After waiting for a millennium we finally got picked up and taken to
the airport. I felt I should have dressed up a little more when we saw
all the other people in their "airport frocks" all in their best togs
to meet their family and friends. There were some other shabby looking
ferenji there too though which made me feel a bit better. The flight
was coming in through Germany and there were a bunch of Swiss with some
very strange attire. How did I know they were Swiss? Well one of them had
painted the Swiss flag across his chest. They had mad hats on and one
of the guys had those trousers that zip off into shorts, well he had one
leg on and one leg off! They were also carrying a large banner to
welcome their friend/ colleague/ victim from the plane who was greeted
by a huge amount of cheering and screaming when she arrived!
Our driver had a "man on the other side", of the customs barrier that is. He was in contact with him by mobile phone telling his mate to look out for mum and Lizzi. Of course he had no idea what they looked like and when I spoke to him over a very bad line I couldn't help him much either except by saying it would be two ferenji females, one was my mum and the other my sister. As it turned out Mum and Lizzi had spotted him ages ago - they'd even laughed at the funny little man jumping up and down with a sign.......
So we eventually were reunited and lots of hugs and excited chat occurred and our driver ushered us back to the car and we were whisked off to the hotel. Back in the palacial rooms of the hotel we exchanged gossip, travel stories and a letter from Neal's mum and dad. We chatted until we couldn't stay awake any longer. Mum and Liz had been travelling since 4am that morning and we had to be back at the airport at 6am the next morning to get a flight to Bahir Dar
We arrived at the airport at some ungodly hour the next morning - about 4am. About half an hour later, someone from Ethiopian Airlines showed up to check people in. As we checked in or rather tried to check in the guy at the check in desk kept telling me our flight was at 7 o'clock (in Amharic) "Yes" I replied "that's why we want to check in". He kept repeating himself until finally the penny dropped - he meant 7 o'clock Ethiopian time which is 1 o'clock in our time. It turned out our flight was cancelled so we had to wait 'til the next one which was at 1pm! Great! We also met Wilco trying to check in for the same flight which went on to Mekele after Bahir Dar. It was his third time of trying to get on a flight home. Apparently because it was the low season they had taken three of their planes out of service. So they just cancelled a load of flights which meant if you didn't get in extra early for a flight then you'd probably not get on because it would already be full.
We wondered what we could do in Bole airport for the next 6 hours or so..... we considered going into town but didn't know what to do with our luggage. We found a room which said "left luggage" on the door but decided it was to risky as the chances were we wouldn't be able to find the member of staff with the key when we needed to get our bags back. So instead we made our way to the "Most expensive Cafe in Ethiopia" on the first floor of the airport. The coffee in this place costs over 8 Birr - anywhere else it costs 1 Birr or only 60 cents in out staff lounge at Debub! Luckily Mum and Liz had just arrived and were still thinking in pounds so it didn't seem so bad to them (about 60p for a coffee!). We ordered some fruit juices and wondered if we could possibly make some breakfast last until we needed to check in for our flight. We didn't need to worry, the service was so slow it was lucky we didn't have a plane to catch for 6 hours! The cafe is really called the "London Cafe" and it's set out to look like a plane. The seats are airline seats and arranged in fours around the tables. I found this quite a strange choice of decor. I would have thought if someone was catching an international flight from Addis Ababa the last thing they'd want the cafe to remind them of would be an aeroplane.
Two egg sandwiches, two plates of chips, some naps, more juice and a coffee later we decided to try and check in again. Hurray, we were successful as was Wilco so we went through to departures where excitingly enough there were about three shops - but they were all closed. The departure gates are walled off from the main walkway by glass walls with automatic doors at each gate. Seemingly the airport staff don't like you to spend any time at all in the bit where the shops and toilets are and if you sit down they rush up and tell you to get to the check-in gate. Now escalators are one novelty - the airport contains the only ones in Ethiopia and obviously automatic doors are a challenge too. Unfortunately for one poor lady she didn't look hard enough for the doors and walked face first in to the glass paneling walls - Ouch. They have many gates in the brand spanking new Bole airport but only seem to use one. So everyone from all the flights ends up crammed into one check-in area with crap seats, no toilets and no refreshments. Then you have to play "Guess which flight is yours" when a load of passengers get up to board a plane. Fortunately we had no further difficulties and boarded our flight and finally made it to Bahir Dar.
[J] We went to the same places we went before - on a boat trip on the lake to see some monasteries and a trip to the Blue Nile Falls. The lake was much higher than before and I was looking forward to seeing the Blue Nile Falls as I thought as it was the end of the rainy season there would be more water in them. However it seems that they have recently opened a new super-duper hydro-electric plant at the falls to which even more of the water is diverted. It was just a pathetic little trickle. Oh dear. The moral of this story is to GO ON A SUNDAY, apparently they don't divert the water then so you see the full effect. Our guide confirmed this was true but when we asked him why don't they let tourists know this he replied "If we told them that, no-one would come any other day of the week". Which of course is perfectly true and the people in the surrounding villages depend on the tourists for a living.
Talking of which, I decided I would take the opportunity to practice my amharic with all the kids that follow you to the falls trying to sell you scarves, carvings and soft drinks or just asking for money/sweets/pens/books. The little kids all seem to know a few lines in English "Hello, what is your name" followed by "How old are you?" etc. So as the little girl following me reeled off her questions I answered her in amharic. I told her my name was Turronesh (after the 5000 m heroine!) to which she replied "That's a nice name. my name is ...." Then she asked me how old I was so I told her I was twelve. to which she replied "I am six". At this point quite a few of the kids were listening in to the funny ferenji trying to speak amharic. One kid stopped and said something along the lines of "Hang on a minute, she's not twelve. I'm twelve and she's bigger than me". This caused great confusion (and amusement) especially when I asked then if they thought I was lying!! As we got to the Blue Nile Brown Trickle, this kid pulled out a flute thing and started tootling away - trying to make it all atmospheric I think. I don't think it had the desired effect as we all started laughing when we saw the "falls" and his flute playing was terrible and we eventually told him to stop!
I kept up the Turronesh name for the whole of the trip and not one person questioned me! Lizzi decided she also needed a pseudonym which developed over the holiday to be Shakira Birtukan Higgledepiggledy. Birtukan is a girl's name here and means "orange" the others came about due to very stupid for reasons I won't go into here!
At Bahir Dar airport we had another run in with the scroungy, horrible porters. Again they snatched our bags from the minibus, but this time our guide told us not to worry as our "program" included all tips so I saw him pay them. Then as we were sat waiting to check in, one of the porters came up to us and asked for his baggage charge. I told him it had already been paid. He sulked for a while and noticed Lizzi was writing her journal and asked if he could have her pen!! Cheeky B'turd
We flew to Gondar and got dropped off at the very posh Goa Hotel which is on the top of a hill and overlooks the city. We visited the castles and King Fasiladas baths. However when our guide went to reconfirm our tickets he discovered our flight the next day to Axum had been cancelled. So we spent an hour or so in the Ethiopian airlines office trying to reroute our schedule. We eventually did meaning we'd go to Lalibela first and then Axum. We had a worrying moment when we though we had to pay for the new tickets and get a refund back in Addis Ababa. This meant having to pay about $1000 for all four of us. I laughed at the man and asked him where we supposed to get that kind of money from and surely we shouldn't have to pay out so much money when they were the ones who messed up our plans. Eventually we just had to pay the difference as our new route was slightly more expensive. I was quite annoyed - it wasn't much just a few Birr but the principle of you having to pay when they cancel one of your flights is very annoying. While we were in the office I noticed a couple of slogans on their promotional posters and laughed at the irony of them.
"Ethiopian Airlines - The only sure way to discover Ethiopia"
"Ethiopian - will take you wherever you wish to go in Ethiopia"
On the way to the airport the next day we stopped at Kweskwam church. This was built by the Empress Mentewab as a kind of quiet place to contemplate life and pray - presumably she got bored of her castle in the Royal Enclosure with the others and built this too. The church has been destroyed twice. Once by the Italians and then again by the British when they were trying to get the Italians out. The drive up to the church was just about one of the scariest I've experienced. We were in this minibus type thing scrambling up an escarpment which a sheer drop on the other side. I tried not to look and began to pray to anyone who might listen. I think I would rather have walked but our guide insisted we didn't have time. The complex is mostly in ruins but is very beautiful and peaceful. There are some interesting relics including some skeletons one of which is supposed to be the empress! The church is being repainted and the guide didn't want to take us in as he said the paintings were not as good or old as one's we'd already seen. We insisted we just wanted a quick look and eventually he relented. It was really interesting to see the paintings. It was the same stories as in the older monasteries but the style is very modern.
[N] We stayed in a different hotel to last time, tucked a bit more into the town, but still with a beautiful view across the steeply rolling landscape. The Jerusalem Hotel was being extended, but that didn't disrupt us. Our excursions were organised by the hotel, so it was a low hassle undertaking. First off was the group of rock hewn churches in the town. This main group stretches down a hill, since they are hewn from the rock, they are below ground level, but they are linked to each other by either tunnels or little gorges. UNESCO has a hand in the preservation of the churches and have provided a number of them with roofs to keep the elements out. Of course this does affect the look of the churches, but they still do have quite an impact. The digging is to a depth of around two stories and then the church is hewn internally to form the inner chambers - leaving a church as if it had been built from the ground up, but out of a single piece of stone. Quite an undertaking. Some of the structures are relatively simple (though not to say easy), with pillars and straight edges, others are more ambitious, with domed or vaulted ceilings. The bottom of the group has the striking Beytey Georges, which is a square cross rising up out of the ground and understandably features strongly in Ethiopian Tourist Board literature.
Our other major activity in Lalibela was a fairly long drive out to a cave church. Once again the drive was pretty hairy. however, I somewhat recovered my cool after I'd realised that the Toyota minivan in which we were travelling was not quite as ubiquitous as I had assumed. This was actually a 4x4 Toyota minivan and with differentials locked, did a mighty fine job. But actually, it was the church we were there for and not the drive. The cave church was not a cave used as a church, but a church built within a cave. Due to it's protected location the church is in very good condition considering it's age. As we arrived at the church (a half hour up-hill walk from the road-head) there was a funeral going on, which was a bit of an odd situation showing how the 'tourist attractions' of Lalibela are actually functioning institutions for the local people. Anyhow, our guide maneuvered us into the compound of the church, I think without disturbing the ongoing funeral, though you never know. The church itself was rather like a liquorish allsort made up of bands of black and white which were wood and rendered stone respectively.
Stelae and tombs, they'd been there for 4000 years last time we were there and unsurprisingly nothing much was different this time! However, we did take a look in the church which was built by Emperor Haile Selassie, or perhaps rather instructed to be built by him. It's a big domed place which contrasts strongly with the rest of Axum. Right next to this church is a very small building which is supposed to house THE Arc of the Covenant, only one guy is allowed to go into the building and it seems that he's not telling about what's in there.
Our flight changes had given us some extra time in Axum which gave us time spare after the scheduled visits. We arranged a trip out of Axum to visit another church. Sadly this detracted somewhat from our no-hassle-everything-pre-organised tactic, but it was worth the negotiation. The highlight of the excursion was when the minivan on the way back developed a rattle that required the attention of the driver and conductor. We were in a delightful spot, so I scurried up a hill to check out the local mineral deposits. Meanwhile Jen and Lizzi were entertaining the locals. When I got back, somehow my rock collecting and their entertaining melded into the great ferenji rock ceremony. Essentially we balanced rocks on Lizzi and then chanted, our audience seemed suitably bemused.
Having made it to Bole Airport Addis, we were met by a car and driver which took us down to Awassa.
A generally lazy time was spent, showing out guests the sights and sounds of the area. We did the obligatory trip to Wondo Genet hot springs and some purchases were made in Awassa market. All this just left us time for the festivities of the season...
[J] The Ethiopians use the Julian calendar which is made up of 12 months of 30 days and one month of 5 days or 6 days on a leap year. It's also about 7 1/2 years behind our Gregorian calendar. This year the New year was stretched out. This year was a leap year so New Years Day was the 12th September - it's usually the 11th. This meant New Years Day was a Friday which is a fasting day for the Orthodox Christians so most people postponed their celebrations until the Saturday so they could eat Dorro (chicken) wat. We celebrated New Year's eve with Almaz, Abu and Butulay. We lit a fire and the kids had some little bangers they through into it. The kids had all their best clothes on (complete with the sunglasses Mum had bought them!). Mum and Liz had bought some natellas (traditional shawl-like clothing that everybody wears all the time) at the market and Almaz showed them how to put them on. Then she ran round to her house and got some for me and Neal to wear too. Then we had a coffee ceremony and fandisha (popcorn) and Neal and I had bought us all a beer each which we drank after coffee. Abu wanted some too so Almaz gave him a bit of hers but he got all stroppy that she wouldn't give him any more - he's only 8 but is definitely the man of the house - or wants to be!
New Year is a big celebration, there was such a good atmosphere everywhere. On the drive back to Addis, we were stopped several times by groups of kids, mainly girls. They stood in a big line across the road singing and clapping with the palms of their hands painted red (to symbolise the fire from the night before I think). Then they come to collect a little money. It was all very nice but after the third time of stopping in five minutes I was worried we'd never make it to Addis!
On the way back to Addis, we stopped at Lake Langano for a swim. We arrived there at about 9:30 am and the weather was just warming up. We had a lovely swim in the lake - a perfect way to clear a New Years Eve hangover!
When we got to Addis we splurged on some ice cream (well me and Neal did) and had a quick wander around. We were feeling pretty knackered though and still had the keys for Deb and David's house so we vegged out there, ready to catch our flight to Tanzania at 4 am that morning. Why can't we ever seem to get flights at civilised times?
We got a flight to Nairobi with Kenya airlines and then changed to a teeny 15-seater plane to fly to Kilimanjaro airport. We were completely knackered by the time we arrived at our hotel in Moshi. We weren't off on safari till the next day so we planned to sleep, shower, swim and veg out by the pool for the rest of the day - although not necessarily in that order. First of all we decided to get a bit of food. The waiter said he could bring us some sandwiches and some coffee. Neal and I nearly cried with joy when the sandwiches arrived - they were cheese and tomato toasties - what bliss. Strangely enough in a land of coffee growers a lot of the hotels only offer crap instant coffee but hey when you've got a cheese toastie who needs coffee.
The hotel we were staying in specialises in hikes up Kilimanjaro. Dinner was a buffet affair and everyone sat together at long tables. We soon realised that everybody was about to climb mount Kili, they had climbed Kili and succeeded (you could usually spot these by their "I've climbed Kilimanjaro t-shirts"), or they had tried to climb Kili and failed. This created a very charged atmosphere with people psyching themselves up, commiserating or hyped up from succeeding. So the first thing to establish from your fellow diners when were you going or had you made it? We explained we weren't there to climb the mountain but to go on safari. I have to say I'm sure I saw more than a hint of jealousy in those preparing to do the hike!
The safari was amazing. We went to Lake Manyara, the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro crater. This is a list of animals that we saw:
Lots of : elephants, zebra, impala, wildebeest, baboons, giraffe, hippos, buffalo, flamingos (millions of them formed a pink stripe across Lake Manyara), warthogs, Thomson's gazelle, Grant's gazelle, Ostrich, superb starlings (common as pigeons), Topi, vervet monkeys, rock hyrax (dassies)
A few: mongoose, ground hornbill, secretary bird (these are great and look like they wear high heels), hyena, roebucks, waterbuck, redbuck, hartebeast, jackals, heron
One: fish eagle, hoopoe, dikdik, leopard (hunting), bateleur eagle, ibis, rhino (completing the "big five")
On the first day in the serengeti we saw a female lion sitting on a rock, we spent about 10 minutes taking photos and then we drove round the corner nad came across one lying in the road. She was so close and not bothered by us - just a bit irritated that we disturbed her nap. Later we saw a pride of 13 female lions and were desperate to see a big daddy lion! The next day we went for a morning drive around the Serengeti. In the distance we saw two big daddy lions. They must have had a kill as there were jackals beside them. They look so majestic even if we had to look through binoculars. We spent absolutely ages taking photos and lining up the binoculars to the camera to try and get a close up. Then half an hour later we came across 2 more daddies lying just a couple of metres from the road!
In the Ngorongoro crater we saw hundreds of wildebeest. Apparently they cannot get out of the crater (or so our guide told us) so instead of the massive migrations that take place across Tanzania and Kenya, these animals migrate from one side of the crater to the other - they must do it everyday. Completely mad if you ask me - but quite an impressive sight. Although I thought..."If I was a wildebeest, I would go the other way"
What an amazing experience. Not only the animals, for Neal and I the hotels were so luxurious - there was a buffet meal at every meal time too. We couldn't believe our luck, they had everything - I felt like a student again sneaking out apples from the buffets!
Unfortunately all good things come to an end. After the safari we had a great few days in Addis together and then we had to say goodbye. We had the holiday of a lifetime but for me the best part was having my mum and sister around to spend time with - Aaah!