Bahir Dar, Amhara, EthiopiaDid you know that Geoff & I are 7 years
younger on our arrival in Ethiopia? We
have been told that they are using a 2010 calendar.
This calendar has 13 months and each month only
has 30 days. Their last month of the
year had 6 days.
About Lucy, the skeleton she was one of the
first homo sapiens. The skeleton shows
an enlarged bottom jaw and they believe that she still climbed trees. She was only very petite at 150cm.
Today, Temperature 18—28 degrees and fine
In the morning transfer to airport for
flight to Bahir at 7.10am so we must be at the airport at 5.50am. Lucky the hotel is only 7 minutes from the
airport so no trouble with traffic until we get to the airport and it is really
busy. We make the flight and arrive at
8.30 to Lake Tana.
After short break leave out the hotel for a
drive to Tis Isat (smoking of Fire) waterfall.
We travel on a bumpy dirt road for approx. 55 minutes though villages
which was more of what I had expected to see in Ethiopia. We pass through the farming area where they
farm sugar cane, onions, and chilli’s. Along
the roads there are houses built in the traditional way with mud, grass, wood
with corrugated iron roofs.
With the Easter Celebration there are so many sheep
for sale in the markets and along the roads.
We reach the spot to start the journey for
the Blue Nile River waterfalls and we cross the river in a small boat and then walk
to the Blue Nile Waterfalls, only a 1 hour return trip The Blue Nile River runs for 884km and is
one of the sources of the Nile River. The
other river is the White Nile which starts in Uganda Previously it was one of
the most spectacular falls in Africa, 400m wide when in flood and dropping over
a sheer chasm more than 45m deep, the thunderous noise could be heard long
before arrival and the spray that is thrown up could be felt up to a kilometres
away. But since a dam has been built upstream, the waterfall is reduced and has
lost some of its former splendor but it is still impressive. And also the walk
to the waterfall we see some colourful birds.
After lunch we have a boat ride on Lake
Tana and visit two of its beautiful and interesting islands with their medieval
period monasteries.
Covering over 3500sq km, Lake Tana is Ethiopia’s largest lake and is
famous as the home of the monasteries established on some 20 of its 37 islands.
Most churches in the monasteries have interesting paintings and contain a
collection of church treasures and beautiful old manuscripts. We needed to wait
for mass to finish before we could go inside the church. You will not believe what it was like when we
walked in. The outside was an ordinary
wooden circular building which was built in the 14th century and
then walking through the door the amazing and colourful frescos painted in the
16th century and touched up in the 18th century are just
jaw dropping. They are around the
centre part of the church and are from ground to ceiling which is approx. 8-10
metres. WOW I never expected this after looking at the outside. I know that you will also be speechless.
On the back in the boat we come across a
few hippopotamus moving around in the lake, I didn’t know about the hippos in
the lake here and the guide explains that they cohabitate the area with locals
and there has not been any incidents regarding them. We also see an African Sea Eagle.
Big day out as well as a great one as we
left at 9am and returned at 6.30pm.
Stehan
2018-04-06
Typical Africa -;).