Rik: Ethiopië

Selam

Ethiopia part 1: Gondar to Lalibela.

After one and a half week of camping in Sudan we were headed for our third country in our trip through Africa.

The border crossing with Ethiopia and Sudan is very different than the crossing Sudan and Egypt. Everything is less westernized and organized, you feel that you enter Africa.

Among the differences is the people changed on the last day in Sudan, they became more African. Darker, rugged, relaxed, freer and even more friendlier than we already experienced in Sudan.
Kids in Sudan were happy to see you visiting their country, and some of the older people as well. But here in Ethiopia almost everyone is happy that you visit their country.

A lot has changed since the border with Sudan. As soon as we were Ethiopia we climbed in altitude, scenery became more greener (the deserted dessert lands were traded for mountain hills with endogenous trees but also the eucalyptus trees from Australia.), housing changed (more and more African wooden huts) and as already mentioned the people changed.

Unfortunately we experienced on our way to Gondar the friction that is currently brewing in Ethiopia. Even though people were happy to see us, they were not happy about a lot of other things (government i.e.), you could feel this friction or anger when you were on the street. To all of us it was a city we were not really comfortable with.

In Gondar we spent a few nights, this to meet up with our new people joining us, celebrate Matt his birthday and visit the famous castles of Gondar. While everyone was preparing for there next few days deciding if they wanted to do a long or short hike in the Simien Mountains (which was our next stop).

Stuart and myself were preparing to do a hike on our own without the group. We both thought the same about doing a hike on our own to be away from the group for a few days but also to see more of the NP than normal.

So on our second day in the Simien Mountians we set of at 7 to start or 14 km hike. This hike would lead us through a few waterfalls, forests and up some hills where we camped in Geech at 3600m. The hike was fairly easy going mainly because we started to do birdwatching as soon as we left Gondar. I wasn't really into it but Stuart and a few others afflicted me a bit. We bought a few snickers to serve as out breakfast, lunch and dinner, so Lotte told us we had to take a photo every time we had a snickers. This resulted in the first day a photo of a snickers in a pool of freezing water and one in the tent during dinner. Our day was successfully ended by a perfect sunset on one of the hills with at the end the invasion of the Gelada Baboons which spend the night on the sheer rock faces the Simien Mountains offer.

The second day was a bit longer, 22 km. More uphill than the first but certainly not less exciting. We woke up early to see some of the birds waking up, among them the endogenous Lammer Geyer and Auger Buzzard. On our highest peak of Immet Gogo +3900m we had a great few over the valleys. And time for our snickers photos. After a "good" lunch we followed the enscrapment towards Chenek where we're heartily welcomed by the rest of the group. After diner we headed to bed early because we were leaving at 5 in the morning towards my second +4000m peak this year Mt. Bhawit.

Early morning we ventured of to walk in the moonlit Simiens towards our destination this morning, Mt. Bhawit. The walk was tricky at some points and the altitude gave us some problems with getting rid of the stale bread we were carrying as pre-breakfast. But in the end we arrived at the top for a really nice sunset. Whilst enjoying the scenery we saw some Walia Ibex's and Gelada Baboons. After an hour we walked back to camp for a decent fruitsalade breakfast.

Back in camp we rode off to Debark, which would take us the whole day to get to. In Debark we stayed in a hotel where we would say goodbye to our guides and scouts and also get a well deserved shower.

Next destination: Axum. A town which holds the arc of the covenant and was home of the Axumite era. Here we had a tour of the Stela's and palaces of the queen of Shaba. This would have been a great tour if it wasn't for the fact that almost everyone had drank to much the night before. So the attention was no where to be seen. On our free day I spend the morning talking to a Ethiopian guy who worked for USAID in Axum. Amongst the USAID is the UN and other NGO's present here. Mainly because the district of Tigray suffers from the disastrous crops result from last year. On the last evening we had Stuart his birthday which was a great success with a lot of good Ethiopian food, music and dancing.

On our way to Lalibela we stopped to see our first rock hewn churches Ethiopia has to offer. In Lalibela we had a few days to explore, the first day we spend visiting the 13 rock hewn churches this quite town has to offer. There were a few different churches we've seen this day. The ones that have need hewn out horizontal into the mountain and the ones hewn vertically into the mountain. The famous St. George church is of this last type. Luckily for us the next day would be the Ethiopian day of St. George, so Stuart and myself woke up early to visit the procession at the church. It is a nice event to see, and a lot o people came to contribute to this day.

Next destination is Bahir Dar, Addis Ababa and the south of Ethiopia. But this will be for the next traveldairy.