Day 40 – Lalibela to Bahir Dar (320 km)

Ethiopia

07.02.2012

Jules writes:

A relatively early breakfast of eggs, oats and bread was spent watching BBC world report, which generally was full of rather depressing news about Syria, and then almost as depressing weather reports from Turkey, which gave the distinct impression that we should expect rain and temperatures barely above freezing. We can only hope that it warms up a bit before we get there.

Leaving town, we had to face once again the steep gravel roads back up to the tar, but along the way, we came across what appeared to be an Ethiopian re-enactment of the Exodus. For over ten kilometres, people were walking in the same direction as us, carrying water containers, sticks of wood, fabric parcels carried on heads, all accompanied by herds of sheep, goats, cattle and donkeys, in all ages, from small children playing as they ran, to old men and women, trudging along. I don’t think we ever actually saw where they were going, but it was all quite impressive.

Once we had climbed back up to the tar road, it was smooth sailing, with great roads all the way to Lake Tana, the source of the Nile, with the town of Bahir Dar nestled on the shore. One of the things that we had been warned about travelling into Ethiopia were the swarms of children that would shower travellers with rocks and sticks. Thus as we rode, particularly when we entered the country, groups of small children were approached with great trepidation. And while we did encounter the occasional die-hard (usually with terrible aim, fortunately), generally it seems as if one day, the kids picked up rocks, looked at each other and said “what’s the point?”, and just dropped them. Almost all the children we drove past would either wave furiously at us, try to get us to slow down, or in some rare cases, do kung-fu moves from the safety of the road-side, and a couple of times, jump up and down on the spot with sheer excitement.

We arrived in Bahir Dar, the regional capital, and found our hotel, the Ghion hotel, with relative ease. One of the main attractions of this particular hotel was the free wifi, which proved to be as reliable as an alcoholic at a wine-tasting. For one memorably frustrating time, Dad managed to spend two hours trying to send an e-mail with absolutely no success. Still, it did provide a chance to catch up on blog posts and check e-mails from home.

That evening, we took a walk around the lakes edge, to the sound of the call to prayer from the locals mosques, although some of the speakers sounded as though prayer was the only thing keeping them still functioning. Tomorrow we leave Ethiopia, which has been a real highlight of the trip so far, and enter into Sudan, no doubt after changing a punctured tyre or two in the morning.