Final Exploration

The final part of my trip consisted of a 20mins flight to the 'Camelot of Africa' and the discovery of the Siemen Mountains.....

Until the 16th century, the Emperors of Ethiopia usually had no fixed capital, instead living in tents as they moved around their realms while their family, bodyguard and retinue devoured surplus crops and cut down nearby trees for firewood. Until Emperor Fasiliadas in 1636 built his first castle there, and the 6 emperors after him followed.... thus making Gondar the old imperial capital of Ethiopia.

I thus headed off to Gondar to see the marvels of these still standing castles (though some were ruined by the English). I landed in a castle looking airport and was welcomed by some Ethiopians hoping to convince me to take a tour with them........ I agreed to hop into the car with one of them and drive me to my hotel, while listening to his reasons why he should give me a tour of Gondar.

I don't know whether I was too tired to walk around, or cause he was charming and I wouldn't have minded the company, or cause the price was extremely good..... but I accepted the offer of seeing the Gondar sights for the all inclusive price of 100Birr..

The guy was very nice.... he took me round the castles and explained the history in details, although in the middle of the city, while in the Royal Enclosure, you can actually close your eyes and imagine you were in that time surrounded by greenery and mountains you can barely see or hear anything of the city.

After that we headed off to Fasiliada's bath, which is a massive hole in the ground where apparently some say the Emperor used to have his baths, while others says Fasiliada constructed it so as to make a big baptism and convert all the people from Judaism to Christianity. This bath is apparently still used on one of the Ethiopian feast days. Its filled with water and blessed and all Ethiopians who attend get baptised, some for the first time, some again.

Then we headed off to Debre Berhan Church which is actually built in the shape of Noah's Arc, and which was believed to be built to host the Arc of the Covenant which is believed to be kept somewhere in Axum. The thing i liked most about this church is the ceiling painting of cherubs...... which is actually the nicest ceiling church painting i had ever seen!!!

This is where my guide turned out to be quite useless, after having driven me around, flirted a bit and did his best at the Royal Enclosure, he probably got over confident and asked if i was interested in chewing chat with him. When I refused the offer, he accepted, though didn't give up, about 15mins after he asked me if i was interested in watching a movie at his place........ which I also refused....... though he did not give up and finally invited me for wine at the hotel terrace after the tour, which I somehow also refused.

I think the guy could not deal with so many rejections in the span of a hour and sulked!!! He took me to the church cause i guess he had to then slouched on bench and refused to answer my questions...... which infuriated me, and once again my impatient temper came out...... I stormed out of the church gave him the money I owed him and walked back to the hotel!!! The guy didn't seem to be the type to give up very easily as the next day, after my trip to the Siemen he came knocking on my door asking me if i want to go for drinks with him on the hotel terrace!!!!!! - what a face!!!! He once again left empty handed!!!

The trip to the Siemen was great!! I had been wanting to go but thought it would be too expensive and boring to go on my own, but luckily for me I coincidentally met a French woman working for the UN in Burundi and on holiday in Ethiopia who invited me to go along with her. I immediately accepted the offer, and we headed for a day trip to the Siemen. The highlight of the trek on these mountains were the Gelada Baboons which are now becoming Endemic and can only be found on the Siemen mountains in Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The Gelada Baboons can be distinguished from baboons by the bright patch of skin on their chests. The patch is hourglass shaped, and on males, it is bright red and surrounded by white hair. On females, the patch is far less pronounced. However, when in heat, the female's patch will brighten, and a "necklace" of fluid-filled blisters forms on the patch. This is thought to be similar to the swelling on the buttocks during oestrus that is common to all baboons.

The trip ended in a little ethiopian picnic enjoying the panoramic view of the mountains.

On the way back we then managed to convice our driver to go on a detour and take us to the Felasha village, also known as Beta Israel (House of Israel). The word Felasha means 'exiles' or 'strangers' and are the Jews of Ethiopian origin. After the rise of Christianity in Ethiopia in the fourth century, the Jews who refused to convert were persecuted and withdrew to the mountainous Gondar region where they made their homes for more than 2000 years. Those who didn't manage to go to Israel with the Operation Moses in 1985, and later the Operation Solomon now live in this little village still practicing Judaism and working on pottery as a living......

My trip finally ended with a 2hr flight back to Addis, a good meal at Castelli's with Sjoerd and Jens, a nice dinner with friends on Friday night followed by a couple of hours in Memo, and finally a 3hr flight back to Cairo.

My Ethiopia experience was great, I learnt a lot, both about a country, job as well as about myself...... I can't wait to go back to Ethiopia in a couple of years.......