Travel Log 9– Northern Ethiopia, Sheidi, Gonder, Debark, Simien Mountains, Bahir Dar and Lalibella

Sheidi
3/3/08
The taste of success was warm, flat and satisfying. We drank beer while we waited for our visas to be checked on the border between Sudan and Ethiopia. The passport office was surrounded by a complex of wooden shacks and alleyways.

At the bus station the reservation we saw on the faces of Sudanese was put into stark contrast as we were harangued by children hell bent on acting as our porters. On the bus it was a bawdy affair with people laughing raucously and the women wearing the antipathy of burkahs making none too subtle eyes. We were definitely a commodity. A woman on the bus had the tattooed face of an Orthodox Ethiopian Christian – a cross where a bhindi would go and cog-like marking encircling her neck.

The bus took us from the border town of Metama to Shihedi where we would overnight before getting the bus further to Gonder the next morning. It was made up of shacks playing Ethiopian pop (which was heavily keyboard based with a strange 2/2 rhythm which sounded like a strange impersonation of the 80’s), table football and bar after bar after bar.

Walking along the dirt high street dodging the horse drawn carts we were followed by a group of young boys who claimed to be our guides to the town. As we drank coffee they scuffled outside over ownership of us.

In our hotel a woman from the bus recognized us and invited us into her room. Inside were her adopted son and younger sister. We chewed ch’at (see later) with her – a mild amphetamine popular in the Arab world and across much of east Africa. The leaves were stuffed into the mouth and chewed slowly, allowing the acrid juices to trickle down the throat, accompanied by cola and peanuts. After the dehydration of the bus journey (on which the man in front insisted on closing the window, and remained infuriatingly un-sweaty for the journey as we felt our skin crack under the pressure) the effect of the ch’at was hard to distinguish but there was a general mood of chatty giddiness. There is of course a strong possibility that the presence of an unveiled, powerful woman who was willing to put us in our place on a variety of subjects we were completely unable to comprehend may have been the vital ingredient in the heady mix. Her adopted son who she called Baggio (after the Italian footballer) and who had the same eccentric haircut as him insisted on calling Toby ‘Papa’.

We finally managed to establish that the bus to Gonder, seven hours south, was going to be leaving at 5.00am. The confusion arose from the fact that in Ethiopia the day begins when the sun comes up at 6.00am and this is counted as 12.00, the time is therefore always six hours outside what it should be.


Gondar
04/03/08 – 09/03/08
Emmanuel got sap from a tree in his eye when he was a tot and was left with a blind, shiny, milk coloured iris.

Kibrit came from Bahir Dar to make his fortune as a traditional musician, playing animal skin drums and singing as an azmari (freestyle comedy singer approaching politics and often those in the room) and playing a masenqo (one stringed bowed instrument) as part of tejbeit (traditional Ethiopian music, still very popular with locals).

John was an orphan who fell in love with a rich girl.

Rich had dreams of going to university with his girlfriend and getting a good job.

Wonderful was having trouble paying for his night school classes in tourism in order for him to get a pass which would legally allow him to trail us without the threat of a beating from the police.

Hanging round with these lads, learning their ‘stories’ was a mainstay of our time in fairy tale Gondar. After spending four days with this motley crew of hustlers, chancers and lay abouts we had a chance to better understand their respective predicaments although we would not claim to know the truth of them. These street urchins had not been dealt the harshest hands in the town, they just had the language skills to communicate them most successfully.



After buying Emmanuel a second hand dictionary, giving Kibrit an old pair of Toby’s trousers, Wonderful a copy of ‘Waiting for Godot’ and John an Arabic to English dictionary the money hassle abated. They had nothing better to do than try and pick up some English from us so followed us about. Understandably they were also keen to speak the international language without the handicap of an American accent. Through their local knowledge and understanding we were able to see and understand many sides of life in Gondar that would otherwise have passed us by.

Nestled in high mountains, Gondar was the ancient capital of Ethiopia and seat of the powerful Abyssinian Empire, the castle of which still stood at the top of the town. The town and surrounding area’s main industry is tourism as well as agriculture and the Dashen (beer) and huge Pepsi plants. The other main industry of the town, often disturbingly connected to tourism, is prostitution.

The street urchins took us to a series of nightclubs where the women’s vocabulary was limited to a few phrases that would make Jim Davidson blush. If we were to make eye contact with one a catfight would ensue. The street urchins pointed out an Israeli man in one of the clubs, who had just finished national service. He came out of a bedroom at the back of the club near the stinking toilet with a blank-faced girl. They explained that their friend had made 70Birr ($7) commission from the transaction and they were very pleased for him. They seemed genuinely surprised that we were not interested in the same. We had to be adamant about it because the initial sensation of coming from two months of sharia law to a room of women gyrating their backsides independently of the rest of their bodies was pretty overpowering.

We stayed in the faded glory of the Ethiopia Hotel in the heart of the town. The café below was popular with Gondar’s dapper old timers who greeted each other with a theatrical series of embraces such as handshakes cupped at the forearm representing a transference of power / strength in some kind of business transaction. They would then sit down to the complex flavours of the freshly ground coffee and pat each other on the knee with the kind of tenderness that would get them funny looks in England. However, here it is the norm: Banksy’s artwork would be stripped of its shock value in Ethiopia as policemen and soldiers genuinely do hold hands on the street.

From the vaulted ceiling hung replacement chandeliers but the stained glass above the grand double doors was original, as was the Italian coffee machine and the booth from which the dour old owner watched over proceedings, slowly counting out money with arthritic fingers for the beautiful waitresses to hand out. One slow turn of his bald head in its starched collar housing would send street children who came in to sell packs of tissues and tooth brush sticks clattering out of the door. As was the case with the town’s many crazies who, no matter how far gone they were, still seemed to know not to try his patience. The packets of tissues business seemed to be booming. It was quite a status symbol for someone in a café or a bar to be able to mop their brow in such a disposable fashion. Also, none of the toilets had toilet paper. From the perspective of the street children, they could buy a pack of twelve from the shop, which worked out as 65cents a packet, then sell them on a 1Birr each.

In comparison to most of the places we had travelled through (Khartoum included) it was better paved, cleaned and even pedestrianised. The path leading up to Gondar’s castle was clear for a good stream of tourists. This brought pastoral people from the surrounding areas who believed the streets to be paved with dollars. Despite the almost European feel of the central town there was still a large volume of donkey and sheep traffic to temper its aspirations. The huge numbers of Ogre buzzards that patrolled the sky over the town at all hours was an impressive sight giving it the true feel of a medieval mountain castle town.



We got to know quite a few of the town’s wide boys in their shady alleys, by putting the word out that we were after a second hand tent. After many wild promises and let downs we came across a reasonable and non-Chinese manufactured tent that was suitable enough to use for the remainder of our trip.

Most of the time we ate injera – a large, slightly sour pancake made from tef (a native grain) which was topped with a variety of different dishes. Parts of the pancakes were ripped off by all those round the table at the time and used to pick up the various dishes. We had heard that Ethiopians were not willing to eat alone and this seemed to be true, everyone seemed happy to share. Because of the Orthodoxy’s strict adherence to a fifty five day fast for Lent there was little meat available but the wide variety of vegetable dishes were delicious. It was a welcome break from the fu’ul of Sudan.

On our last day the street urchins invited us to an Arabia –something like an opium den but designed for the consumption of t’chat. A small series of rooms containing squat tables, beds and cushions divided by curtains. As we watched a rural woman with tattooed face performed the coffee ceremony for us, making the surrounding bizarre environment drift away. She laid grass from the river bed on the ground and arranged a series of strange wood and mud vessels and implements. She roasted the coffee beans and as they smoked wafted the scent about the room then ground them with a clumsy wooden mortar and pestle. The pot from which she poured was lifted high in an act of high drama and accuracy, like a knife thrower, aerating it and producing the mandatory three cups each of the best coffee either of us had ever tasted. Our taste buds were thankful for the relief from the acrid t’chat. After a few hours the t’chat and coffee had taken effect and there was no chance that we would be able to sleep so we went out for a few final beers with the street urchins. We got back to our hotel at five in the morning and left on the bus for Debark at six.


Debark
10/03/08
Without sleep and with a heavy box of food for a planned ten day trek through the Simien Mountains to the summit of Ras Dejen (the highest mountain in Ethiopia) we completed the three hour endurance bus ride from Gondar to Debark. We made our way to the Simien Mountains National Park office to organise our hike. Gurning with concentration, straining to comprehend the prices quoted to us, using all our mental will power we arranged our English speaking guide, compulsory armed scout, two mules and a mule man (which mysteriously became two mule men), cooking equipment and sleeping bag hire and park entrance fee. The first impression we made on Deejain, can’t have been great as we were dazed and confused, falling asleep into our lunches. We slept early to wake early the next day and begin the trek.


Simien Mountains
11/03/08 – 18/03/08
We rose before the sun, the air thick with thyme and stars following the same mountain pass as the priests and pastoralists in medieval dress, across a sheer meadowland of frozen streams and bleeding hearts baboons to Ras Dejen – Ethiopia’s highest peak at around 4550m. This was our fifth day of an eight day trek and our slightly weary legs revelled in the cool start to the day. At the summit a couple of hours after dawn our achievement was put into perspective as we were followed up by shepherd boys in broken wellies who played a washint, (a wooden flute) its dissonant, lyrical, syncopated sound caught in the bluster suited the forbidding repetitions in the volcanic ranges spread out before for miles like a ruffled cape.



During the five days we had previously walked we had seen some of the most dramatic volcanic landscapes on Earth with sheer abysses, and towering rock formations and its rare animals and otherworldly flora (in particular the giant lobelia, up to six feet in height with a thin trunk topped by a spiky prong of succulent leaves – especially useful as something to grab hold of when having races down the grassy mountain slopes). We had walked through a squat forest of ancient olive and Ecicaboria trees, bent double with lichens, through a grassy clearing smelling of wild roses, where about thirty Gelada baboons dug for roots. Our presence did not bother them as the locals, as Orthodox Christians, were forbidden from eating primates so had not predated them for centuries. Also, as white folk we did not pose the threat of throwing rocks at the monkeys to scare them off our crops, because like everyone else in Africa knows, white men do not do hard work.

The opportunity to sit amongst the Gelada as they beat the ground rhythmically, glancing at us occasionally, their faces full of personifiable expression with their eyebrows raised and their eyes wide as if to say ‘what on Earth do you think you are doing?’ was astonishing. The alpha males were clearly defined, festooned with poodle rock hair styles and hugely impressive mutton chops. They continued with what sounded like a complex and irresolvable debate of lilting whines after they were fairly sure we were not a threat.



The Gelada, like most of the park’s flora and fauna are now protected and the penalties for discrepancy are severe for the locals. Laws have been created which mean locals are now unable to use any wood from the park other than specially planted Eucalyptus because the trees are protected. In order to avoid confusion this also includes dead wood. Quite what the fast-growing, soil-degrading Eucalyptus plantations impact is going to be in the long term had not been answered, but joint projects with the Austrian government were developing the use of fuel efficient stoves to use significantly less wood as well as reducing indoor air pollution and its associated maladies. Now, many of the locals, rather than walk the often huge distance involved, prefer to scour the landscape for animal waste. As there were no bandits, our mandatory armed guard seemed to have the task of policing these laws with his 1964 hammer and sickle stamped rifle.

The Walia ibex were more secretive than their baboon counterparts because during the fifteen years of civil war which plagued the region the soldiers resorted to eating them. Watching the adolescent males practise knocking horns together was an impressive sight but there are only 400-500 individuals remaining. As they fought they were surrounded by the Gelada who act as lookouts for them. We were also lucky enough to see klipspringers (diminutive deer), many Verreaux’s eagles, vultures, lammergeyer, kestrels, falcons and ravens (the spine-chilling sound of the thick-billed raven ever present where we slept) and most luckily of all, the Ethiopian wolf: sub-Sahara’s only wolf. Only 550 individuals remain making it the world’s rarest canid.



One viewpoint we had stopped at, near to the track that ran through the park, looked over a sheer drop where down below we were able to spot ibex. The outstanding beauty of the area was contrasted sharply though when its recent history was revealed. During the Derg era (the Communist regime led by Mengistu who overthrew Haile Selassie in 1974 and ruled until 1991) dissidents were thrown from the viewpoint down the sheer cliff without any semblance of a fair hearing in a time when human life was cheap, it gave the place a disturbing edge.

For the 60,000 people living in the park it was a hard life of chasing cattle up and down the steep paths. The best many could hope for was to become like our scout, Mmbabo, who we were paying 40Birr a day ($4) the official rate as dictated by the national park office who keep a list of scouts, called upon when a group from the park’s 10,000 a year visitors required their services. To put things into perspective, to hire the kerosene stove and a few cooking utensils cost the same per day, and the mule men cost the same as the mules.



On one particular day we were allowed an insight into the lives of the people in the park having been invited to a coffee ceremony at Geech village near to a campsite we stayed at. The fifteen year old girl who had invited us took us into a large circular hut with a high ceiling and enough room for the family’s animals to stay inside at night. It was dark and stained black with soot from the open wood fire that was being used for cooking. In the home was the young girl along with her father, who was keen on the idea of her going to Sudan to make her fortune. There was real beauty in the movement of her hands as she prepared the coffee in the way she had seen her mother do and had repeated some many times that she no longer needed to consider her physical actions, rather she was able to focus upon the ceremonial significance of the act, her hands performing a soft, smooth waltz. In this environment as in much of our time spent in the park, a sense of disruption in time was palpable. Days seemed minutes long and hours lasted for hours and all in what could have been anywhere between the middle ages and the present.



Another interesting aspect of the people in this area was revealed to us as we walked with our guide who told us how the area was once a homeland of a Jewish race, most of whom now reside in Israel. The Beta Israel as they are known claim to be from the tribes of Judah and Levi and to be direct descendants of Moses. During the eighties it was established using DNA testing the Beta Israel’s claim to Judaism was legitimate and were welcomed to reside in Israel. Most of the population took up the offer due to their religious isolation and prejudices they faced in Ethiopia. Israel set up Project Solomon and Moses which brought them to Israel where the majority now work menial jobs and live as second class citizens.

After eight days of trekking we were glad to get back to Debark and a decent wash but we were left with a lasting impression and memories of a fascinating and dramatic environment. Comprehending the ways in which the people eke out a simple existence in such a harsh environment is not easy but their physical and mental adaptation was clear to see in more ways than the sight of them striding past us at 4000m or higher as if they had an important appointment to keep.




Bahir Dar
20/03/08
After a night back in Gondar, we took a minibus to Bahir Dar with one of the street urchins, Kibrit (or Pappi as he like to be called) who lived there, buying his ticket for him to return to his family. We may have been gullible to believe that he could not afford the ticket ($3) but we had built up a bit of a rapport with him and trusted him just about as far as Stuart could throw him.

Bahir Dar, once considered by Haile Selassie as an alternate capital for Ethiopia sits on the banks of Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile. The lake is dotted with islands containing holy monasteries but Bahir Dar did have something of the Blackpool about it.



We took a motorboat out to one of the islands where we visited a truly strange church. Circular in design with the pointed roof of a mosque’s minaret, it was adorned with hundreds of small hand-made bells and two large stones hung from a frame that resonated with ominous thick notes. Inside a priest dressed in a complex shawl and hat of racing green showed us his treasures proudly. Sat on the stone floor he held a book up to us. He claimed it was nine hundred years old, written in Ge’ez, the precursor to Amharic, now only spoken by the clergy. Inside its dark animal hide covering were colourful, naïve paintings of Saint George, the Angel Gabriel and others we did not recognize. Their anatomies were highly stylized and vivid making up scenes of such fire and brimstone they were very effective at putting the fear of God into one. As we had eaten breakfast, and had hence broken our fast, we were not permitted to enter the church’s inner sanctum as the priest was concerned that its powers would make us ill. He would not say what was in there. He was the consummate ring master.



In the evening we sat in our hotel bar with a beer pondering the past few days. A priest with a huge, intricate silver cross that a rapper would be proud of, had been staring at us silently for the past forty minutes, while nursing his beer, as if we might spontaneously combust. He ordered one of the waitresses to bring us a plate of warmed, slated grains and grinned indulgently. Everything here is different enough to make one question one’s mental state.

22/03/08
We visited an arabia of a different class: small rooms covered in cushions, shoes off at the door, each room with its own sound system and a buzzer to alert the staff if your every whim was not being catered for. We made our way through t’chat, peanuts, freshly roasted coffee and apple flavoured shishas. They were all brought to us by Heywot, an Oromo woman. The Oromos, who occupy the south of the country, make up the majority of the Ethiopian population and we have heard many conflicting stories about them mostly unflattering from Northerners. Heywot sat on her haunches and deftly prepared the coffee and shishas as if it were an art form. Her certainty and grace left the room with an overriding sense of peacefulness that was very powerful.

About forty minutes bus ride outside Bahir Dar, we entered a small village by the Blue Nile Falls, or Tis Issat ‘waters that smokes’. It was market day and an endless stream of people travelled along the track towards us in quiet concentration, carrying grains, drinks and earthenware pots, vegetables and babies in papooses. Seeing a family unit trek along barefoot it was easy to romanticise about the kind of wordless conversation that they were carrying with them from their thatched hut to the market and back again. We passed them as we crossed the Portuguese Bridge with a procession of donkeys, sheep and goats clacking their hooves on the cobbles. In the image now seared on our memories there was nothing from the modern day, as the bridge’s low wall hid their plastic shoes, they could have walked straight out of the past. The falls themselves were impressive, although these days a large part of the water is diverted to a hydroelectric power station. The use of the Nile, although peaceful on the surface, seems to have underlying tension to it for some Ethiopians, particularly when referring to Egyptians.




Bahir Dar – Lalibela
25/03/08
At 5.00am (Western time) we found a government land cruiser that could take us to Lalibela in half the time rather than the whole day required for the bus ride. As the price was negotiated we heard Kibrit’s name repeated and we were finally given a very reasonable price, he was there in spirit clearly. The vehicle was driven by a playboy working for a man installing drinking water distribution facilities in Lalibela. Water is a real issue and was in fact only available for one day a week. It seemed strange at first to hear this Ethiopian driver talking so intently about the importance of water conservation but it was certainly refreshing to hear. The water problem was of course exacerbated by the influx of tourists who consume much more water than local people, with flushing toilets and showers, a guilt we could of course not separate ourselves from.

The man and two women we shared the vehicle with were full of life, sharing their grains with us and gabbing away. After driving for a few hours we came to a steep sided valley and the road heaved with people in white robes. As the car came to a standstill the women became hysterical as it was clear what they had feared had already happened. The driver instructed us to shut the car doors as they left and drove off rapidly. Apparently the man’s father had died the previous night and they had just returned to find out. It was an unsettling scene as the women shrieked and beat the ground, the valley echoing with the word ‘Xavier’ or ‘God willing’.

Upon arrival in Lalibela nine hours to the south-east of Bahir Dar we updated ourselves on world affairs with Aljazeera TV watching the news of Somalia, Kenya and Zimbabwe with trepidation.

26/03/08
Lalibela was originally constructed as a New Jerusalem when the Muslims conquered the old. At the time of building they did not have the technology to build upwards as high as they wanted so they dug down, creating churches hewn from a single rock in the ground.



The churches were made up of mazes of tunnels leading to dark churches from which came the sound of the strange Ge’ez chants. Their history seems pretty hazy but most sources agree that they were completed in the fourteenth century, how many hundreds of years before this they were started who knows. The priests, trainee priests and monks ranging from early teenagers to blind old men sat together with the bibles reading inside and around the churches of Betes Amauel, Medhane Alem, Maryam and Golgotha. Although there were a few Ethiopians there receiving blessings, the majority of the traffic was foreign tourists. They took pictures of the remains of pilgrims left in a hole in the wall, their legs covered in dried flesh and their brittle toenails exposed. However, in the face of the flash photography the priests retained a stalwart, unblinking sense of dignity that was inspirational.



Outside we met Gareth and Helen, Londoners from New Zealand who were travelling all over the place on motorbikes. We last saw them on the way back from Ras Dejen. We sat in a café and discussed issues of revelation over macchiattos (very milky, sweet coffees) and agreed that although awe-inspiring and atmospheric the place was not conducive to religious experience. Although the place reverberated with the sound of the priests and their pupils chanting ancient chants, it was cut through by the nasal twang of an American asking where the ‘goddamn’ toilet was.


Lalibela – Addis Ababa
27/03/08 – 28/03/08
We paid a bit extra to reserve the better seats on the bus requiring a young man to hold them for us when the bus opened before four in the morning, they are still quite a way away from a computerised ticketing system. We left at six on a Mercedes bus considerably older than either of us, adorned with so much Christian tat the unsaid message was that God’s help would be required for the journey, scheduled to be two days.

Four hours down the road the bus would not enter second gear. With the use of a huge metal spike and a great deal of jiggling the problem was solved, until another two further hours down the road and in deepest darkest Hicksville when the problem seemed more severe. A crowd amassed around us as we read by the roadside giving us the same distance one might to a slow moving but potentially dangerous creature. They whispered gently to one another, a murmur of ‘what is name’ came across them like a cloud as they looked towards us with stony glares. Finally a small boy could not contain himself and was the point of release for the whole gathering. ‘What is name’ he said. Those children who giggled in the silence were brought quickly into line, this was a clearly an important moment. They were flabbergasted at our respective responses but seemed to be reassured that we actually had names and the children invited us to play football with them on the road with a ball of tied together rags.

Next on the agenda was a puncture which was quickly fixed and we arrived in a small town where we ate strange food and slept in the second hotel we came to. The first was one we were taken to on the recommendation of one of our fellow passengers who was well dressed, well-spoken and accompanied by his wife so we assumed we might be taken somewhere beyond our budget. The place though turned out to be a brothel with only double beds, covered in pink silk effect sheets harbouring God knows what.

The next morning at slightly before 5.00am after a Biblical entry into the bus station, with the crowd in white robes parting before us like the Red Sea, we parked our bruised selves on the same seats. At 5:00am the sea poured into the bus station to find their own seats on buses. As the sun rose over the mountains, down the sheer drop the bus veered towards every so often the cockerels onboard crowed above the tinny Ethiopian pop and the thunder of the engine.

The road seemed to be tarmaced in random straights, much of it under construction by groups of Ethiopians led by mysterious Chinese men in dark glasses and using Chinese machinery. A theme which we have seen running throughout Africa so far and is perhaps still of dubious benefit to Africans. After twenty seven hours on the bus and a couple more minor problems we arrived in an overcast Addis Ababa – ‘New Flower’ in Amharic. The bus driver and his mechanics / conductors shook our hands heartily as we left, having shared a successful ordeal with them.