Our Ethiopian odyssey (11): Gondar and Lake Tana
Day 10 (Monday) and it was time to leave the Simien Mountains and head back to Gondar. We set off at 8.40 am on what was going to be our last long road journey of the holiday. The first 40 minutes of our ride was a bouncy time back down the unmade road to the national park entrance at Debark. Clearly we were not the only ones to find this section rough because, on a road with virtually no other vehicles, we passed an ambulance that had crashed. Debark was in high spirits as the previous day the Prime Minister had visited the town to lay the first stone for a new university.
Our first stop was at a field which had a spring from which local people collected water for cleaning and washing but not drinking. Small women struggled to a carry 20 litre cans of water on their back. Nearby a flock of vultures was stripping the entrails from a dead donkey, identifiable only by his head. As always, we were soon surrounded by local kids crying out: “You! You! Money, money, money!”
After almost two and a half hours travelling, we halted for a bush toilet stop, for those who were desperate enough. Next we made a quick visit to a local primary school where we joined a class of seven year olds. They rehearsed for us some of their English language skills: the naming of the days of the week and the parts of the body. In turn, we were asked to sing them a song and gave them a rather hesitant rendition of “Old McDonald Had A Farm”. Before we left, we called in on the headmistress and donated pens and money.
The final stop before lunch was to a village called Wolleka. The claim to fame – or at least some kind of tourist attraction – was that this village used to be home to Felasha or Ethiopian Jews until 1985 and 1990 when all 150,000 Jews in the country were airlifted to a new life in Israel. The site was of some particular interest to the one American in a group, a Jewish woman from Boston.
Once we reached the town of Gondar, we had lunch at the “Four Sisters Restaurant”. It was the first time in three and a half hours that we had had access to a toilet. Suitably relieved and refreshed, we then had an afternoon tour of Gondar.
Located at an altitude of more than 2,300 metres, Gondar was founded in 1636 by Emperor Fasilidas as Ethiopia’s first capital and it remained the capital for 250 years. Even today, it is a sizeable town with a population of about 230,000. But we were here to dwell on the town’s history.
First, we viewed the famous castles. Fasilidas constructed the first castle and the emperors who followed in the 17th & 18th centuries then built their own castles, creating a royal compound of six castles and a variety of other buildings. Today the Fasil Ghebbi or Royal Enclosure is a UN World Heritage Site. Ethiopia is the only African nation with such castles and Gondar is known as “the castle capital of Africa” or “the Camelot of Africa”.
The oldest castle, attributed to Emperor Fasilidas, was built in 1640 (and partially restored in the mid 20th century) and the newest was constructed in the mid 18th century. We looked at all of them (except the last which was closed) plus a Turkish bath and banqueting hall. All the time, we were assailed by the sounds of no less than three different churches broadcasting services to mark the first day of Lent.
After the castles, we drove over to see the Fasilidas Bath. This is a large rectangular pool (empty most of the time) overlooked by a charming building and surrounded by low walls overrun with the roots of banyan trees. It was used by royalty for swimming but also for religious purposes. Even today, once a year the baptism of Christ is celebrated here in a major event called Timkat.
Our final visit in Gondar was to a wonderful church. Many of Gondar’s churches were destroyed by the Dervish or Mahdist invasion from Sudan in the 1880s, but one remained untouched: Debre Berhan Selassie. According to legend, this church – which was built in 1683 – was saved by the intervention of a swarm of bees. The roof is topped by a cross featuring ostrich eggs which represent God looking at each of us as an ostrich allegedly watches over its eggs. A particular feature of the church is the ceiling of paintings of some 120 angels, said to be the most famous example of ecclesiastical art in Ethiopia.
It was 4.50 pm, over eight hours since we had left the Simien Lodge, when we rolled up to our accommodation for the night: the all-new Mayleko Lodge on the outskirts of Gondar. It was at this point that an already challenging trip became truly interesting. In Axum, the town had lost all Internet connection for a while; in Lalibela, the town had lost electricity for a time; now, here at the Mayleko Lodge, we were met with the news that they had no running water. A vote was taken as to whether we should stay put or transfer to another hotel and by one vote it was decided to tough it out at Mayleko Lodge (it seemed that most were just too tired to travel further).
So, once we were located in our respective chalets, staff brought round large plastic cans of water, followed by a couple of buckets and a jug, for us to use for washing and going to the toilet (showers were out of the question). This is, of course, how most Ethiopians live (although they have to fetch the water from some distance), so perhaps this incident was Cox & Kings’ effort to bring us an authentic Ethiopian experience. That evening at the lodge, the group had a really good dinner with lots of free red wine to excuse the lack of running water.
Day 11 (Tuesday) was one lake and three churches. But to get to the lake – we left the lodge at 8.15 am – we had to take yet another unmade road south, so it was a case of more rattling and rolling over very rocky surfaces, more sharp pinging as loose rocks smashed into the underside of the minibus, and more of that ubiquitous dust. But it took us ‘only’ an hour and a half to reach the little town of Gogora on the north shore of Lake Tana.
Before boarding our boat, we visited our first church: the 17th century Church of Debre Sina Maryam. Like all the churches we were visiting today, it was a circular structure reflecting the style of many rural Ethiopian homes. As with all the churches we viewed today, Dawit took us around the central inner sanctuary or ‘maqdas’ in the order west wall-south wall-east wall-north wall (for a service, men stand on the north side and women stand on the south side), explaining the iconography of the paintings representing various scenes from both the Old Testament and the New Testament in what is known as the first Gondar style.
At 10.50 am, we boarded our craft for the day: a boat called “Nigat” which was only for our group and provided refreshments and a toilet. And so we set set off to cross Lake Tana from north to south, a distance of around 70 km. This lake is Ethiopia’s largest covering over 3,500 sq kms and its waters are the source of the Blue Nile which flows 5,223 kms north to the Mediterranean Sea having joined up with the White Nile in Sudan.
Our boat trip was such a sedate change of pace from the minibus, the waters were green-grey, there was the occasional sighting of pelicans, and the weather was glorious with a cloudless azure sky. There was plenty of time to chat, read and even sleep.
After about two and a half hours, we reached Dek Island where we viewed our second church: the 18th century Church of Narga Selassie. This is considered to be one of the most beautiful painted churches in Ethiopia. The paintings are more colourful and show more representations of contemporary life in what is called the second Gondar style.
Our cruise then took us another two hours to the Zege Peninsula on the south side of Lake Tana. Here we visited our third and last church of the day: the 19th century Church of Ura Kidane Meret. The pictures here are not just of stories from the Bible but stories from other sacred works said to narrate the early life of Jesus and Mary. So, for example, there was an illustration of the child Jesus sliding down a sunbeam rather than bannisters like an ordinary kid.
Seven hours after sending out from Gogora on the north shore of Lake Tana, we arrived at our final destination of Bahir Dar on the south shore of the lake. This is a largish town with a population of 170,000 and apparently some people have described it as the Ethiopian Riviera because of its wide streets shaded by palm streets with views across the lake.
It was here that we had the seventh and last hotel of our trip: Kuriftu Resort & Spa. This proved to be the best of the holiday. Although – like other hotels on this trip – it had occasional (brief) power cuts, it had running water plus a swimming pool and massage sessions. At the hotel restaurant, it was an al a carte menu with the widest choice of food yet and Roger even managed to have a banoffee pie for dessert. In fact, he was even more excited to have a WiFi connection for the first time in four days so that he could upload more reports of the holiday to his blog.