Ethiopia – land of breathtaking mountains, rock hewn churches and valuable lessons in how not to do foreign aid

It was here that Lucy was discovered by archeologists. Lucy was a special species that already 3.2 billion years ago walked on 2 legs and destroyed the scientists’ previous theory that our ancestors only started walking on 2 legs after evolving larger brains. Lucy became famous and Ethiopia started being considered as “the cradle for humanity”. And then a complicated, varied and fascinated history followed of acient kingdoms and religions, Muslim and Christian wars, brutal bloody conflicts with its invadors and neighbours, insane emperors, famine. You name it and it probably featured in Ethiopia’s history... The Ethiopians of today are extremely proud people – of their language, heritage, religion, culture, calendar (in Ethiopia the calendar says it’s 7.5 years earlier than everywhere else and the clock says it’s 6 hours earlier). 3 words summarize my first impressions of the country – religion, agriculture and injera (large, pancake-like local type of sour bread, which – although it looks like an old kitchen flannel - you better learn to like and quick because it will be the basis of almost every meal you’ll have in Ethiopia). My second impression of the country was that it’s a sad but at the same time valuable lesson in how not to do foreign aid. There are overwhelmingly many children around Ethiopia – big towns and tiny villages alike – who spend their entire days chasing any foreigner they can find with an aggressively extended hand commanding “give me money, give me money”. And if this demand is not met, it’s not unheard of that stones and human number 2 (aka poop) is thrown at you or your car. I find it beyond depressing that the immediate association they have of seeing a white face is to be handed out money for nothing, that they are on the streets begging instead of being in school or at least attempting to provide some kind of service (showing the way, polishing shoes, selling something) in order to earn the money. For me it is such a “in your face” cruel reminder that handing out food or money to the communities in Africa is not the right way to do foreign aid. It’s not sustainable and it’s not aiding. It’s crippling those communities for generations. It makes them dependant on and addicted to aid. It doesn’t teach them or motivate them to actually learn a skill and use it to sustainably support themselves.

Gondar –

Royal Enclosure – entire 70,000 sq ft complex was totally restored by UNESCO and made a World Heritage Site. Most impressive and best preserved elements are Fasiladas Palace with its Indian, Portugese, Moorish and Aksumite influences, Palace of Iyasu I with its banquet hall, library and kitchen. There’s also a Turkish bath, which evidently worked wonders for those suffering from syphilis.

Fasiladas Bath – large pool (about the size of an Olympic size pool) surrounded by beautiful stone walls and snakelike tree roots used to be a swimming pool for royalty (who used inflated sheep skins as life jackets) and today is a place of religious christening rituals. Once a year it’s filled with river water, blessed by a priest, and becomes a loud riot for hundreds of people jumping in and splashing around.

Whole of Gondar has quite a bloody and brutal history including characters like a queen who slayed a king’s brother and was dangled on a rope from a tree outside the Royal Enclosure, or dead bodies of many rebels who challenged of the ruling authorities and were layed in the open to be chewed on by hyenas, or the kings who held banquets of fiesting on raw flesh while wearing their crows of emeralds and jewels.

Simien Mountains National Park – no matter what treks and routes you choose to cover in this national park, whether you will spend a day or a week here, it will leave you completely breathless. The peak go up to 4000 m so altitude with leave you speechless. Coming across groups of gelada baboons on your treks is always an adventure. Spending New Year’s Eve on top one of the mountain peaks (as I was fortunate to do) is definitely a memorable (and freezing cold!) experience. The Simien Mountains definitely rank among Africa’s best mountain ranges. The most popular camps are Cheech (about 3400 m) and Chenek (about 3700 m, has a feel of Mt Everest base camp, the place of my New Year’s Eve celebrations – if going to bed at 7 pm because it’s too cold to feel my fingers counts as celebrations). Best peak we’ve trekked to is Imet Gogo (3926 m) – wall of rock, from which you’ll get absolutely best views of the mountains. Sitting on Gogo’s top looking down on the world will definitely put you in the state of utter and complete amazement over the beauty of out planet and will make all these hours of hard trekking more than worthwhile. 

 

Aksum – riddle waiting to be solved. Did the Queen of Sheba really live here? Do they really have here the same Ark of Covenant that Moses carried down Mt Sinai? What do those famous stelae mean?  Aksum – although no longer wealthy and powerful – is still a spiritual capital of Ethiopia and many pilgrims still make it here every year for their religious celebrations.  All Ethiopians believe very passionately that the Ark of Covenant resides here. The whole town is a UNESCO Word Heritage Site and one of the best ones in Africa at that. The amazing St Mary of Zion Churches are well worth a visit and not just because the famous Ark of Covenant may or may not be stored here. But the seriousness with which the Ethiopians take the security around those Churches makes you think “there must be something really valuable inside”. Only one specially chosen guardian has access to the Ark, nobody is allowed near the chapel and foreigners are not even allowed close to the fence surrounding the building.

Lalibela  - more amazing and pictureque than any stories you may have heard or photos you may have seen. The legend has it that a poisoned man was taken by angels to heaven where he was shown a city of rock hewn churches and then ordered by God to go back to Earth, re-create what he had seen and establish a new Jerusalem. Lalibela has 11 ancient churches, carved from rock (by estimated workforce of 40,000 men who worked by daylight and claimed that Godly force continued their work during the night), and visit to each one is a memorable experience of Christianity in its most raw form. The unforgettable atmosphere is also created by the dim-lit passageways (bring a torch or run a risk of breaking a leg), hidden grottoes and crypts. I was extremely fortunate to visit Lalibela around Ethiopian Christmas time (Jan 8) and all the churches were being actively used by the local priests, white-robed pilgrims and people getting baptised. 

Rift Valley National Park – just north of a town called Shashamene are 2 of the most beautiful of the Rift Valley Lakes, Lake Abiyata and Lake Shala. Abiyata is one of the shallowest in the Rift Valley and is a soda lake. It’s home to flamingos, white pelicans, cormorants, ibises and many other species of birds. And I was fortunate enough to be bush camping on a hill overlooking both lakes! It made for one stunning sunset – and that’s despite about 50 local kids who quickly gathered around us to stare, beg and even throw one of my fellow travelers out of her hammock so they could use it J

Shashamene – this little town has quite a few unusual attractions to offer. It’s a spiritual home to a large Rastafarian community with their interesting philosophy, unique churches, and affordable marihuana for sale which of course I did not try, dear mum (although grapes and wine are illegal). Haile Selassie was a Rastafarian himself and he granted land to them in Shashamene. As a result, there are now about 100 families settled here, some of them relocated from the Caribbean to Ethiopia. There’s also a banana art gallery here, evidently the only one in the world, where a renowned Rastafarian artist who relocated here from a Caribbean island of St Vincent makes beautiful paintings, postcards etc nothing but banana plants and leaves. However, my absolute favorite attraction of Shashamene were the hot springs just outside of town. We camped across the street from the hot springs so spent the whole evening swimming and relaxing in several large swimming pools, each of different temperature but all very hot. It was bliss to feel clean and scrubbed again after days of no water or showers J

Robe – this is a tiny town where we stayed for couple nights on route to the Omo Valley Region. There aren’t any attractions here worth mentioning but there’s one funny travel memory I’ll forever have of this place – and I like to call it the “ghost hotel”. It’s a little hotel where we stayed since there weren’t any suitable and safe spots to camp in the area. From the outside this hotel looked actually quite civilized and nice. There were even 2 UN cars parked in front of it, so I got all excited that there’ll be luxury amenities like hot water and proper working toilets (since UN and other big NGOs are always seen staying in the best accommodations in town – you should have seen the 5 star hotel in Khartoum, Sudan where they were all staying before the Sudanese referendum! Room prices start at $400 there, presidents and celebrities stay there – and UN employees…). Inside the hotel however it was an entirely different story and the standard of amenities was so horribly appalling, I just had to laugh. Otherwise I would be crying but what’s the point of that… It was a bizarre place. Nice looking building, large clean looking rooms but nothing worked. It’s like they never quite finished building it. There was absolutely no water in the whole hotel for most of the time (except couple hours a day when there was a trickle of cold water coming from my shower). This means no water in the toiler, sink or shower. I washed with a water bottle, flushed toilet with a water bottle. All bathrooms stunk like sewage because evidently the hotel didn’t yet have a proper sewage tank system build. Soon the cockroaches arrived… And to top things up, there was no electricity either… It was indeed like a ghost hotel – it seems to be a proper hotel but no hotel facilities were really there except a bed. It was a surreal experience staying there. And let me tell you, it didn’t really help matters when at the same time Cute Dutchman was calling me from his business trip to Dubai excitedly telling me stories about how amazingly fancy the hotel room was where he was staying – stairs leading from hallway to huge living room, another set of stairs leading from the living room to huge bedroom, breathtaking shower and bubble bath, Balinese massages etc etc etc etc. And there I was – lying on my bed in the complete darkness (because no electricity), with oily dirty stinky hair (because not enough water to wash it), with zero privacy from scary creepy local men (because room door always open to get rid of sewage stink coming from the bathroom), never venturing to the bathroom without a shoe in my hand (because of cockroaches). As much as I try to be a supportive understanding girlfriend sharing the joys of my man, these couple days I really couldn’t muster enough good energy in me not to be jealous of his fancy hotel room in Dubai while I was staying in the stinkiest one in Ethiopia… Cute Dutchman with his “oh my God, I love my hotel room” stories was not my favorite person in the world at the time… But he promised he will make it up to me but taking me to some extra nice hotel somewhere for few days where I’ll get pampered beyond belief. So I forgave him J

Tribes of Omo Valley in Southern Ethiopia – there aren’t enough words to describe the overwhelming feelings of meeting the tribal people. It will forever be one of the most unforgettable travel experiences of my life. Those people live in remote parts of the Ethiopian bush, still practicing their own language, medicine, agriculture, religion and spirituality like they did for centuries, completely independent from and unaware of the rest of the world. One of my favorite tribes is Homer tribe. We were fortunate enough to obtain permission from their chief to bush camp for couple nights on their land, near one of their villages, so got to spend lots of time with them, got invited to the chief’s hut for a coffee ceremony and met his wives. Extraordinary culture. Homer women are renowned for their remarkable hairstyles called “goscha” (they rub ochre and water into their hair to make it slick and then twist it into red tresses). Homer are also famous body decoration masters. There’s a special tribal meaning to every piece of jewellery, scars or tattoos one wears (e.g. number of earrings on a woman indicates number of wives her husband has and where in the hierarchy she falls, iron rings around a woman’s neck indicate she’s married or engaged, number of scars on a woman’s body indicate her beauty status – the more scars, the more sensual she’s considered). The tribe chief was telling us some fascinating stories about Homer culture. Some of them may shock us Westerners but this is how Homer choose to live and they reject any Western forces disguised as charitable help to change them. Virgins will not find anyone to marry them in Homer culture – it’s believed that if nobody has shown sexual interest in a girl, then there’s something wrong with her and she’s not suitable marriage material. So from young age girls go into the bush with various tribe man to have sex. The more sexual partners the girl has, the more beautiful and popular she’s regarded in the village. There’s no Western education at all – men are taught to be warriors, providers and hunters, women are taught to be wives and mothers. Homer don’t believe in Western medicine: they gather all their medicine from the bush plants, all childbirth is done naturally with a help of a village midwife. Some European NGO came years ago and built a small brick building where Western nurses would come every few weeks and tribe members could get tested and treated for various diseases. Well, nobody asked Homer is they even wanted this kind of “help” – turns out they do not, building crumbled to ruin and donor money got wasted. I have seen so many examples of such completely failed and misguided NGO help throughout Africa…

Other tribes we have seen are Konso (with their famous villages with narrow stone and stick alleys and beautifully constructed stone terrace fields known as ”wagas”), Karo (most endangered, famous masters of chalk body painting), Banna (with their fascinating ritual of decorating body in clay and having a village feast after killing a bull).

Sudan – tales of sand in every form known to man, beautiful women in colourful chadors and creative ways to stay clean without water

My first impression of Sudan – 20 hour ferry crossing from Aswan in Egypt to Wadi Halfa in Sudan - was a  very “travelling like the locals do” experience (and those who have survived this particular journey will understand exactly what I mean): more dirty, smelly, crowded and noisy than I expected in my wildest dreams, and freakishly unsafe if measured by Western standards. But at the same time what a fascinating and unforgettable adventure! Amidst disgustingly smelly toilets, food I wouldn’t touch with a stick and hundreds of slightly creepy local men I kept thinking to myself: “if I can do this, I can do anything!” J

Let me tell you a bit about this ferry crossing to allow you fully appreciate the local customs J First I completed the patience-testing immigration and customs procedures, which consist of walking from a building where they check your bags to a window where they stamp your passport to a little hut where they give you the immigration forms to another little hut where they make you stand in line for a very long time and then look at your passport for seemingly no reason whatsoever. And so forth... You get the picture... After the immigration paperwork I went to a little harbour where the ferry was being loaded. Hmmm, ferry is a big name for the small, rusting, shaky boat I saw. In my humble assessment it can probably semi-safely fit about 100-150 people and there were 500 passengers booked to travel on it. And majority of those 500 passengers were locals. And if you’ve ever travelled in Africa you know what insane amounts of luggage the locals travel with. So imagine 500 people with their screaming children and their tens of boxes, suitcases, refrigerators, TVs, cartons of food etc being cramped onto this poor little boat. How we all fit onboard defies logic and if I haven’t seen it with my own blue eyes, I would have never believed it. But we all fit and off to Sudan we went... On the ferry we had booked cabins in something the locals call 1st class, which turned out to be tiny 2 person cabins with a bunk bed and blankets with access to a communal toilet in the corridor. Blankets were so dirty that we wrapped ourselves in our own sleeping bags being extremely careful not to make any skin contact with the bed or blankets. Toilets were so dirty and smelly that we basically decided not to eat anything and drink very little to avoid having to use the toilet. But let me tell you, all this was still 1st class compared with what the 2nd class looked like: hundreds and hundreds of people with their tons of luggage cramped onto the top deck of the ferry. Sleeping and eating on the floor. In scorching heat during the day and freezing cold at night. Absolutely horrendous! I consider myself a fairy good traveller who’s prepared to rough it up when required but without my 1st class cabin I would have been crying the entire 20 hours from Egypt to Sudan!

When we finally arrived in Sudan , we spent couple of days in the port village of Wadi Halfa waiting for our truck to get there (as it went on a separate and much slower vehicle-only barge). Wadi Halfa consists of about 5 streets and couple of very basic hotels. It has a waiting room ambience to it because everyone here is waiting either for their ferry to Egypt or for their cars to arrive from Egypt. Nothing to do but chill, wander about, read and start getting used to bucket showers. It was also my first experience of how amazingly friendly and warm the Sudanese people are. Not aggressive towards “rich” white foreigners at all, very calm and always smiling. I loved hanging out in the cafes of Wadi Halfa, drinking tea, smoking water pipe and chatting with the locals.

From Wadi Halfa my overlanding adventure of crossing Sudan began. 2 weeks of bushcamping with LOTS of sand, going to the toilet behing the closest sand dune and without showers and hot water! Loved it! This is what I came here for! What an amazing life lesson in learning to appreciate clean Western toilets and proper hot-water showers. But fear not: I didn’t go smelly and dirty for 2 weeks. One invents very creative ways to stay semi-clean in the Sudanese desert: using water from any kettle, bowl, water bottle etc one can find J And if it proves impossible to find any water at all, wet wipes are handy (lots and lots of them should feature of a pre-departure shopping list of any traveller to Sudan).

Since it’s impossible to fully describe the beaty and spirit of Sudan in a brief travel blog, I’ll limit myself to a summary of the most interesting places I had privilage to visit. For the full experience you’ll just have to visit yourself one day...

Dongola – 500 km from Khartoum, the capital of Sudan’s northern state. A true burst of greenery on the River Nile. It has a unique oasis-in-the-desert feel to it wit hits abundance of green trees and plants, well watered fields and its agricultural wealth from the cultivation of date palms. It even has an airport! Mothballed a long time ago but still... And we found ice cream in one of its littl street shops! Paradise on the Nile.

Temple of Soleb – one of the best preserved Egyptian temples on the Sudanese Nile. Built by Amenhotep III in 14th century BC, dedicated to the lord of Nubia, who was thought to be a representation of the pharaon himself. Today the temple consists of scattered blocks of 2 pylons, hypostyle hall , court and a sanctuary. It’s estimated that when it was complete it would have been 130 m long.  In its feel and architecture it’s similar to the Temple of Luxor. The dingy ride across the Nile to reach the temple and the absence of any other visitors added to the romantic serene appeal of the place...

Kerma – market town sandwiched in between 2 deserts. One of the hottest places on Earth. Around it there are a number of small mud-hut villages and not much else. Navigating through its narrow alleys of picturesque huts and distructed from the map by the super-friendly locals coming out from the fields to shake our hands we got  a tiny bit lost, which provided for couple hours of great adventure of driving through the surrounding villages, waving back at the locals and not really knowing where the heck we’re going. Great fun.

Western Defuffa – famous for its impressive (and hard to find, hence the above-mentioned getting lost) 3500 old mud-brick ruin, which used to be the seat of the independent Kingdom of Kush. This ruin is the oldest and largest manmade structure in subsaharan Africa. “Deffufa” means “mud brick building” in Nubian and this name pretty much describes what you’ll find there today: big mud ruin, beaten by the years of harsh weather. One single staircase leads to the roof where there probably used to be a shrine of some sort. The funny memory I’ll have of this place is the fact that this place – completely in the middle of nowhere and with nothing valuable to steal (who wants to steal mud or sand? Plenty of that in Sudan) it was guarded by a group of police and army officers, fully geared with uniforms and guns! Why??? Soviet attitude of “everyone will have a job, regardless of how unnecessary the job actually is”???

Eastern Defuffa – famous of its graves of Kerma kings. The cementeries with about 3000 graves found here have been the main source of knowledge for scientists about the Kerma culture. From studying the graves the archeologists have found that bodyguards, wives, servants and children were buried along with the kings. One royal tomb  contained over 300 sacrificial victims – including cattle in large numbers - accompanying the king to the afterlife. Kerma culture seems to have been a very bloody one...

Jebel Barkal – considered a holy mountain by the Sudanese. Ancient Egyptians and Kushites believed it to be a home of God Amun and a throne of 2 lands: Egypt and Nubia. There are remains of Temple of Amun dating back to 15 centure BC on the foot of the mountain. There is also a small royal cementary of about 20 Nubian pyramids.

Nuri pyramids – another famous cluster of Nubian pyramids in the Sudanese desert. Much much smaller than their Egyptian equivalents but amazing pieces of architecture nevertheless.

Khartoum – as I mentioned previously somewhere in this blog, I normally am not too impressed by big African cities by I must admit that my experience of Kharoum was quite a pleasant one. It’s walkable, safe (providing you can get used to and unbothered by local soldiers on every corner pointing big machine guns in your direction – they claim they’re there for your safety...) and quite an interesting mix of modern and traditional architecture. And – what a girly admission to make – my stay in Khartoum was made extra amazing by multiple visits to a 5 star spa in a 5 star hotel (where I was NOT staying – rooms start at 250 dollars and go all the way to 4000 dollars) – I spent 2 days getting full body scrubs, massages, chilling in swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna and steam room. BLISS!!! HEAVEN!!! PARADISE!!! Not too shabby for a dirty and budget consious overlander that I normally am. And yes, while the cost of this spa paradise was way above my normal travel budget I allow myself on this trip, what a way to treat myself for Christmas after weeks of dirty, waterless, showerless and toiletless camping in Sudan!

But above all my experience of Khartoum was made special by an experience of a completely different nature: going to church. I consider myself extremely fortunate to spend Christmas Eve in Khartoum because this lucky timing allowed me to add another completely unforgettable travel experience to my already bulging bag of experiences: attending Christmas Eve midnight mass in a Catholic cathedral here. To accomodate hundreds and hundreds of worshippers (among whom I counted only 7 white faces – including mine) the mass took place in a bog outdoor courtyard just outside the cathedral. There was amazing music performed by a local choir and band: standard Catholic songs and anthems performed in a highly unusual mix of English, Latin and local languages, and with a strong African musical atmosphere (shouting, crying, laughing and dancing). Definitely an experience that brings tears of gratitude and awe to your eyes even if you’re not religous at all...