The students had final exams and then a semester break so we
had two weeks of vacation! We headed to Axum and Lallibela the first week. Axum
was nice, a little cleaner than Gondar. I enjoyed visiting the market there and
seeing that they had organized rows of vendors and covered stalls. It seemed
much bigger than Gondar’s market although we were there on an off day and were
able to walk around with much ease. I am happy to have seen Axum but I would
not return. It was incredibly overpriced, priced for tourists, and our guide
was uninformative and hard to understand. We traveled around town the first day
and took a drive out to Debre Damo Monastery the second. Monastery’s are
typically only for men but I was happy to join for the ride. It was neat to see
the place where the Italians tried to invade, incredibly mountainous and not
rolling hills but steep, pointy mountains. When I asked how the Ethiopian’s
fought and with what, our guide said, they had shields and kept the Italian’s
from coming any further. Interesting, I have to remember to look that up. Also,
the homes were built from stone. They looked sturdy and actually very
beautiful. Surrounded by stone fencing, they were sometimes more than one story
with windows framed in wood. I wondered aloud if it was because of the rocky
terrain making stone an easily accessible material, if the rains were worse in
the area, thus the need for sturdier housing or if the area simply had more
money. Our guard didn’t understand so I don’t have the answer to that, add that
to the list of things I need to look up.
On to Lallibela. We stayed at a wonderful hotel for $67 a
night, the Tukul Lodge. We had our own tukul and it was clean – I’d say $67 is
a fair price for clean sheets. We ate at the Ben Abebe restaurant owned by a
Scottish woman and Ethiopian man. The view was amazing. It’s this structure at
the end of the main road, past the heart of town, that juts out over a cliff
and gives you spectacular views of the valley and surrounding mountains. Looks
like something out of a Dr. Seuss book but a lot less colorful, would fare
pretty well at a trippy place like Burning Man. We had a great guide here who
took us to all of the churches. The entrance fee has been raised from 350 ETB
to $50. Absurd. We paid, we saw everything and we enjoyed walking from
underground church to cave. The second day we joined a friendly couple we had
met in the airport for an 1.5 hour ride outside the town. We hiked a few meters
up (we were at about 9,000 feet. Totally fair to blame my shortness of breath
on that) to discover a monastery built into a cave. I was allowed in this time
and it was a pretty neat structure. Overall, I enjoyed our time in Lallibela
very much.
We had to return to Gondar to greet guests from the Jewish
Federation of New York. We had a great time with them. I met a man from
Bethesda who knew my team at KFI pretty well, small world. We joined a woman at
the dedication of a school and well that she and her son raised funds for with
their B’Nai Mitzvah. It was a great day, very moving to see her reaction at the
site. Although she wrote the check to provide shelter, better education and
water to a village, she was the one who gained the most from the visit.
Sidelined by an intense dust storm blanketing the region, we
had to delay our trip to Addis. We arrived at the airport, so excited to get
out of town and enjoy the capitol city for an extended period of time. The
flight was delayed due to low visibility. Max and I actually marveled as the
mountains in the distance slowly disappeared behind this thick cloud of dust
and sand. We were hoping we were in for some rain! Instead, we got an extra
night in Gondar. We were able to
push our hotel reservation back a night without penalty and returned to the
airport the following morning at 7am. The skies didn’t let up, it looked
exactly the same, but our only plan was Addis. The mission from the Federation
was scheduled to be on the same flight out. The only issue was that they were
catching a connecting flight that same evening. As they boarded 2 small buses
we waved goodbye as they set out for a 14 hour ride. Invite or not, we were not
interested. Our extra day in Gondar was entertained with an 800 birr (about
$48) bottle of Absolut Vodka we discovered in the Piazza. We found some bubbly
water and limes, talk about lemonade out of lemons!
