March 17, 2008
Hotel: Hotel Summerland, $45
Today we had arranged a tour to go out to the island monasteries in the morning, then in the afternoon we would go out to the Blue Nile falls. The Blue Nile starts its journey from Lake Tana, the largest in Ethiopia. There are a dozen or so monasteries scattered on islands throughout the lake. Breakfast at the hotel took forever, in general you can't be in a hurry to eat in Ethiopia. We had to ask for a bottle of water several times before finally going down to the bar and just buying one. And it turns out breakfast wasn't included for the $45. Our ride wasn't here yet so we spent a few minutes out on the street just watching people go by. They had tuk-tuks here, painted bright blue like the other public transportation. Finally our minivan arrives and takes us to a nearby park where the boats to the islands depart. It was pretty warm already (80's) and was wondering about being in the sun for several hrs, but it turned out all the motorboats were covered. We were still waiting on another group to arrive, so wandered around the park for a few minutes and discovered a troop of green monkeys swinging in the trees. The other group arrived, turned out they were Americans as well, a family from Virginia with two cute daughters. The eldest daughter was living in Ethiopia working as a photographer.

The ride to the first monastery took maybe 30-40 minutes, the first one we visited was Entos Eyesu. We disembarked onto a lava breakwall and wandered into the forest. The island was covered with lush tropical vegetation, there were banana and papaya trees, coffee, etc. We paid our entrance fee, then the priest opened the doors to the monastery. This one was pretty small, a round building maybe 25' in diameter. We all had to take off our shoes and the girls had to go in a different entrance. The walls inside were covered with brightly painted religious themes and Bible stories. This monastery must have been newer or refurbished as the paintings looked brand new. The priest stood by reading from his book the whole time we were there. Wandering back down the hill, we found another priest sitting outside studying a beautifully illuminated book. We bought some fresh bananas and papaya to much on before getting back on the boat.

The next monastery we visited was Khebran Gabriel. No women were allowed in this monastery, one of the oldest in the lake and dating back to the 1300's. The girls had to stay behind while we walked up the hill. The guide here showed off some of the church treasures, these were the most impressive we had seen, more crosses, crowns and goatskin books. The monastery itself was huge, but again in the same style as the first we had seen. The main building is round with a square internal sanctum. There were 12 pillars representing the apostles. The paintings here were definitely much older, but still very vivid colors. After Khebran Ghabriel, the boat headed towards the start of the Blue Nile and the Debra Maryam monastery. The ride took about 40 minutes. Sometimes hippo and croc can be seen around the river but we only saw flocks of birds. We passed by several papyrus reed boats along the shore before disembarking. The walk to this monastery led through qat fields; qat or chat being a mild narcotic commonly chewed in parts of Ethiopia, Somalia and Yemen. This was another impressive monastery, the priest here seemed quite proud to show off the books! This was our last stop and we headed back towards Bahar Dar.

We had lunch at the same hotel we'd eaten the night before, then went to the Ethiopian airlines office to see about changing our tickets again. Unfortunately they said we'd have to do that in Addis, they couldn't check the availability here. We had a short nap then before our guide came to pick us up for the trip out to the Blue Nile falls. The other group had backed out, so it ended up just being the two of us in a minivan. The road soon left town and turned to dirt, passing by mud hut villages, fields of sugarcane, and people walking everywhere. Amazing scenes of daily Ethiopian life! The landscape was quite flat and dusty here. It took almost an hour to go the 30km to Tis Abay village. Once we arrived, several 'helpers' offered to be guides. There are two ways to visit the falls, one is long and flat, or the other is short but a walk uphill. We decided to do the 2nd one! After buying our tickets it's about another km past the hydroelectric plant to the start of the trail. The Falls aren't as big as they used to be since they built the hydroplant, but we were lucky today as one of the turbines was offline and the water flow was more than usual. It took about 40 minutes to walk to the falls, across an old Portuguese bridge and up the hill through a small village. The view of the falls was quite impressive, water tumbling off the lava escarpment, but only 1/4 probably what it would be in full flow. The drive back to town was similar, this time we saw kids who were on their way back from school.

For dinner we wanted to try out a place recommended for their fresh fish; we hopped in a tuk-tuk on the street for a ride of maybe a mile and a quarter, then he wanted $5! That seemed quite outrageous, but he wouldn't back down from $4. To top it off he'd taken us to the wrong restaurant, this one didn't have the fish! We ended up getting the national food plate, injera bread with tibs, kitfo (steak tartare), etc. We decided to walk back to the hotel, it was darker part of town here but there were still women and couples walking around so we figured it was still safe. We went back to the Belageru club for more minstrel music. The same dancers were here tonight, but it was a different singer. One tradition here is tipping the dancers, you stick a 10 birr bill to their forehead to tip them. Well when the dancers got me up again tonight, I must have been doing a good job because another one of them came over and gave me a 1Birr tip!!

March 18, 2008
Flight: Bahar Dar (BJR) to Addis Ababa (ADD), Ethiopian Airlines 121, F50, Economy
Flight: Addis Ababa (ADD) to Washington DC (IAD), Ethiopian Airlines 500, 767, Economy, miles earned: 7195 (LH)
Our last day in Ethiopia, we had an early flight out this morning back to Addis. We ran into the American family again in the hotel lobby, they were going to Gondar today. It's a 17 minute flight or 4 hours in a bus. Checkin at the airport went quickly and we headed upstairs to grab breakfast when I heard my name called on the loudspeaker. I went down to find out they wanted to examine D's bag, he had bought a souvenir cross in Lalibela and they were just making sure he wasn't trying to steal a real one! Early morning is rush hour at Bahar Dar airport, two flights showed up at the same time. Our flight to Addis this morning actually left and arrived on time, the only one of our Ethiopian flights that did! We arrived in Addis at 10AM had all day to kill, we were still hoping to change our tickets to visit Somaliland, but if not our flight back to the US left at 10PM. Visiting Somaliland would have involved a 20 hr ride in a minivan, first going overland to Harar, then overland again to Hargeisa in Somaliland. Normally you can fly nonstop from Addis on Ethiopian Airlines , but the outbound was showing sold out. We would then fly back to Addis from there and connect directly to the flight back to the US.

We were able to leave our bags at the Addis airport and caught a cab to the Ethiopian office. No luck again for Saturday, they did offer to put us on a waitlist for the Friday flight, but that did not give us enough time to get to Somaliland and back. Stymied, we decided to go to the Somaliland office anyway, if nothing else to get a souvenir visa! It was within walking distance, so we headed there before they closed for siesta. The visa only took a few minutes to issue, cost $40 and they needed a passport photo. We passed the 'interview' with the ambassador there, he had lived in Seattle for some time. But now we were pretty resigned to having to head back to the US today. Next we caught a cab across town to the Ethiopia National Museum, where they have the Lucy skeleton (not the real one, currently it is in Houston!) The museum had old bones and stones in the basement, then tribal weapons/clothing/etc on the top floor. There was also a huge wooden throne that had belonged to Haile Selassie.

For lunch, we headed across the street to the Blue Tops restaurant. This is popular with expats and has delicious homemade pasta and icecream. It was also our most expensive meal in Ethiopia, and it came to $6.50! We walked up the street some more to the Yekatit 12 monument to the martyrs killed during the Italian occupation, then over to the Ethnographic museum, part of Addis University. They had a very impressive set of pottery and other tribal artifacts, much better organized and presented here than they had been at the National Museum. The museum is in Haile Selassie's old palace; you can see his 'throne' room (blue toilet) and his wife's bathroom (pink). Next we caught a cab to the Piazza area and St. Georges Cathedral. From there, we walked down Churchill Rd to the Derg monument in front of the hospital. The Derg were the communist government during the 70's, and this was a very soviet style obelisk monument, giant red star on top. It was located in the 'Ethiopia-Cuba Friendship Memorial Park'. The Sheraton Addis was nearby so we decided to walk over there to check it out. It's quite out of place in the rest of Addis, very opulent with fountains and well manicured gardens. As we were leaving, some street kids attached themselves to us, assuming we were staying there. We only had a few hrs left, but had been walking for quite awhile. We caught a cab to a British pub close to the airport, our last meal in Ethiopia was cornish pasties with chips, served by a West Indian Rasta! We then walked to the airport and checked in for our flight back to the US. We mentioned that since tonight's flight was full, could we take Saturday's instead? But still no luck, they said the Saturday flight was full (as it turned out, O-class opened up the day after we left, we could have done the Somaliland trip after all!!! ). We noticed lots of couples adopting Ethiopian babies were going to be on this flight; we saw at least 6 babies! We still had quite a bit of a wait, as our outbound flight to the US ended up leaving 45 minutes late. This flight was a 767 as well, but did not have seatback IFE. These seats were blue leather instead of the cloth. The flight was quite full, but did have a few empty seats. The worst bit was the baby express; most were seated in the rows just in front of us, and one of them had quite a set of lungs. Though finally they all settled down and I was able to get some rest. The flight stopped again in Rome to refuel and change crew, and we arrived in Washington around 9:30AM. So that brings an end to the Ethiopian adventure.