We began our Christmas travels in Axum, a major trading centre of the ancient world from at least the 1st Century AD until its decline in the 7th Century. As a sign of their wealth and importance the Axumite monarchs constructed the largest stelae ever seen, which are mostly still standing.
It has two other major claims to fame. The first is that the Queen of Sheba is alleged (by Ethiopians at least) to have been an Axumite monarch, whose son Menelik was fathered by King Solomon. We went to see the Queen of Sheba's palace and can testify that she had good digs. The second is that the Ark of the Covenant is hidden in a Church in Axum; however, as women are not allowed to enter the Church we didn't get a peek.
The history was fascinating, but for us being in a new country with different food, spices and language was just as fun. Anyone who has met Ed and I for more than five minutes will know that we are slightly obsessed by food and, much as we love Kenya, cuisine is not its strength. Not that you don't get good Kenyan food, but it tends to be overly starchy and a bit bland for our tastes.
Ethiopian food, in contrast, is spicy and delicious: from chick pea puree with garlic and rich red stews to thick honey. A particular favourite breakfast discovery was "special fool", a spicy bean or lentil stew served with fresh chili, egg and natural yoghurt, scooped up with hunks of fresh bread. Yum. Walking around towns we often saw sweet peppers drying in the sun; they are then ground to make a spice called berber, which is sprinkled liberally on pretty much everything for a little extra kick.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church observes many fasting days where no food is to be consumed before 3pm, and then only vegan food is allowed. Luckily "fasting food" is delicious, with spiced lentils and pickled vegetables. It's also beautifully presented.
So our first few days were a real sensory immersion for our taste buds. We were also super excited to catch up with our Canadian buddy Heather and to meet her friend from home, Kaya. There was at least as much eating and beer/ coffee drinking as there was sight seeing.
The adventure really got going with our first bus journey. Our goal was Gonder, a mere 350km South but a day and half bus journey on Ethiopia's mountainous roads. Our first leg took just over an hour to a random town called Shire. Then we had to get up at 5am and try to muscle our way onto the once-a-day over-subscribed bus leaving at dawn. Our fail was epic, obviously: you can take the Brit out of Britain but the queueing reflex dies hard.
We finally managed to find our way onto a mini-bus at about 8am and thus began a journey that would take fourteen hours, involve countless hairpin bends, three blown tires, three changes of air filter (i.e. banging the dust out on the side of the road watched by curious children) and some near-misses with vomiting fellow passengers. Luckily the scenery was jaw-dropping.
I did have my heart in my mouth for about ten of the fourteen hours though. We were very, very high, on dirt roads with no crash barriers and I had my eyes resolutely clamped shut for much of our journey. We arrived in Gonder well after dark and, of course, borderline hysterical from so much time on a bus (Heather and Kaya entertained themselves on the last part of our journey by occasionally shouting "shifta!" - meaning bandit - and pointing out the window then laughing manically).
The next day sanity resumed and we went to see the site Gonder is famous for: it's castles. These date from around the 17th Century and chart a series of poisonings, Machiavellian plottings and royal manouvreings that would have kept Shakespeare in material for years.
Our journey had made us seriously reconsider the whole concept of buses, so we made the (perhaps random?) decision to take the next leg of journey by ferry across Lake Tana. So firstly we traveled a couple of hours to Gorgora, a village on the edge of the lake. We stayed at a blissfully peaceful place called Tim and Kim's, run by a Dutch couple. We swam in the lake, patted their super-cute dogs and ate pancakes. Lush.
The next morning it was another early start as we began our ferry journey.
The ferry was a bit of a rust bucket and we were the only "farenji" (foreigners) on board, so we provided the main entertainment for the Ethiopians, crew, goats and chickens on our two day journey, all of whom stared at us pretty much solidly the entire time. We docked at small villages to pick up passengers and cargo on the way and each time we stepped off the boat were surrounded by crowds of 20-30 kids all shouting, "You! You! You! You! etc" ad infinitum, occassionally interspersed with demands for money or attempts to practice their English. Hilarious if somewhat overwhelming.
We spent the night in a tiny village called Konzula in very basic accommodation that cost £1 a night and were back on the ferry at dawn for the second leg of our journey. Arriving in Bahir Dar that afternoon felt like we'd landed in a shiny metropolis. Here we were joined by our friend Sally who had taken the bus from Gonder, which only took her only three hours. Still, we had an adventure, right? Hmmm.
Next up was our last bus trip of the holidays: leaving our hotel at 4.30am we were relieved to find that this time the bus had space for us and, even better, no one vomited on this journey. Win! We were headed to Lalibela, a centre of enormous religious importance in Ethiopia due to its collection of rock-hewn monolithic Churches, built from around the 11th Century. As you can see below, they are constructed by digging into the rock bed, then excavating inside to create a building:
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is one of the most ancient branches of Christianity and links to Syria. The Churches at Lalibela encapture this ancientness and are truly incredible. They are still very much working Churches too, with monks, nuns and a regualr congregation.
There are 11 Churches in Lalibela that we visited mainly on Christmas day (which ended, btw, with our Canadian friends teaching Ethiopians how to line dance - it was one of our more random Christmases). We also headed out of the town to one of the hilltop monasteries by mule. Here's one of the mules and his guide:
We also discovered a recently-opened restaurant in Lalibela called Ben Abeba, which was architecturally bonkers and run by a nice Scottish lady. The views over the surrounding mountains were stunning.
It was at Ben Abeba that we got to take part in an injera-making demonstration. Injera is a flat, spongy, sour bread and Ethiopians eat a lot of it. It's made from a special wheat called Tef and acts as plate, spoon and carbohydrate in most Ethiopian meals. For breakfast people even eat soggy injera inside normal injera. The whole nation is obsessed. Hence we felt the need to discover the trick. First leave your flour and water to ferment for three days; then light your fire and heat your special injera pan, dribble the dough, then cover with a lid made from cow dung (yes, really).
The last stop on our trip was Addis Ababa for New Years. Addis is a fun, modern city; a jumble of communist architecture (from the time of the Derg), orthodox Churches, chic Ethiopian women in skinny jeans and Amharigna-pop-music. Our sight-seeing included a visit to the Red Terror museum (as many as a 100,000 people were killed under the Derg), a very random session at a natural hot spring spa (looked like a Soviet era hospital, involved being hosed down naked by an old lady who didn't speak English) and substantial beer consumption. Our New Years Eve saw us at an Ethiopian bar, an Indian curry house, a German beer garden (where we were the only people to sing Auld Lang Syne) and finally an expat-tastic club.
And suddenly there we were at the last day of our holiday, on 1 January 2012, with hangovers, grumbling about going back to work. Some things never change right? The main thing we discovered from our trip to Ethiopia was that making generalisations about any continent - whether Europe, Asia or Africa - is always risky. Ethiopia is nothing like it's stereotype: it is culturally richer, more diverse and more complicated than Live Aid's legacy would suggest. The next time you hear someone say "The thing about Africa is..." please mention Ethiopia to them.
