Friday, December 4th - Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

This morning we were up and had breakfast and were ready for a day's touring.  I slept well but I had a lot of mosquitos in my room.  Luckily the mosquito net was in place so once I got inside it was okay.  Randy left his window open all night and said he didn't have any mosquitos.  It really just doesn't seem fair that they are always after me.

We met in the lobby at 8:30 for our tour of Lake Tana and its many monasteries.  The first part of our tour involved a tuk-tuk ride from the hotel to the dock. It was an amazingly comfortable ride and not at all like in other countries.  There are lots of these three-wheeled vehicles throughout the town so they are everywhere, convenient and cheap.  You can get three passengers in the back quite comfortably so they are a good means of transportation.

The dock was only about a 10-15 minute walk away.  It was quite busy when we arrived with lots of tuk-tuks, vans, buses and people standing around.  There is a small dock at the end where the bigger bots are, and by bigger I simply mean they might have two levels and could carry 30-40 people for an excursion on the lake.  There were cement steps down to the smaller tour boats.  We were taking one of those and there were 12 of us sitting on benches across from each other with little room between.  Ours had very comfortable cushioning on the seat and back of the bench so it was a comfortable ride.  I sat right at the front of the boat so the motor didn't even seem too loud.  It wasn't a fast trip but it was a smooth one.  Everyone suggested going out in the morning, not the afternoon, as the lake was calmer and it was indeed very calm.

We visited four islands and four monasteries.  Had we paid about five times more we could have had a private tour and visited 7 islands and monasteries.  Besides the money, by about the third monastery we were glad we had gone for the group tour because we had seen about all we wanted to see.  I went into all four just because I was there and yes, they all had their own entrance fee so each one cost money. 

The monasteries are from the 12th to 14th century and I think one of the guides tried to tell us the 9th century.  They al look the same structure wise with a large roof over the top, a balcony or small covered walking/sitting area around the exterior, another walking/praying area around the inside and a centre section where the "holy of holies" is kept, which in most cases is just for the priests.  In the oldest one, the first one we saw, the walls are all plain so you simply see the old wooden structure and the carvings or simple drawings in some places.  To me it was the most "oldly" authentic.

Most of the others had very bright colourful paintings all over the interior walls.  All depicted scenes from the Bible and most were quite large.  I could understand some of them but not others.  They said they were authentic but very few looked like they were that old.  At the very least they must have been restored but they said no, although I'm not sure they really understood English that well.  The paintings were defintely It is some kind of a festival or special holiday for some of the people but not everyone.  There were lots of pilgrims to some of the churches and there were priests at each one to bless the pilgrims as they arrived.  The blessings were right beside the ticket sellers where we were paying our entrance fees so it was an interesting mix.  We of course were in our touring clothes so definitely nothing fancy.  They were dressed in their traditional dress, especially the women who had a lot of white draped over their heads and around them.  They looked very, very nice although to our way of thinking the layers of dress and wrap certainly didn't seem practical for climbing up and down the hillsides on rock paths.

The monasteries are all on islands in Lake Tana and the boats of course dock at water level.  All of the monasteries are at the top so you have to walk up a stone and dirt path to get to them.  In one case they actually had wide cement steps and a railing.   We did not have to walk very far.  I think .3 km was the farthest, but on the bigger islands there were two or three monasteries or churches and they were sometimes 2-3 km apart.  Some of the pilgrims stopped at the one church we were at but then walked past so they were obviously going to the next church on foot.  We took the boat.

At some point in our tour we went to the outlet where the Blue Nile starts.  Our driver didn't point it out but we were pretty sure when we had gone by it.  It's a long journey but the Blue Nile becomes the Nile and eventually empties into the Mediterranean many thousands of kilometres to the north.  They obviously have a lot more rain here than in other parts of Ethiopia as the vegetation is very green and lush and thick like a rain forest.  Lake Tana is the largest lake in Africa and when you are on it you sometimes cannot see the shoreline over half of the horizon.   It seems like a great lake to start the Nile River and the trip to the Mediterranean.  It's definitely not a crystal clear blue or green lake.  Rather it is a dirty brown colour but still very nice.  We only saw a couple of young local boys swimming in but we did see a lot of single fishermen in their boats.  These were not dugouts like in Malawi but seemed to be made of bamboo or something very light and just tied together.  I never saw any up close so it's hard to say.

Speaking of fish, that's what I had for lunch today and last night for dinner.  They said it was tilapia but it seemed really small for that.  However, it was delicious.  We didn't intend to eat all of our meals at the hotel.  We generally like to go out to other restaurants and see what is available.  However, last night after our trip to the falls we were so late getting back and so hungry that we ate at the hotel.  Today after our boat tour, no one was there to pick us up at the dock.  It was 2 p.m. and we were hungry so we tried some spots around the dock but they all seemed to be for drinks and not food so we ended up walking back to the hotel and having lunch there again.

Randy wanted to go for a walk and he wanted to see the first bridge on the Nile.  We also had to go get bus tickets so after lunch that was our agenda.  However, we got caught again by someone with a great deal for us.  You can't even make it through the lobby without someone trying to give you some great deal, and somehow they always seem to know exactly what you're looking for.  Maybe they have people stationed around the dining room listening to conversations or something.  I don't know but it never ceases to amaze me.  They pretend to be hotel employees and the real hotel employees seem to go along with this even though the husslers are not employees at all.  Anyway, this guy could solve our bus problems and save us a trip to the bus station and then he would help us get a good deal on a tuk-tuk to the palace and look out with a stop at the bridge on the way back.  The latter seemed like a good plan so we went for that.  Eventually we also agreed to the van ride to Gondar.  He had a tour van that had to get to Gondar to pick up a tour there and go to Axum but the van was going up empty so it was a win-win situation for both parties.  Well, that wasn't exactly the case but I'll talk more about that in tomorrow's blog where we actually had our van ride.

As for the tuk-tuk, it was out back waiting for us and the driver was very nice.  He drove us up to the palace and pointed out some of the sights to us on the way.  At the place we just looked in through the gates and there really wasn't anything spectacular to see.  There was a building but that was about it.  We couldn't take pictures without paying the armed guards and we weren't about to do that so no pictures were taken.  However, just at the end of the street there was a lookout that had a fantastic view of the Blue Nile, the town and the surrounding countryside so from that perspective the trip was definitely worth it.

On the way there we passed a tall white memorial that was quite impressive.  It was too the heroes of the local war or revolution but I don't remember the exact name or date.  There was also a lot of military equipment (tanks, helicopters, etc.) on display in the outdoor museum beside the memorial.  We did not stop but it was need to see.

We did stop at the one end of the bridge as Randy and I were going to walk across the bridge, take some pictures and then meet the driver on the other end.  We did that and everything was fine until we got across.  Randy, who was in front of me, was suddenly crossing the road to the police/guard standing there.  I at first thought he was just going to the other side to take some pictures so I just kept going.  Then I realized he was talking to the police/guard.   I guess I was supposed to join him but I didn't.  Apparently you can take pictures from the bridge but not of the bridge.  We aren't too sure why, especially since just a block away they have all their military equipment on display, but that's the rule.  Randy had to show him all of the pictures he had taken and prove they were just of the scenery and not the bridge.  Eventually the police/guard let him go and he came back to the tuk-tuk with his camera and told us the story.  When we reviewed my pictures he decided I probably did have a couple that wouldn't pass the test but I kept them anyway.  They were just pictures looking at scenery, such as the memorial, but they were looking at the other side of the bridge so in fact some of the bridge railing was included in the picture.

We got back to the hotel and Randy went for a walk around the town to try and find an ATM and some cigarettes.  I decided just to do some laundry and some computer work if the internet was working.  We were more often without power than not in this place and the internet, even if it was working, was really bad - especially on my iPad.  Randy had much better luck with his computer.  I probably did some blogging but I'm not really sure.

We had dinner at the hotel again.  On the menu they had fillet mangoes steak with mushroom sauce, which they said really should be fillet mignon so we decided to try it. It was more like a tough pound steak in a mushroom sauce but it was tasty.  After dinner we did some computer work at the table but I had to get to my room and under my net because the mosquitos were getting to me.  Hopefully there won't be as many mosquitos in other places!!!