Sunday, December 6th - Gondar, Ethiopia

There was definitely no sleeping in this morning with the nearby church service blasting over the loud speaker.  I did manage to relax until 7 though while uploading pictures - a very slow process.

I joined Randy downstairs at an outdoor table for breakfast but I just had toast and tea as I didn't want to challenge my stomach too much, even though I'd had no problems through the night so everything should be fine now.  Rice for lunch and bananas and buns for dinner completed my eating for the day.

Around 9 a.m. we got ready and walked down to the castle compound.  There is probably a much more appropriate name for it but that's the best I can do as the internet is now just crawling along and I can't get online to find any specific details.  Regardless of what it is called, it's quite an amazing complex.  Gondar is referred to as the Camelot of Africa and that is because of the fact that  within the compound there were 12 beautiful medieval castles and some of them look like they could be right out of Camelot.

Back in the early 17th century (1632), King Fasil or Fasilides was the first king to build his castle in the compound in Gondar.  At that time Gondar was the capital of Ethiopia.  Each successive king lived within the compound but built his own castle.  So within the one fortified wall (actually there appear to be several walls in some places) 12 castles and their related buildings were built.  The latest one I saw a sign for said the king's reign ended in a 1755, so just over 150 years of history all in one place.

Some of the castles are very complete and really do look like something out of Camelot.  Others are a bit more run down and still others are just ruins.  We did not hire a guide because we just wanted to wander at our own pace, which we did for about two hours.  The more complete (and stable) castles you can go into and see the size and shape of the rooms.  All are made of stone so quite sturdy, but several of  them are now in need of support beams and didn't look all that sturdy.  The fortification wall around them was still intact and all of the high rounded towers and gates also still looked good.

King Fasil's castle, the earliest one, seems to be in the best shape and it is certainly the one that they use on all their posters and signs.  It is quite beautiful from the outside and its treed setting.  It is also one you can wander round on the inside.  It is a two-storey square structure with higher domed round towers at each corner and a further two-storey square tower in the one corner with the flag poles above.  We assumed this was both the watch tower and the living quarters for the royals.  There are high arched windows and doors and balconies around the upper floors.  The entrance is on the second floor up a long outdoor stone stairway through a couple of stone arches.  The rooms on that floor are large and open with niches in the wall and large arched doorways between the main rooms and smaller doors into the corner tower areas.  The views from the windows are fantastic as they look over the fortification wall and over the city and surrounding country side so the King and his men would have had a great view of what was happening around them.  Now the view includes a few other castles and some ruins so not quite as nice.

King Fasil's Archives was another castle on the complex.  I'm not sure if he built that one but the date was the same.  There were ruins of walls behind Fasil's castle which we took to be a church and a garden and other out buildings.  In one part of the complex there were stables for horses and even a couple of lion cages.  There were walkways throughout the complex and stairs leading up to other levels or down to lower levels.  Some of the buildings were three to four storeys high and unless they were labelled as someone's castle we really had no idea what we were looking at.  Most of the interior rooms had heavy wooden ceilings and beams and there were some with wood above the doors and windows.  Otherwise they were all brick and stone.  In some cases you could see some faint painting on the walls but generally they were just bare.

Walking around the grounds there were large heavy double stone archways which we couldn't decide if they were the pathways for the people and horses to go under of part of a bridge to get over a moat with the water below.  The bridge theory seemed less probable as there really was no where to go on either end but who knows.  I guess the guides would have but we were too cheap to hire one of them and besides, they probably would have stuck with just the main sights and not gone off the beaten path where we found some of these things.  Some of the other castles were long and narrow and some seemed almost curved at the ends.  Some were smaller and some were larger, and some seemed to have inner courtyards while most did not.  All had the typical roof shapes with higher parts to protect the soldiers and lower parts.  I never know what to call this but it kind of looks like teeth with every other one missing so I'm sure you know what it means.  Only one castle had something different and it had a stone railing that was more decorative than protective.   Most of the castles had open windows so you could see right through in many cases and the blue sky made that look very impressive.  A few had glass in the windows, which was a totally different view.  While it made them look more "homey" it didn't really add to their character.

From the castles we walked back to the hotel and had some lunch.  After lunch we were going to head to Fasilides Baths, which was on the same ticket as the castes but was in a different location.  However, while we were sitting on the patio eating lunch it started to rain.  It turned into quite a thunderstorm so we decided to have a rest first and head to the baths later.  While we sat at lunch, or at breakfast, we could watch the action on the street.  There were of course lots of pedestrians coming and going, some slowly and some rushing.  There were tuk-tuks, taxis, buses, vans and trucks of course but there were also herds of cattle, donkeys, sheep and goats.  When it started to rain the two shepherds ran to our patio to get out of the rain and the sheep just sat or stood quietly on the side of the road waiting for their guides to tell them to move on again.

After a rest break we headed out again.  It was still cloudy and cool but it wasn't raining.  We walked to the corner and caught a tuk-tuk to the Fasilides Baths.  We didn't really know what to expect but it turned out to be a large deep swimming pool with a small castle-like building in the centre.  The bottom floor of the castle was just pillars and open arches for the water to flow under.  The upper floors were living quarters.  Some folks say this was the King's summer home and others day it was more of a ceremonial place.  In later years it became more religious and ceremonial with the people all sitting around the sides of the pool dressed in white and the priest sprinkling water from the pool on them.  Whatever it's purpose, it is quite impressive.  It is a really large deep pool with wide walkways around all sides.  At one end there is a bridge over to the castle or centre structure and at the other end there was a raised platform on the walkway and behind it a large wooden set of bleachers so a lot of people could be accommodated.  The castle in the middle has balconies so the royals could probably watch the ceremonies from there.

This whole area is surrounded by a stone wall with towers and the inner area is very green so probably a garden area to go with the pool - not a bad place to relax.  There were large trees around the outer edge of the pool and their roots were growing on the inside of the wall around the walkway - very reminiscent of the tree roots around so many places Angor Wat that I visited years ago.    Through the one gate of the outer wall there was another open area that had another small shallow pool area and also a small domed building which was supposedly a mausoleum for a beloved horse although the authorities question this.

From here we took a tuk-tuk back to our hotel and that was it for me and I just went to the room, rested and did some internet.  Randy went out for another walk and some coffee.  We then booked our room in Lalibela and Axum and then he went down to have some dinner.  I decided to just have some bananas, bread and water in my room for dinner and then went to sleep early as we had an early morning coming up.  As it was Sunday night I was hoping the music would be a bit quieter so I could get to sleep, and I think I did that quite quickly.