Goitanow, cost another $20. We paid the fees and agreed to meet Goitanow at 7:30 the next morning, which was a full hour earlier than what he wanted, but at his price I did not really care what he wanted…

Where we had parked Maggie I found a “show technician” to stitch together my breaking shoes. The crowd that instantly formed were absolutely fascinated that I wore shoes, that they also broke and that they could be mended in the same way their shoes could be. I was definitely on the wrong side of the zoo fence, but didn’t mind so much. My man who fixed my shoes became an instant celebrity because he was the one who mended the shoes of the white South African, which no one wanted to believe existed. I guessed that they had more important things to worry about when South Africa had that little known thing called “Apartheid” going on. So with my shoes fixed and our appointments made we took a quick look at the small and unimpressive museum before heading back up the hill and to our chosen digs to sign in and pay up. The manager was uber friendly and seemed genuinely pleased to have us and accommodate our every need! He even opened the gate to the yard I we parked in and helped to carry our bags to the room.

The sun was setting on the far hills by the time we had settled in and we were running a little late for another appointment we had made. During our explorations we met a German couple who had been travelling the world in their old Mercedes truck for six years. They had been in Ethiopia for about a week and were heading south and we promised to drink their beer and wine while sharing some current info on the places we had been to. That was, after all, the gentlemanly thing to do… We found them nestled into a corner at the Seven Olives and were invited into their inner sanctum of a truck. It was brilliantly design! We quickly learnt that the guy dealt in motor homes for a living and spent years measuring every conceivable thing he saw on his floor before finally coming up with the perfect design. It seemed perfect to me to! We ended up sharing a table and our stories while having dinner and stayed up chatting so late that we were asked to leave when the restaurant wanted to close their doors. They retired to their palatial truck while we took the minute and a half walk to our massive and cheap room. There was one little thing that we did not consider when checking in…

Our humble hotel was squashed in between two bars and it was Friday night and the bars were in serious competition to see who could make the most noise. I took a deep breath, cursed myself for not noticing that and then cursed myself for paying for two nights, but while the cursing was in full swing everything suddenly went dead quiet. At first I was confused. Then I was surprised and when I looked at the watch I saw that it was midnight. Apparently, as far as I could work out, no one in Lalibela was allowed to be noisy after midnight. The only problem then was it was so quiet that the mistrust in the silence kept me awake for at least another hour.

Day 261:
The alarm made me jump out of bed and sail straight into the brilliantly hot shower! It was Rock Church day and I could not wait to get the lens cap off the camera and take some photos. I had seen my fair share of images from the place and had a fair idea of the kind of photos I was after, but nothing…. I mean nothing could possibly prepare me for what we were about to encounter!

We took a brisk walk down a steep cobbled street to the Guide Association hut to meet Goitanow at the agreed time. Along the way I scouted both sides of the street for the familiar and sweet sight of a local lady brewing early morning coffee and alerted my nose to the possibility of the smell of the sweet and delicious incense on hot coals. To my utter surprise I saw nothing like that! It wasn’t as if the streets were deserted either. They were hectically busy with a sea of seemingly identical people going to and coming from their special places of worship, wrapped in white linen robes covering their heads. But alas, no coffee in that part of town. Goitanow was a little late, but we found him bright eyed and bushy tailed with a few minutes of our arrival. He explained that the first church was still in the midst of their morning service and that we would only be allowed in after that was concluded. He did warn us the day before that 7:30 was slightly early, but we obviously knew better…

We used the time to walk around the top and outside of the compound of the north western cluster of carved rock and could not believe our eyes! These churches were indeed hand carved from solid rock! It was incredible, it was like something out of a movie and it was almost unbelievable! However, unfortunately the great saviours of all the world’s heritage sights, UNESCO found it necessary to build massive steel roofs over the churches to “protect them from water seepage”. They had obviously never though about crack sealant, obtainable from your nearest building supplier and a fraction of the cost of an acre to two of corrugated iron on massive pillars which turned something so amazingly incredible into a shaded and shadowed fraction of its former glory… But I’m sure they made a tidy profit from their efforts none the less. Perhaps they had already bought all the Land Cruisers they could get away with and had a fortune left over from all the ridiculously inflated prices everywhere we had found with their name attached to it charged… Not that I have any strong feelings about it of course.

While wondering why they chose the stark, ugly and unflattering metal instead of stone cladding framework if they insisted of blowing billions of $’s and detract from the natural beauty of the reddish rock around, the service finished and we were allowed to enter the churches. The first on the agenda was said to be the biggest monolithic rock-hewn church known to man. Monolithic meant that it was not carved out of the rock, but rather carved free from the rock and the only attachment to its host was the floor. Incredible! The Bet Medhane Alem measured 33.5m by 23.5m and was 11.5m high. It was home to a 7kg solid gold cross, but since an Ethiopian stole it and sold it to a Belgian art collector who got busted in 1997, the priest did not want to show it to anyone any longer. In fact, the new man in charge of all the churches had forbidden all the priests from showing off valuable artefacts to tourists. So those photos I had seen of priests dressed in brilliant robes holding ancient manuscripts and golden crosses was indeed something of the past. I blame UNESCO… They were however still allowed to take our money and ask for “tips” for photographs…

I digress: Our trusty guide led us through a tunnel into another courtyard containing no less than 3 churches: Bet Maryam, (Bet meaning “House of”) a smaller monolithic structure believed to be the most popular with pilgrims was decorated better than any of the others in Lalibela. It was also believed to be the first church Lalibela had constructed. We were shown a bizarre two headed eagle carved into a pillar and a painting of two bulls fighting on another pillar. I started asking our guide how long the building process took and how many people it required and he started answering evasively. Apparently the infamous King Lalibela was poisoned by his half brother in Jerusalem. He spent a while on the verge of dying and by his own description, on the verge of heaven. He claimed that God told him to build the churches and to recreate a Jerusalem on African soil, far away and safe from the Muslim forces, complete with the river Jordan, Calvary and the Tomb of Adam… He was king around the 12th or 13th centuries, but clever people with clever calculators had worked out that because of the completely different designs and states of decay of the churches, it not only took about 40 000 souls to build, but it was done over a period much longer than the reign of the Lalibela. Standing next to the smaller one of the two monolithic and absolutely dwarfed by the massive rock, shaped into a church, I could believe that it took a very many people a very long time to construct.

We were led into two small semi-monolithic structures after that. One was called Bet Meskel, the other Bet Danaghel, said to have been carved out in memory of the 4th century nuns that were killed by order of Julian Edessa in modern day Turkey. Neither one of them was big enough to swing a cat inside, rather cave like, but not less impressive than the big ones. Each had its very own priest, not allowed to show us any of their treasures. What did become quite interesting was that every one of the churches was positioned east to west, facing the sunrise and sunset… Or they could have if our friends did not build those hideous roofs over them.

The last church in that cluster was Bet Golgotha. That one was said to be the holiest place in all of Lalibela and even a simple visit to it pretty much guaranteed ones place in heaven! It also contained the tomb of the man himself and if it wasn’t for our UNESCO friends who moved his belongings into a hideous museum where they did not even bother to wash the marker pen marks off the glass, they would have been there to. Instead, there was a lonely priest in an area Catt wasn’t allowed into, guarding pale grey carvings of an Angel and the twelve apostles in the walls and pillars. Catt was NOT impressed, so I did not spend much time in there. That however concluded our tour of that cluster and offered us two massive free standing rock churches and three semi monolithic ones. Our trusty guide was on a roll and took us out of the cluster via a tunnel into the carved out and bone dry River Jordan.

I asked a about a small pause for coffee as I had not yet consumed any of the good stuff that day, but was told that it did not exist in that part of town. Goitanow said that the hotels at the top of the hill were the only places who served coffee and I had some of that the previous day… It was TERRIBLE! On our way to the next cluster we bumped into our German friends who had decided not to employ guide for the day. They had run up and down and all around the hills in search of churches and didn’t really know anything about them, apart from the fact that they were religious building carved from rock. Suddenly our guide’s fee did not seem so much after all.

Bet Gabriel-Rafael was our first point of call and that had the grumpiest priest ion the world! He chased us away from chatting on his steps even before we entered the church and once we did go inside, he went into hiding and refused to acknowledge us at all. Bad karma man! I felt like explaining to him that he was part of an organization who charged big money for people to visit a house that was supposed to belong to God, not him and that he had absolutely no right to restrict our access… But then again, he was much holier than I and even the guide seemed scared of him. Instead we had a quick and uncomfortable look around a seemingly empty stone structure with a painting or two of the heroes it was named for. The outside, with a very deep trench apparently resembling the fall into hell and the tiny bridge leading to the door was by far its most valuable assets. It was also rumoured that the place served as a fortified place for Aksumite royalty rather than a purpose built church. Perhaps that was why His Holy Grumpiness was the way he was.

Bet Merkerios was reached by a long and pitch dark tunnel, said to resemble hell and the light at the end of the tunnel, Heaven. Some ankle shackles were found there at some point, so it also actually believed to be the town prison, rather than a purpose built church. Bet Amanuel was the third completely monolithic structure for the day and was by far the most finely carved of the lot! It had fine detail, mimicking stone and wood and boasted an upper gallery and many treasures, which were all reserved for the priest and not for common God fearing tourists. The same priest had his own private bee hive, high on a wall with a wooden door to protect the “holy creatures”. We were not allowed to sample the holy honey.

Bet Abba Libanos was the last of the cluster and fantastically interesting! It was carved from a huge solid rock, as the others, and was freed from all sides, as the others. However, it was still attached to the host rock at the top, forming a dome like roof and a bizarre walk way around its walls. The priest there was fabulously friendly, accommodating and entertaining. He got on some colourful robes and tassels and fetched his ceremonious staff and crosses and posed right in front of his “holiest of holy” curtain for the camera. He smiled and even asked me if I wanted to kiss his cross and receive his blazing… (Blessing in funny accent) I was tempted, but they also had a leper colony outside the city who kissed the same cross, so I declined. He showed us his favourite pet, a tiny little sunbird that had made a nest in the crease of a curtain. While we wondrously looked at that, he had a fat and heated discussion with our guide. Apparently, we later learnt, he really wanted to be able to get dressed up in his Sunday best and show off his church’s jewels and treasures to all people who made the effort of travelling so far on bad roads and over vast oceans to come and see him and his church. Apparently he was simply not allowed to and the last time he tried, some other idiot grassed him up and he got into deep doodooo with the man in charge of such things. I liked him so much; I dropped a FAT tip into his donation box. He smiled so wide that it lit up the whole place and I vowed to tell all that his church was the best and most impressive. Especially as he had not had a visit from UNESCO yet!

I could have stayed there listening to him for hours, but our guide was in a hurry to complete his contract, so took us to the top of the highest hill in town. From there he showed us the lay the land and pointed at one of the most colourful scene I had seen in the whole of Ethiopia! It was Saturday and market day and the market were full to the brim from rural people who had streamed into the city from the first break of dawn that day. We were about a kilometre away and at least half of that distance above the festivities. It was, to be fair, just another Ethiopian market where the goods for sale was mostly cotton and teff and the few shoats and cattle around, but this one was busy! And big! It was not market time for us yet though and we were marched down the hill and to our last of the eleven Lalibela churches… Probably the most famous as well and I was absolutely convinced that it was the most photogenic, thanks to the screaming absence of the ridiculous metal roof!

It was the Bet Giyorgis (Home of St George) and it was 15 meters high, or deep and also totally freed from the surrounding rock. Inside some cavities in the rock in the compound we saw some mummified remains of hermits and priests who wanted to live and die there and inside the church the perfection of it all was explained to us. It was a perfect cross. The roof was three meters thick, which was probably why there was no need for scaffolding and shiny roofs, and made the inside 12m high. The two equal axis of the cross inside were also 12m long. In one corner we saw an ancient chest carved from a solid piece of Olive wood which was said to have contained Lalibela’s tools and made by him. The priest was totally uninterested in us and actually fell asleep against his curtain to his private layer. Oh how I wished for our friendly priest from the Bet Abba Libanos! Alas, the outside was the thing of beauty and incredibly spectacular. The inside, although somewhat interesting had the same start florescent lights and dark corners as most of the other buildings. The sun was high in the sky and the light flat and horrible, so I vowed to return the next morning for the obligatory photographs.

The last thing on our agenda was a visit to the market. By that time it was full to the point of busting and the patrons kept on coming! Where we entered I estimated about 5 000 head of cattle and at least double that amount of shoats as well as around half that amount of donkeys. Our guide explained that the donkeys were the taxis and we were walking through a taxi rank at the time. We were not pestered or accosted by small children and no one really paid us any attention. We walked a wide circle through the place to see if they had anything interesting, but had to conclude that there were mostly staples, cloth and shoes on offer. You could however feel the energy and excitement of the people around and it was contagious! As we were leaving the market I also noticed that we had not seen any Farenji apart from our German friends that day. We did, bizarrely enough, bump into Charlie on the street, the cyclist we had met in Nairobi and again in Addis Ababa. He also commented about the lack of tourists. It was quite nice like that…

It took a lot of sweat and lots of breathing to haul ourselves back to the top of the hill where the hotels were. We thanked and paid our friendly guide without whom our experience would have been much less rewarding and asked him to fight the good fight with the friendly priest to enable us tourists to see the things they were hiding. We found a local restaurant and had a late local lunch of Tibs and Injera for me and French toast for Catt. To be honest, het bread was neither French nor toasted, but apparently palatable none the less. The rest of the afternoon was spent recovering from our trek up and down the hot and sunny cobbled streets. It had been a very tiring morning indeed!

In the early evening I moseyed off to the Seven Olives in search of an internet connection. I found it in the form of a 3G dongle at 1 Birr per minute and positioned myself in a comfortable chair in the restaurant. It had been a long time since I had visited cyber space and I told the man that I would probably need about half an hour to conclude my business. Well, that was before I realized the total lack in speed of the advertised “broadband”. Man it was slow! It was fairly reliable though and although it took more than an hour to do my bits, I still managed it all without interruption. At that time the Germans had joined the table and Catt made an appearance as well. She was PALE and seemed weak! I asked what the matter was and the answer was short and sweet: Stomach unhappy… That was, to be fair, only the second upset stomach incident of our entire trip and not totally unexpected after feasting on local food for almost a month. We still managed a quick bite to eat and I drained a couple of St George beers with Joseph and Dorothy before heading back to our comfy hotel room.

It was bizarrely quiet for a Saturday night and it was not even 22:00 by the time we slid into bed. The bars on either side of us seemed deserted and perhaps even closed. I did not understand it, but appreciated the silence incredibly much. Catt was feeling increasingly rough, but fell asleep within minutes and I followed very shortly after that.

Day 262:
The alarm woke me before the sun or the birds bothered to make an appearance. Catt was awake already after a few visits to the bathroom and was just not in the mood for sight seeing. I quickly got dressed and grabbed my camera bag and jogged down the big hill on the cobbled street and arrived at the Bet Giyorgis before 7:00 as vowed the previous day. I took up my position on the hill next to the church and started photographing the scene before me. That was an absolute treat and exactly as I had imagined it! There was a precession that walked by the big stone structure. They were all wrapped in white robes with their heads covered and seemed as monotone as the stark rocks before the morning sun hit them. The sun, incidentally, was still far below the top of the huge mountain behind the town and everything was cast in that pinkish morning hew that precedes the golden rays. Once the group had moved on the lip of the crater was lined with worshipers dressed in the same stark white and apart from one Farenji lady who seemed to be joining in the morning service, it was almost as if I had been transported to a different century. I walked around the hills looking at the environment from different angles and taking many different pictures, waiting for the sun and having a blast! I also overheard the lady in none white distressed because she was apparently not allowed to go into the church. I walked straight over to the guard and explained that I, an obvious tourist with a camera in my hand had no right to disrupt the religious ceremonies of the fanatical believers down in the church, but this lady, although her skin was white, was actually not a tourist, but a pilgrim, and should be allowed to practice the same religion in the same church as the other pilgrims. Seriously! The injustice of it all! As I stood on the far hill waiting for the sun and listening to the incredible sound of the chorus inside the carved rock cross I saw the lady being led into the tunnel and into the church compound where she was indeed allowed to enter the holy building and join the service. I felt victorious! Justice was done!

The sun did eventually rise over the mountain after 8:00 but with the church still in full swing it was time for me to leave. On the walk up the steep hill back to the hotel I could not help but feel a deep respect for all those people who had made the journey from their homes to participate in that morning’s prayers. It must have been an absolute, energy draining, mission to reach the city and could indeed be described as a pilgrimage.

My own pilgrimage took me back to my poorly wife in the Blulal hotel room. When I arrived she had a little colour back in her cheeks, but as I had suspected, did not really feel any better. We had also found that our second story room did not really have adequate water pressure in the toilet system to deal with upset stomachs and although there was no proof left for anyone to see, it was definitely time to upgrade our facilities. I suggested that we spare no expense and move to the Seven Olives where we could spend the day doing nothing. We packed our bags and got Maggie started and drove the 150m to the other car park. We asked about vacancies and had a look at a $32 room. It was almost identical to the £10 room we had just left and simply not worth he extra expense. Catt said that she was feeling better and suggested that we move on to greener pastures. So we left the impressive, yet sadly vandalized (Thanks UNESCO) ancient holy city and headed for the hills.

And what impressive hills they were! We continued north on the same roller coaster like roads as the journey to Lalibela, only we seemed to be amercing ourselves more and more and more inside the mountains! Our surroundings engulfed us and the steep sides of the higher ground seemed impenetrable! However, every time we saw a mast on the top of another cloud tickling rise, we knew that our road would eventually lead us there. The hair pin bends and switch backs took us to opposite sides of steering locks around every bend and the steepness of the up hills required nothing less than lowest gear to manage them. Every mountain we climbed yielded a fertile and breathtakingly beautiful valley and every valley we descended into offered another chance of incredible mountain passes to leave it. The area was surprisingly sparsely populated as well and I could see that one could easily camp there in many hidden valleys and around many massive boulders. I stopped often to soak it all in, but my sponge was still saturated from the days before. I could hardly believe what I was seeing and experiencing. We had, to be fair, experienced some amount of roads and some amount of passes before and I found it incredibly hard to absorb the fact that we had not seen anything as spectacular as what I was looking at right then! Even the sheer beauty of Rwanda paled in comparison!

I drove and stopped and drove and stopped and by the time we reached the destination we had aimed for, the city of Mekele we had been on the road for seven hours. It did not feel like a long driving day though. It felt like a day of utter joy and entertainment. And it was just that! I did not feel tired at all. I felt excited and privileged to have been allowed to experience all that in one single day. That environment, that drive and that road was by far the highlight of my trip through Africa as far as moving from one place to the next was concerned!

In Mekele we found a slightly upmarket hotel and decided to spoil ourselves. We confirmed that they had safe parking, hot showers, toilets that flushed well and all was in working order. We confirmed the price, which was steep, but only for Ethiopia and as we agreed to everything the manager told us that they had no rooms available. There was some convention in town which we obviously did not know about… Our second choice was just out of town and aptly named the Hilltop Hotel. The same questions yielded the same answers and they had one room left… a suite… for the ridiculous sum of 380 Birr ($23) which was our most expensive accommodation in Ethiopia to date! It felt rude not to take it, so we signed in immediately!

The suite boasted a massive king size bed with the first spring mattress we had seen since el Kharama Ranch in Kenya. It had ample bedding that even smelt fresh and clean and best of all, it had two full bathrooms with very hot showers and great flushing loos. Fantastic for someone with an upset stomach! It had a lounge with seating for seven! And it had enough floor and table space so I could prepare some food for my dinner… Catt wasn’t eating.

It was only 16:30 by the time we had settled in and locked the door behind us. There was a power cut between 17:00 and 19:00, but we did not care. We watched a movie on the laptop and I ate some fresh fruit and vegetables with hunks of cheese and salty crackers while Catt fell asleep on my lap. It was past 22:00 by the time I moved us to the huge mansion of a bed.

Day 263:
Waking up around 8:00 we decided to stick to our $23 suite for another day. We planned to visit the Tourism Information Office and also see if we could find a doctor for Catt. The one thing we did not keep in mind however was the fact that the hotel was fully booked for that night. The man at reception, the guy who had told me the previous day that they only had the suite available for us, and nothing cheaper, told me that they were even splitting the suite into two rooms for that evening. “Two rooms at half the price of the suite”, I asked, and he confirmed. I frowned and asked him why they could not do that for us the previous day. His reply: “We were not fully booked. It was not necessary” Oh well, it was only $11.50 difference and the first time I had employed that sentence in almost two weeks…

We could not find the Tourism Information Office in town. It was listed in the Lonely Planet and the GPS had it in a different location, but neither had the right location, so we decided to leave. In our travels through town we did find a wine shop and we did manage to exchange our two empty bottles for full ones and some kid on a bicycle offered to take us the free tourism information place… for a fee… which we declined. We learnt that their clinic only opened at 10:00 and were not keen to hang around for that either.

Our roller coaster turned from dirt to tar and took us right up to the top of the highest mountain we could see. The views were, predictably, absolutely incredible and the looking back from the very top I could not believe that one Land Cruiser could actually make that climb over that short a distance. It was also windy… very windy and the guys trying to separate their teff from the seeds had their work cut out for them that day!
We did not have far to go and within an hour we arrived in the small town of Wukro. Strangely enough, Ethiopia had two towns by the same name. The one in question here was the southern one. We found the Tigray Tourism Information office there, thanks to a big blue sign and a man who invited us into the office. We learnt about the local rock-hewn churches and the place of preference to stay and even got the phone number for a local guide. He was a wealth of knowledge and friendly as anything and even showed us his own A0 sized hand drawn map of the area to explain the lay of the land. He helped us come up with an itinerary for the next day and did not hide his disagreement with the local lack in organized tourism and standardised prices. I smiled and told him that we understood that it was a process and that we appreciated people like him who made an effort to make the country easier to travel for people like us. He liked that!

We left his free service and drove out of town where we left the tar roads and bounced down a fairly challenging and quite bad sandy and rocky track towards the area where the most impressive churches were. We had left the roads altogether according to our GPS maps, but knew the name of the village we were heading for, even if it wasn’t known to T4A. An hour and a half and some 50km later we pulled into the Gheralta Lodge just outside the town of Hawsien. The place was pristinely beautiful and came highly recommended by both the man in the tourist Info centre and Marie, our lovely French lady from Addis Ababa. I could immediately see why and when we asked if they had any vacancies the manager actually had to consult his paperwork. He confirmed that they had one room left for the evening at that the price was only 800 Birr… ($50) Mmmm… We thanked him for his time, turned on our heels and left with our tails between our legs. Sure, $50 was not the greatest amount of money for a hotel room, but in Ethiopia that was about three month’s salary for a local and we were simply not prepared to fork that out.

In the village we found the second recommendation by the appropriate name of “The tourist Hotel” and enquired about a room there. They had a lovely big courtyard to park Maggie in and small but clean and functional rooms with clean bedding and good bathrooms for the princely sum of $10. That suited us perfectly, so we signed in. The manager sent us to a different hotel for lunch as they did not have a restaurant, but it was only a two minute walk away, so I did not mind that much. We were, after all in the heart of the region we wanted to be in and at a fraction of the cost of the lodge with the nice furniture. The restaurant did not have a menu, but their specialty was exactly what I was after! I had Tibs and Injera for my lunch and my poor wife had sparkling water. I deposited her into the good sized bed shortly after and spent the afternoon by her side.

The afternoon seamlessly rolled into early evening while we were doing very little to nothing. The courtyard of the Tourist Hotel was quiet and peaceful and when the sun bounced the last rays off the highest trees on the horizon, the cold came. It wasn’t anywhere near as cold as the Bale Mountains or even Addis Ababa, but the difference was noticeable for sure! We braved some Macchiatos in the bar before retiring to our room for the final time. Catt still did not feel like eating at all, so I helped myself to some two minute noodles, a can of tuna and some tomatoes… with some of Ethiopia’s fine red wine to wash it all down of course.

Day 265:
It was an early start to an exciting day for us. The alarm sounded before seven and we were both delighted to find that the shower water was hot and ample. Catt was feeling better as well, so we went ahead with our plan for a walk in the hills. We met our guide, Hailek, at 7:30 in the village of Megab. He was astonished to find that we had a massive big Land Cruiser with only two seats and that Catt was small enough to use the centre consol as a seat for the morning. We briefly discussed an itinerary for the day and set off towards our first adventure…

We left the main road in favour of a small bush track only 4km from the village and before very long I had to get out to lock the hubs. Shortly after that I had to change from high to low range and shortly after that and after climbing over some impressive rocks Hailek instructed me to park in a dry river bed. It did not take longer than 30 seconds for the first local to find us and our friendly guide promptly appointed him car guard and explained that he would be held personally responsible if anything happened to Maggie. I liked him immediately!

The walk to the Abuna Yemata Guh Church was… well, an adventure in itself! We walked up a very steep slope right towards sheer cliffs on the massive sand stone structure in front of us. It was on the shady side of the mountain and pretty chilly in the early morning wind, but we could see the sun lighting up the hills and valleys around us. It was breathtakingly beautiful and I actually felt rather privileged and slightly spiritual to be allowed to be around there. When we stopped to catch our breaths I looked down towards where we had come from and firmly believed that my eyes were deceiving me! Maggie was a tiny speck in a dark bed of gravel in the golden yellow surroundings. The sun had reached where we had left her, but we were still in deep shadow! Hailek asked me where I thought the path went to from where we were standing and I pointed at the sheer cliff behind us and the obvious foot holds in the rock and said: “I recon up there then?” He confirmed. The climb was… well, another little adventure inside our adventure! It wasn’t technically difficult and both Catt and I had had some climbing experience. The holds were big, strong and comfortable after centuries of use, but the exposure was fairly mentionable. We were not climbing up a crack in some sandstone, but rather scaling a perfectly vertical cliff face, about four storeys high and loving every second of it! After that we climbed and scrambled some more until we finally came to a flattish rock in between two towering sand stone pillars. Hailek sat down, started to take his shoes off and explained that that was where the holy ground started. I could not see any indication of anything resembling a rock-hewn church, but followed his example none the less. We climbed up another three meter cliff in bare feet and traversed along a one foot wide ledge with a thousand foot drop until we came to a none descript hidden hole in the thousand foot high tower we were touching. The hole led into a small cave and that was where we found the ancient wooden door of the church. According to our young, energetic and adventure loving guide the door, as well as the church dated from somewhere in the 10th century and so did the hand and foot holds we used to scale the mountain. There was a small cross carved into the soft stone right outside the door which was perfectly preserved as no one ever touched it. It was dead quiet apart from the occasional flapping of the wings of Vultures that inhabited the high cliff tops and the priest almost echoed in his absence…. The door was locked with a crude padlock and there was no other way in. Hailek was visibly embarrassed and tried everything from using his cell phone to shouting as loud as he could down into the valley to find the man. I put a hand on his young shoulder and assured him that it was not his fault that the climb in itself was reward enough for us. Besides, I said, we saved our entrance fee of 200 Birr ($12).

We took some photos of our surroundings, traversed along the narrow ledge again and found our shoes where we had left them. We saw a narrow wooden bridge and walked across it into another small cave with another unbelievable view down the valley. This one had obvious evidence of something that burnt inside and Hailek explained that it was candles. What we were standing in was called the “baptism chamber” The sun had hit us a few minutes before and it was bliss! Those first warm, but soft rays of golden light dancing on the soft and porous sand stone was something that was just not possible to explain. The rock turned a golden yellowy-red and radiated light all around it. It was magnificent! But it was also time to go. As we started our climb down we noticed another couple of small caves and with a little closer inspection noticed human remains inside them. I jokingly asked if those were the tourists who had not managed the climb, but Hailek insured me that they were the remains of priests and pilgrims whose last wish it was to be laid to rest there. I immediately wanted to know where I could sign up for that! I could not imagine a greater or more impressive place to be laid to rest.

On the walk down we were shouted at by the priest. We had already climbed down the four storey cliff and was about to be able to walk upright for the first time since leaving the sacred place. The priest on the other hand was close to where Maggie was and we were not really that interested in the inside of his place to wait for him, or return up from where we had just come from. We did meet him on the path and he tried his very best to convince us to return to the top of the mountain. Our guide suddenly became worth his own weight in sand stone or precious metal as he calmly explained to the priest what he had agreed to. Apparently the tourism agency and the church had agreed that the priests would either be at the churches between 8am and 6pm, or have someone there with the key. In return, the guides would bring tourists to their churches where the entrance fee could be levied. The priest immediately argued that as we went to the church we had to pay, but the guide told him to… I’m not sure what, but we did not pay. Back at Maggie we found the poor unsuspecting soul who was responsible for her well being and paid him the areas equivalent of a full day’s wages. It was 10 Birr ($0.60). The priest insisted that we give him a lift back to the village and not wanting a debate I invited him to sit on the roof. He looked absolutely bewildered at this idea and it was only when the guide pointed out that Catt was not even sitting on a seat that he grumpily accepted his fate. Besides, when we were climbing down we could see two other Farenji busses arrive in the area who would no doubt want to pay the man money to see the inside of his locked church. They obviously had lesser vehicles as they parked at least two kilometres away.

Our second church for the day was actually fairly close by as the Vulture flew. It took us around the mountain though and after another challenging 4x4 drive (I started thinking our guide wanted to see how far I would go) be came to an obvious clearing to park. The fee collector was there before I could close my door and demanded our entrance fee. He assured us that the priest was at the church and even gave us an official receipt from a carbon copy receipt book after we handed over the 200 Birr ($12) we had saved at the previous location. We were also met by “official scouts” who tried to argue that we needed one to protect the car and one to protect us. They had an official fee of 30 Birr ($1.80) each. I guide argued, and rightly so, that we employed him to show us the way and protect us from unruly children. He told them, without hiding any part of his feelings, that I did not have a $ sign tattooed on my forehead and that they should really stop ripping off Farenji. He said that I would pay 30 Birr to have the car looked after, but that was BAKA! (Finished) and told us to follow him. Not so very surprising, one of the scouts followed us, caught up to us and told us that he will share the fee with his friend, but wanted to walk with us anyway. I wanted to argue that we would then only pay half the fee and send him home, but it seemed a little unfair, so I let it slide…

The walk up the mountain was slightly less challenging, slightly less exhausting, slightly less scenic, but also fantastically incredible! That time we did walk up a massive crack in the mighty sand stone massive. From the car Hailek pointed out where we were heading to and I have to honest and say that I did not believe him. Half way up the crack he showed us the layers where the volcanic lava had flowed through and made the gap between the mountains. It was an astonishing place! The rock formations were not like anything I had ever seen before and the whole mountain seemed to contain age rings, like old trees. We could clearly see fossils everywhere we looked and the rocks we were stepping on had shiny patches from the century’s worth of foot traffic. It was fairly obvious that they chose the spot for the easy way it could be defended, or protected as that was truly the only way to the top. At a seemingly sheer cliff face we stopped for another rest and I noticed that we had climbed about 250 meters from where we had parked. We were sitting in amongst ancient rock engravings and at the mouth of a cave that was used while the churches were built. It was simply astounding to think that no one had come to spoil that place by erecting ugly metal roofs or drilling metal stakes into the bare rock to fence off the art. Everyone that went there simply respected the place and the environment and it was in absolute perfect condition. I could not help but pray that UNESCO never found out about it!

It took an hour and a half to reach to the top of the 450m high sand stone pillar of a mountain. Around the last corner we caught our first glimpse of the built structure with a metal roof and I almost felt a little disappointed. I didn’t really expect to climb up that massive hill to look at something built from brick, cement and corrugated iron. We reached the place, took off our shoes and were shown to different entrances. Females had to enter another way, see. Inside my jaw dropped and I felt absolutely embarrassed at my earlier thoughts! The building we saw was nothing more than a façade and the inside of the mountain had been hollowed out to make the Maryam Korkor church. There were four pillars to keep the ancient mountain from collapsing, but even they were expertly masoned from the solid rock. There were no fluorescent lighting to spoil to ambiance and I even forgot my mighty Fenix flash light in the car. The phenomenal thing was though that the brilliant sunlight was streaming in through the doors and single window we had passed through and there was not only enough light to see the unbelievable ancient paintings on the soft rocky surface of the walls, but also to take photographs. Hailek, in a slightly embarrassed tone explained to me that the priest “expected” a tip from us. I smiled back at him assuringly and explained that we had expected that. I also told him that no one gets anything for nothing from me, so he had to get the priest to pose in the church for photographs. The man was delighted at this idea, so I took my photos and greased his palm with a full 10 Birr ($0.60) which made him happy enough. In fact, it made him so happy that he insisted on showing us his other church.

The Daniel Korkor church was around the other side of the same solid sand stone pillar. The entrance was so small that even my shrinking hips could hardly fit through. Inside was a wondrous world of pastel colour and ancient paintings which I could not even guess the age off. The priest explained that he tried to keep tourists away from that place as he did not want thousands of feet trampling the ancient floor or flashing their cameras at the art. There was an adjoining room with an altar in the centre and he told us that that was the baptism chamber. I asked about the altar and he smilingly said that he used it to put his bible on and lean against when the sermons became too long. He also said that he only held a sermon in that church once every two years. As we stepped outside I had to stop and take a very deep breath! The door was no more than two meters away from a 400m sheer cliff and the little BASE jumper inside me wanted nothing more than to take a running leap of utter fulfilment. I had to calm him down and remind him that the thing on my back was a camera bag, not a parachute… That was the very first time on the trip that I absolutely yearned for my BASE jumping gear. I took some pictures instead.

The walk down was no where near as taxing as the way up and we made it back to Maggie with relative ease. I paid the scout the agreed fee and to my surprise that was the end of it. I caught a glimpse of the guide’s expression and was pretty sure that he had had some words with your man where we could not hear though. Hailek suggested that we return to his native village for a spot of lunch and because of the hour there was absolutely no argument from me! He made us park in front of a totally none descript building at a totally none descript cross roads and led us inside. It was a restaurant all right, but not as we knew it… Jim… The ceiling was covered from corner to corner by spent bags with US-Aid logos printed on them. The floor was clean and bare concrete and there was, predictably, no menu to choose from. In fact, it was fasting day, so fasting Injera was the only thing we could have. That meant that we had Injera on a big plate, as normal, but instead of goats meat friend with onions, we had vegetables, tomatoes, beans and chick peas. It was fantastic! It was fresh and delicious and just what my body wanted to absorb. When it was time to leave we asked for the bill and handed over 50 Birr ($3) to cover it all. I commented that at $1 a person I could eat there every day!

We had time and budget fro two more churches, but Catt’s energy levels were way down. She suggested that we choose two that we could drive to and the guide smiled knowingly. The first one he took us to was called Dugem Selassie Church and was right next to the road. He explained that the old church was burnt down in a Muslim raid some centuries before and after what seemed like a debate with the priest, we were allowed inside the new church. We were led into a dungeon of sorts and the priest explained that it was a tiny church within a newer one. The shelves used to contain replicas of the Arc of the Covenant, but apparently they were hiding that away from tourists. He did hand us a candle made from pure cotton twine and honey wax though. The flame was incredibly bright and it burnt insanely slow! I was quite intrigued by it. When we emerged into the new, bigger church we found ourselves in the middle of a service. The church goers were, understandably, not so happy to see us and we were also quite keen to leave them in peace. However, as we had expected, the priest wanted to be rewarded for showing us his secrets. Once again I made him pose for a photo and released the shutter in mid song before handing over another 10 Birr. He did not smile, but I did not care. Besides, we did pay an entrance fee to be allowed inside and did not get a receipt for it. I was fairly convinced the old man pocketed that 140 Birr ($8) as well.

Our last church was probably the most famous of the area. The name was Abraha We Atsbeha Church and it was poised on the side of a steep hill in a little village about 15km from Wukro. We ascended a few hundred perfectly built stairs to reach the entrance gate to the compound, was charged the expected 200 Birr ($12) entrance fee and snuck inside. There was a service in full swing but our guide seemed not to mind it so much. We walked right up to the front door which led into the common area and had a look at the festivities. There were people beating on drums, priests chanting away and a few women in another corner following the chant and bowing their bodies at the appropriate intervals. Another priest led us to a side door from where we could see the whole inside of the church. It was a perfect crucifix shape and semi monolithic and astonishingly impressive. Although the church itself was built in the 10th century, the massive and perfectly preserved murals were painted in the 17th and 18th century. The priest, in full battle dress made a brief appearance at the end of the ceremony, but frowned angrily every time I pointed my camera at him. I still managed a few sneaky shots though. Hailek led us right through the centre of the crucifix shape and right in front of the grumpy priest as if he was simply defying him. We excited via another door, watched the priest “blaze” (Bless) his flock and trotted back down the many perfect steps to Maggie before he could demand another tip.

Driving back towards our chosen accommodation we passed yet another semi monolithic structure. The service had just ended and the late afternoon light was dancing perfectly on the dozens of monotone people in their white roads as they were descending from the steps and onto the valley floor. I hit the brakes, pointed the camera and clicked away. It was picture perfect and exactly as I had hoped to see it. That however, marked the end of our tour of the rock0-hewn churches of Tigray. There were many more who I was certain would have loved to relieve us of some more precious Birr, but I was confident that we had visited the best possible ones. The first was in the best possible location, the second and third on the top of the mountain was by far the most impressively built, the fourth was the smallest without much else going for it and the last… well it was the biggest and definitely had the most amazing decoration. Our guide confirmed that we had chosen wisely and that any of the other places in the area would actually pale in comparison to what we had been so very privileged to see.

It was after 16:00 by the3 time we arrived back at Megab where Hailek resided. He had us drop him off by a field containing a herd of shoats. He explained that he had to tend to his families animals and get them to safety before nightfall. Apparently there were many Hyenas in the area and any stray animal became easy pray after dark. I marvelled at the simple, but hard life he was so obviously happy with and added a third onto his modest guiding fee. He dug into his trousers for change and when I assured him that it was not necessary he was visibly and obviously thankful. I prayed that he would remain that way! The fee was, incidentally half of what we had paid our guide in Lalibela and about $10. The Lalibela man explained that they charged a hefty fee because they had to work so hard walking up and down that steep hill. If that was the measure, young Hailek should have charged $50, but he didn’t. He played fair and had an obvious goal of getting the area to follow his example. He was a truly great man!

Back at the Tourist Hotel we parked right in front of our room door and staggered inside after a full, tiring but very rewarding day! We made a massive salad with some fresh tomatoes, cheese from Addis Ababa and Avocado from Harar before selecting another movie to watch on the small computer screen. Catt admitted that she was absolutely shattered from the day’s activities and fell asleep quickly.

Day 266:
With little more than a travel day in store we did not set an alarm. We woke up as the other Farenji were woken and got ready for their day’s activities. I asked a guide about a recommended route and got conflicting opinions. His driver did not recommend the scenic route, but the guide assured me it was worth it. I explained that we did not own a Land Cruiser to drive easy tar high ways, but the driver was adamant. We obviously listened to the guide and headed due west out of town on a road that was not on any of the maps we owned… Why not!

Now at this point I have to unfortunately admit that I don’t really know how to describe the drive. The mountains turned into foothills rather, but the road builders obviously had a sense of humour when they designed the way. The condition was no better or worse than the road we had used the previous day, but it was as if it went from highest peak to highest peak for some reason. Not only that, but every highest peak had a house on it! The houses were impressively built without the use of cement and the local slate rocks were perfectly neatly piled to form a perimeter wall. Inside there was obviously a place to keep the livestock removed from the teeth of Hyenas and the house was always in one corner, with a roof of grass… Not thatched, but growing grass. Every compound had a single point of entry and some of them had brilliant patterns as the builders selected different shapes of rock in their construction. It was mind blowing! Every small settlement obviously had a church to go with it as well. We rarely saw the churches, but there was a random collections box placed next to the road at constant intervals. The livestock was so unused to meeting mechanical devices on the road that even the cattle sprinted off into the hills at the sight of us. The scenery was beautiful and the early morning golden light danced streaks through the dust as it played on the yellow background of sand stone pillars and monumental houses.

We found our first land mark as explained by the guide. It was a village called Nebelet and right in the centre was a stone obelisk, similar to the one in the centre of Hawsien where we had come from. We stopped the car, waited for the hordes to swamp us and through a half open window asked the direction of the next town, Edaga Arbi. A Youngman chewing on a natural tooth brush pointed us in the right direction while another young man demanded our Lonely Planet guidebook as compensation for the information. Driving away, with our book safely in my hands, I started wondering how it was possible that the people in this town that was not on a map automatically demanded reward for something as simple as pointing in a direction. The answer came before leaving the edge of the town. The place was covered by signs of aid organizations that had poured whatever money they did not spend on new Land Cruisers into the place. They advertised how they had taught the locals how to build dams. Then they advertised how they had come to inspect the dams and educate on irrigation and crop growing and harvesting a long list of things printed on metal signs at a cost that would have fed the town for a month! The dams, incidentally, were all bone dry and built as wears from the same rocks, in the same way as the locals built their houses. That in turn, was the same building style used at the Great Zimbabwe Ruins and pretty much all over native Africa where rocks were easy to come by. So who taught whom what, I wondered? Bloody NGOs! Do they not understand that if they were really there to help the community there would have been no need to advertise their presence? The again, by that time we had no illusions left about the incredibly profitably business they dared call charity…

We found the town in the direction the young man pointed and shortly after that found a road we could identify. That took us right to the town of Adwa where we joined the main road that the driver suggested we take. We had saved about 100km in distance and at least an hour in time. I could not work out what he had against the road that we did take, unless he wanted to keep its beauty a secret… which I could fully understand. The road from Adwa to the west was under the same kind of construction as most of the rest of Ethiopia’s major roads. Chinese workman were presiding over the local labourers and the surface which was prepared for tarring had been over used to the point of turning into a pot holed hell of slate rocks and round stones. Our travelling speed decreased dramatically from driving the un-recommended mountain road but we still managed to make our destination town of Aksum before the lunch hour. We inspected two recommended hotels and settled on the first, the Africa Hotel on the main street. The rooms were big and clean and the bathrooms perfectly adequate. Maggie had a safe courtyard to park in and the restaurant had yummy grub and local, not Farenji prices. So we singed in, paid our 100 Birr ($6) for the room and had lunch. I ordered a Gordon Blue and got Tibs, which was delicious and Catt ordered vegetable soup and got… well, vegetable soup of course.

A quick visit to the tourism bureau established that we could fit everything we wanted into the next’s day’s itinerary. Although Catt was felling much better stomach wise, the toll of not eating properly and the activities of the day before catching up to her. She was dead on her feet and wanted to do nothing more than spending the rest of the afternoon horizontal, in bed. I though that was a pretty good idea to let her. I went in search of an internet café to catch up on some emails and to find out about our ridiculous bank situation. Once again my mother had managed to perform miracles! I often doubted the fact that she was actually human, or mortal, as us mere mortals would not have been able to achieve what she had.

It was a very long story, but the basics were that she had managed to close the relevant ABSA accounts after a full day’s tactical warfare inside the bank. Apparently it was not allowed to pay the money into another person’s account, so she managed to get it transferred to Catt’s accounts in England at a very favourable exchange rate. The kicker was that we could, and had to by phone, organise a transfer back to the South African VISA card we were still able to use, but the stupid, silly, useless, ridiculous joke of a bank in South Africa could not transfer it there without the little detour to the UK. Oh well, it was only a few strokes of a computer keyboard.

In the evening we decided to spoil ourselves to a nice dinner in a nice hotel. We chose the fanciest place in town, inspected their menu and found that they had virtually the same menu as our chosen place to stay, but at three times the price. So we span around on all our feet and walked back to our own hotel for dinner. I ordered a steak with some vegetables and Catt had a vegetarian Pizza… At this juncture I wish I could report that it was cheap and delicious. However, after my steak arrived ice cold, paper thin and fairly disgusting. My vegetables consisted of one spoon of thinly sliced potato, one spoon of mashed spinach and a few hunks of fairly old tomato. We had to wait another 40 minutes for Catt’s pizza to arrive. When it finally did, my steak looked like an absolute masterpiece compared to that. It was a thick bread base with a half centimetre layer of tomato pure on. The vegetables were… wait for it… Potato, onion, hunks of tomato and a few spoons heaps of mashed spinach. It was gross! It fact, it was so bad that she gave up after one slice. I pocketed the day old, stale bread that was served with the crap on our plates, marched off to the room and made some Avocado and cheese sandwiches for us to eat. We shovelled that down in huge gulps and went straight to bed, not hungry, but greatly disappointed. That had to be the worse restaurant we had ever encountered and we had visited a few!

Day 267:
We had decided not to be lazy and got up early to go and investigate what the town had to offer. Aksum was the site of the Ethiopia’s largest and most important stelae fields. Oh yeh, Stelae are very high and apparently impressive decorated rock needles that are planted in the ground. These ones were significant as they had been brought there from somewhere else and the tallest one rose 33m above the ground. We drove there, parked up and could see everything we wanted to from next to the park. Neither one of us were really that interested to part with money to be allowed to walk in between them and I was definitely not going to pay the ridiculous fee they wanted to enter the big St Mary of Zion church in town or fork out another hunk of cash for another guide. Besides, Catt was still feeling under the weather, so I decided to drive her straight to a pharmacy for some antibiotics.

The first pharmacy we found was convinced we were after mascara. Not sure how they got that from “a-n-t-i-b-i-o-t-i-c-k-s please… But they did. We waited half an hour in front of the second pharmacy’s door for opening time before giving up and heading out of town. We had been warned about the road conditions and travel time to Debark, our destination and it took no longer than 5 minutes before I fully comprehended why.

It turned out to be a 254km mountain pass under construction! The first part contained some newly tarred sections and the going was quick and easy. As with other roads in Ethiopia and other Ethiopians in the country, this one was much used to ferry cattle, goats and camels to which ever village had its local market that day. Our Chinese road building friends were speeding like absolute maniacs in their very own brand new Land Cruisers and there were no signs or information about anything on that road! Within two hours of leaving Aksum we hit the mountains as well. There we saw massive earth moving equipment at work and almost drove straight into a rock fall caused by one of them. There was simply no one to let us know to stop. When we did figure out that the stationary bus we had passed marked the place we were suppose to stop we reversed to it and parked. There was no way around and two big yellow monsters were moving the side of the mountain out of their way. No one could tell us what the plan was or how long we would have to wait. There was no way to get back to where we had come from as the road was too narrow to turn around and the sun was beating down on us with great vengeance!

On the plus side, anything that we had described as mountains, or mountain passes before that was simply tiny in comparison! It was fairly ridiculous to see the size of the earth around us and the when I looked over the edge to see where the road was going, the cars on the other side of the earth moving activities looked smaller than ants and very far away! It took about an hour and a half for the road to open again and we were the first people to drive the newly etched out track. Maggie needed first gear to slow us enough to survive the descent and when we finally got to a river crossing I noticed that we had dropped 1 800 meters since starting the pass. I fully expected the road to follow the easiest contours down the river, but alas, in Ethiopia it seemed like road builders saw every highest peak as a challenge. Before I knew it we were back up to the altitude we had started at, crested the next mammoth of a mountain and were on our way down again. It was simply unbelievable!

Five hours into our little drive I was dead tired and very hungry. We were just making our way up another mountain when we were stopped again. Well, I didn’t really understand the man who insisted on waving both his green and red flags, but when we came face to face with a speeding machine twenty times our size and weight, I put two and two together. Once again we drove over the big rocks and uneven ground the tank tracks had left for us and as we arrived in a small village, followed by a massive cloud of dust, the steering wasn’t working any more. Actually, the steering was working fine, but the lock came half way to what I had expected it to be. I had experienced that once before, with our friends Catt and Ollie and after stopping in front of a restaurant and having a quick look my suspicions was confirmed. The shock absorber in the front had somehow got out of the bottom mount and was wedged in between the chassis and the steering rod. I decided to have lunch first. We also found an open pharmacy with an English speaking pharmacist who dispensed the right type of antibiotics for the princely sum of 10 Birr for a seven day course. ($0.60). You gotta love Africa!

The immediate solution for Maggie’s issue was fairly simple after lunch. We removed the shock absorber in about two minutes while twenty people were watching and left town as soon as we could. We only had an hour or two to drive and were confident that we would be able to deal with it in relative privacy at the place we chose to stay. The last part of that journey was incredible! We crossed another stream at 1 200 meters above sea level and I knew what altitude Debark was. We had 18km to go and 2 100 meters to climb. We had arrived in the Simien Mountains and we were not disappointed! I had to pinch myself to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming. The mountains were incredible! In size as well as beauty and even though they were not dramatically higher than the Bale Mountains, they were at least a million times more dramatic in appearance! You could see everything! From the rivers thousands of meters below to the peaks of the highest parts thousands of meters higher than us. At some point I was sure I saw a structure similar to the Amphitheatre in South Africa’s Drakensberg, only what I saw had three amphitheatres stacked on top of one another. Ten kilometres further we were actually looking down at the top of them and how we had managed to get there was simply beyond my comprehension. Around every hair pin bend you could look back at the path you had come from, but still I was convinced that my tired eyes were deceiving me.

It took us 9 hours of hard driving and much concentration to reach the town of Debark. We had a quick visit to the National Park office to gather information to help us formulate a plan of action. The guys there were incredibly helpful and highly professional and offered great suggestions and helpful hints. We explained that we had a shock absorber to tend to first, so did not want to make firm arrangements yet and they even directed us to the town mechanic… who was situated right next to the hotel we had identified as a suitable place to base ourselves. The Simien Lodge, the highest hotel in Africa sat at 3 200 odd meters above sea level and cost $120 per night. We did not stay there. Instead we chose the recommended Simien Park Hotel in town. The price was high at 250 Birr ($15), but the rooms were bigger and better than what we had seen anywhere else in the country. One of the waiters made it his mission in life to help us with the car trouble as well.

He appointed a young man to guide me around town to look for parts. After a thorough inspection I found that the actual shock absorber was fine. Slightly dented, but not leaking. I was however missing a centre washer and a bush. Bushes I had plenty, but the washers were a real issue. The first guy that had something that may have worked wanted 150 Birr for three washers. I laughed and left. The second guy wanted a similar price for something that did not quite fit. We were obviously followed by someone who was spreading the word. The third guy had to be completely stoned to believe that I was going to get ripped off by him so after a mission of an hour we arrived back at the hotel empty handed. Another one of God’s creatures approached me and said that he could organise a new shock absorber to be delivered to the hotel later that night. That was quite exciting, so I asked about a price for that one. He said: “no problem” at least twenty times before I managed to get a price out of him… 2 700 Birr ($164). I was really trying my very best not to scream at him. In a calm and calculated voice I explained that I had been in the country for long enough to know how much things cost. I also explained that I knew all about Farenji prices and I was a billion light-years away from being desperate enough to pay that much for a shock absorber I did not need. When he tried to say that that was the cost I yanked out the receipt I still had from the rear shocks I had replaced in Addis Ababa and said: “Surely you mean they should cost about 650 Birr a peace?” His answer: Transport… Yeh right buddy!

I had learnt two very important things about the way the guys in Debark did business in a very short time. The first was that as soon as crowd formed around you, you were about to get ripped off. Example: Two young Englishmen we met at the hotel were charged 4 Birr per banana. We paid 6 Birr per kilogram at the same store after I chased all the onlookers and “helpers” away. Our kilogram had 8 pieces of fruit in. The second was that once a local made a price, he would rather loose business than loose face by dropping his price. So I came up with a game plan for the next day. I would offer a fair amount before asking the price and after I told every other onlooker and helper to PISS OFF!!!!

Catt and I retreated to our comfortable bedroom shortly after that. We had decided to play it safe with our own food after not finding the usual notice prohibiting cooking in bedrooms. We did manage to score a bottle of local wine from the bar at a reasonable price though. The night was bitterly cold and I was secretly very happy not to be camping n the mountain. The beds were comfortable and had ample blankets, so sleep came quickly.

If I had to do it again:
It was quite a full week for us with many interesting sights and activities. Catt and I disagree on Lalibela, but if I had to do that over again I would do it differently. The town is split in two and we stayed in up town. Down town had a few more hotels we did not investigate, but no local bars, so that may have been a better idea for peace and quiet. It was also closer to the churches. Car park camping at the Sven Olives would also have been acceptable to me, but the last thing someone with a dodgy stomach needs is to climb down a ladder of a roof top tent in the middle of the night. Now, the Seven Olives had a great restaurant, but man, were they expensive! Again, I think the down town restaurants would have been better.

As for the churches: They were very exciting and very impressive. The guide on the other hand wasn’t really. Later on I read the description in the Lonely Planet and he had basically copied that word for word…. Or the other way around perhaps. Point is that we could have saved the $20 guide fee by walking with a guide book under our arms. We also did not spend enough time in the local market that day. We were both tired and Catt wasn’t well, but that was by far the biggest and best market we had seen in the country. It happens every Saturday.

The Tigray churches were also incredible! They were different to the Lalibela ones, so one should see both. Our guide there was worth much more than what we paid him and once we had tallied up the total cost of the day with entrance, guard and guide fees as well as tips, we spent only $50 for the day. That was $15 less than in Lalibela where the guide only spent the morning with us.

Aksum was no more than a stop over, but eating in the Africa Hotel restaurant was a huge mistake! It was the one time where “oh well, this restaurant is only $10 more” would have been a great idea!

The road between Aksum and Debark will probably be completed in about a year. When it is done, the drive will probably rate as the second most incredible drive in Ethiopia. If they left it as a bush road, or dirt road in fair condition, it would have been the best.

Debark, the gateway to the Simien Mountain National Park is a bit of a tourist trap and you need to be careful. A lot of people arrive there fresh from Sudan and terribly naïve about Ethiopia. My advice: question everything and find out from the friendly staff at the hotel what things are supposed to cost.
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