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Category Archives: Amba

A Biblical Land – opening up again

Old Ethiopian image of the Queen of Sheba mounted and armed

The Queen of Sheba on horseback

As Ethiopia begins to open up after two years of restrictions on travel at first due to COVID 19 and then due to a spreading conflict, it maybe time to ponder what makes Ethiopia a unique travel destination and magical place to visit, and to start looking at the you can visit.

Ethiopia – a Biblical Land!

Statue of Emperor Tewedros in Gondar

Statue of Emperor Tewedros

Ethiopia conjures up many images in the mind of the would be traveller.  Images that come from characters from  Ethiopia’s rich history of Emperors, of the Queen of Sheba and of the mysterious Prester John; also geographical images: of the River Nile, the Rift Valley, of high mountains and deep gorges and hot deserts; and this mixed in with images from the 70’s & 80’s of famines and wars. Added to these are more recent images, perhaps garnered from TV documentaries that show the unique wildlife of the Ethiopian highlands:

 

Geladas on the escarpments

Male Gelada baboons running by the escarpment

Gelada Baboons (or monkeys as scientists now like to call them) scrambling around on precipitous cliffs flashing their crimson gums and eye lids; and the Ethiopian wolf – the world’s rarest in the dog family, interacting with touching tenderness with their pack as they eke out their lives in the Afro-alpine moorlands.

Ethiopian Wolves in Bale (Photo Martin Harvey)

Many have used the term ‘Biblical’ to describe what they see in Ethiopia, maybe inspired by the immense landscape, or the people often wrapped in cotton shawls (gabis), or by herds of cattle, camels, sheep and or goats roaming the open land.  You certainly sense the huge and ancient human and physical landscape that both stretches away in front of you and goes back into the mists of time.

Sebreatsemu Giyorgis in Lalibela - tabots return to the church

Tabots return to Giyorgis church Lalibela

For me however it is more about how the Orthodox Christian highlands are so focused on the church, the saints days and holidays and the scriptures – all of which are referred to as the Bible. The Church calendar dictates the days you can plough, thresh and harvest, and the days you can’t. There are the days to gather round the church and members of the community compete to be the one responsible for providing the locally brewed beer.  Weddings are set according to this calendar too. Churches are often built on top of cliffs,

Zuramba church in Gayint

Zuramba church, built on top of a volcanic plug

surrounded by unspoiled forest giving you an idea of how wooded the landscape could have been a thousand years ago. Around the older established churches – monasteries – are clusters of huts where students learning the age old chants also learn the texts and debate their meaning.  Some of these monasteries have older students who become specialists in the subjects taught at that location.

Priest holds bible - Mariam Buzuhan

Priest displays a bible

These same churches are home to ancient Bibles and religious scriptures, some far older than anything emanating from Europe. Scholars seek to study these texts to see some of the earliest Christian writings.  Some, like the book of Enoch, are not found in the west and yet illuminate the early thinking of the church. Along with these ancient texts are beautiful processional crosses and other treasures that can take your breath away if you are fortunate enough to be shown them.

Visitors travelling through Ethiopia will generally only scratch the surface of this biblical land. But the experiences, visual as well as audible, will leave an indelible mark on them, often ensuring that these visitors return again to see more. Whether they see a church on an Amba (flat mountain top), or a Tabot processing through town or country side, or bands of

Tabots & incense at Senay Mikael festival

pilgrims heading to a special celebration, they will sense something very ‘other’ about Ethiopia. It is something that at once brings echos that resonate with the traveller’s generational past, a time when his/her forebears lives went in a rhythm with the church, and lived intimately with crops and livestock interwoven into their lives. A time before mechanisation and a time when life was lived as a community.  In this way travelling in Ethiopia, particularly into the countryside,  is also a travel through a time warp, giving a sense of what the modern world has lost in its rapid advances over the last few centuries. Something about this touches the soul of the traveler to Ethiopia and lights up a place inside that was hidden.

Each week now, more countries around the world are dropping all COVID related travel requirements. For travel to Ethiopia there is only a requirement for a negative PCR test taken within 5 days of arrival in Addis. For re-entry to most of the rest of the word there maybe a PCR test required, but only for unvaccinated travellers.

In addition the UK Government’s travel advice has moved to put much of the country in green (OK to travel).  With the conflict having become much reduced and the Ethiopian parliament recently repealing the national State of Emergency, it is anticipated that places such as Gondar and Lalibela (which are now open for business) will move from Amber to Green listing in the coming weeks.

Ethiopia badly needs tourism to restart. Two years without income has bought most individuals that have relied on tourism for their livelihood local economy to their knees. Its not just guides and hotel workers, but all the others whose their sell goods and services to the tourism industry. Ethiopia so looks forward to welcoming visitors back in the coming months. Contact us at Tesfa Tours to make suggestions based upon your preferences

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Driving the Backroads of Ethiopia – The Ambas

Day 3. Sat 29 September 2018

View from the air of some of the guesthouses on Mekdela

Arial view of some of the guesthouses on Mekdela

Mekdela to Gishen Mariam

I woke up suffering. The tukul was surrounded by tall pretty grasses going to seed, which had set off my hay fever. I popped a pill, took the eye drops and decided to fly the drone before the wind picked up. I got a few good photos and then one bad crash. Repairs now needed!

Sevastapol canon on Mekdela

Dawit and I with Sevastopol.

We set off early, no tea or breakfast possible, to the north end of the Amba to the big gun – or mortar – that was called Sevastapol. This short stumpy cannon weighing some 6-8 tons was dragged from its

foundation in Gafat (near Debre Tabor) to Mekdela (several hundred km) an epic feat in itself. It was fired once before it cracked.

 

It now or stands sadly surrounded by a corrugated fence. There is a smaller cannon too on the western side of Mekdela it’s of similar design just maybe 1/4 the size.

 

Statue of Tewedros in Tenta

Looking over the gorges to the south you had to wonder on the stupidity of Victorian Britain, to send an army to punish the Ethiopian ruler for kidnapping a British Consul and a few missionaries.

 

On 13th April 1968 Atse (to use his Ethiopian title) Tewedros shot himself with a pistol sent as a gift from Queen Victoria. This swiftly ended the campaign led by General Napier; but at what cost and with nothing strategic achieved? ?

 

Hopefully the community can up the service level and get more visitors. I will be sending intrepid tourists there as its a great place for people to visit.

Bashalo river gorge

We had a much needed brunch when we dropped our team in Adjbar. Never has a sweet macchiato tasted sooo good. I needed two with the ubiquitous tibs, made more breakfast like by adding scrambled egg.

The road to Gishen took us down into the Bashalo river, locally called the Tukur Abay (Black Nile). A deep gorge with a fast flowing river.

We drove for a lovely 10 minutes on smooth asphalt before turning off to Gishen on a rough dirt road. Someway up we came to a snaking line of vehicles. Wow!

 

Traffic queue on road to Gishen

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Pilgrims were walking up with me, but none to go up & down as I was.  I passed an old friend, I passed people from Addis and Dessie, I passed diaspora Ethiopians with an American accent. In fact I passed tens of thousands of Ethiopians, all amazed at my being there and heading up alone.

Pilgrims pass priest collecting donations

There were stalls beside the road selling all kinds of refreshments and groups of priests with megaphones, crosses and icons looking for donations. There were mule men calling out for passers by to hire their mules, and the odd Bahaj (tuktuk) trying to tour for business.

The line of vehicles went on and on. Local policemen, I guess drafted in from nearby towns, tried to make sense of it all. Slowly smaller vehicles were shunted up, and on a few stretches of steep road where bigger vehicles had got stuck, one by one all vehicles were moved up. A few smart 4WD vehicles found spots to park off the road and set up camp.

Line of buses under Gishen Amba

As I got nearer to the top there were a few steep short cuts that pilgrims climbed up to avoid the road, and I thought I was there. The top of the Amba seemed some 50 m above me. There was a field like car park jammed with every kind of vehicle, and numerous stalls. I noted cactus fruit – Beles- for sale but I pushed on. It had taken me about 90 minutes already; and I had to get back to the Landy and drive on to Lalibela. To my surprise the snake of vehicles continued and someway on a snaking line of walking pilgrims followed a parallel footpath just above the road below the Amba’s top. I walked in as briskly as I could, overtaking the pilgrims while attendants from the church encouraged the walkers to ululate.

Another mass of parked buses beneath Mekdela

 

I could see the line of vehicles ended in another car park area, and at the same time the line of on foot pilgrims was backing up by a steep ascent. Without a queue I was 5 minutes from the top, but with this queue it could take half an hour or more and there was no way to get back down.

Crowds massed on narrow paths

I had to give up and turn round. It started raining at that point. I feared for the whole event if it the road and paths became muddy.

On my way down I tried to calculate

Atse Tewedros stickers and national flags

the vehicle numbers. I guessed at least 3 thousand. With that there would be over 100,000 pilgrims trying to pack into the Amba?!

On my way down I some friends but in the whole time I didn’t see any non Ethiopians. I reached Dawit; he’d cleverly kept himself from being blocked in. It was 4pm, I’d walked for some 3 hours. So the queue must have been at least a 7km queue!

We set off back down to the Bashilo river, passing many more pilgrims on foot and

The Jitta Gorge

in vehicles. The next night was the eve of the Mariam festival when everyone would want to be on the Amba, so goodness knows how many more we’re on their way!

After a few minutes of lovely asphalt we turned north up out of the river valley and snaked our way up to over 3,000 meters and Wegel Tena. It was late in the day and we still had another gorge to cross so we pushed on and down into the Jitta gorge, and up in the fading light to Wadla woreda and the ‘town’ of Kon. It was some of the worst road. Rough, rutted and crenelated! From Kon it was a short distance to the crossroads town of Gashena. Here the Lalibela road meets the east west road that links Weldiya with Werota, a small town on the shores of Lake Tana between Gondar and Bahir Dar. I knew the place well as it’s the centre of the Tesfa Community trekking area in Meket but the road to Lalibela was in the process of being asphalted. Some bits were a mess, other bits smooth tarmac. We reached Lalibela just before 8pm, and after securing our rooms I headed to Ben Abeba to meet my clients who’d eaten dinner there. Several cold beers and a shepherds pie later I felt revived, and ready for the next days road trip.

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The Backroads in Ethiopia – Wer Illu to Mekdela (28 Sept 18)

Mekdela Amba.

Today started and ended in the rich historical annals is Ethiopia. In the sky above as I write Mars looms big and red near the sting in the tail of Scorpio. The Milky Way and trillions of visible stars light up the moonless landscape. I’m writing from Mekdela Amba, where the colourful reign of Emperor Tewedros came to a tragic and dramatic end rather like a shooting star.

The day started in Wer Illu, a Shoan town where the young Menelik, Negus (king) of Shoa, based himself in the 1870s while he waged campaigns that expanded the lands he ruled to the south, west and east. His power grew to the extent that upon Emperor Yohannes’ death he was easily able to claim the Imperial crown. It’s interesting to note that Menelik’s father was killed in battle by Tewedros and he himself was imprisoned on Mekdela, yet said Tewedros treated him like a son (but he still had to escape the fortress Amba!)

Early this morning in Wer Illu I walked around Menelik’s compound: a number of old stone buildings surrounded by a meter thick wall that took the high ground above the town with great views over the Wonchit gorge. One pillar is curiously signed as guest house with seating recently put around it.

I also visited Giyorgis church. I particularly liked the stone gatehouse. The church was closed so I didn’t see inside. Around the church were a number of old houses, probably once belonging to big families, now in poor shape. But the town had a feel to it with a number of old buildings with balconies, probably 150 years old.

Dawit had managed to find a mechanic who helped to fix the power steering oil leak. So we saved the pump from fatal damage and our arms from exhaustion. He also secured the fix on the engine oil leak, and we were ready to go.

It was a stunning drive from North Shoa to South Wollo. We saw large troops Geladas near the gorges that were all around at the start. Shoan houses with compound walls and fancy gate houses gave way to conical thatched cottages as we reached the highlands of South Wollo, with roofs reaching the ground to protect from the bitter cold.

We were climbing all the time in altitude. Wer Ilu was around 2,900 m but we climbed to well over 3,500 passing an amazing volcanic plug. Fields of Meskal daisies made it even more scenic.

We hit the ‘main road’ coming west from Dessie and enjoyed some 30km of asphalt before taking the road north to Adjbar and Tenta.
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It was along this road that we saw our first pilgrims to Gishen Mariam going on foot.

After lunch in Adjbar we picked up our Mekdela guide Getachew and two cooks and set off first to Tenta 10km to the north and then along a 17km road to Mekdela.

The road was pretty good. A bit steep in places, but just short of Mekdela the road was blocked by a rock slide.

I had no idea that there was a dirt road to the top of the Amba. Anyway we abandoned the Landy and walked the last few km to the top. The government have facilitated the construction of some 7 guesthouses is 3 clusters. Drone view of Mekdela Amba from east side

View from drone, guesthouses in bottom left, looming south along east side of Amba

It’s a bit over the top as we gathered they had 15 visitors last year. Due to the lack of ‘uptake’ there had been a decline the state of the buildings. Some are not in use. The toilet by our guesthouse had such a small hole in it that it was unusable. But the long drop at the ‘northern’ guest house was fine. The cooks bought some supplies: bread, rice, oil and onion. So I added veggies and Shiro. We had a delicious dinner: rice, Shiro & al dente veggies. I’m not sure what they planned to feed us. But no tea, coffee, bottled drinks or breakfast.

We explored the southern end of the Amba where Menelik had his buildings. His ‘suicide’ place was clearly marked, and the remains of the prison, store and Medhan Alem church (looted and destroyed by the British ?). We also saw Tewedros’ burial place, a quite glade of trees and a concrete stone. A very simple place and somewhat moving. At the southern end, beyond a water catchment) amusingly called Tewedros’ swimming pool) is Mariam church with a pretty wood around it,and a brightly painted church.

Later I tried to fly my drone of the western edge. I got a few photos despite the wind before I crash landed ?.

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