Sorry for the lateness of this post.  Gondar is a wonderful city with many great features, but reliable internet service is not among them.

 

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Friday started early, as we left the Beer Garden Inn before dawn to catch our flight to Gondar, a few hundred miles to the northwest.  We were pleasantly surprised to see that the turboprop plane for our Ethiopian Airlines plane was quite modern, in fact better than a lot of commuter planes I’ve been on in the states.  The flight lasted less than an hour, and we landed at a much smaller and less advanced airport than we had left in Addis Abeba.

 

The first thing one notices about Gondar is there are a lot more trees there than in the capital city.  Addis Abeba (in fact much of Oromia) has been largely deforested over the years, as the growing population has used up many of the trees for building materials and firewood.  But the drive to Gondar from the airport was on a road lined with tall shady trees.  The result was that it seemed a bit cooler, although the temperature was probably mid-70s as it has been for the whole trip (eat your heart out, you sweltering Texans.)

 

The city also seems a little less hectic than Addis Abeba, probably due to the much calmer traffic.  But with fewer automobiles comes a great increase in the number on pedestrians, and since there are few sidewalks, everyone walks in the middle of the street.  In addition to people, there are a great number of the familiar horsecarts and donkeys carrying various cargo to and from the markets.  Donkeys take their own time getting out of the way of vehicles; we also stopped a few times for flocks of sheep coming down the road.  I noticed that our driver used these delays to test the gears in our SUV; we seemed to have only first, second, and fifth.

 

After crossing the city in second gear, we finally reached our destination, the Goha Hotel, on the east side.  To get to it you take a series up sharp switchbacks up a steep hill until you come to the very top, where a guard in a blue uniform snaps off a salute to anyone entering the hotel grounds.  The view of the city from this spot is breathtaking, so we all piled out of the vehicles to enjoy the sight and stretch our legs. 

 

Our plan after checking in was to head straight out to Robit.  It’s about a ninety minute drive, but without a fully functioning vehicle we might not make it there (or back) so we decided that while it was being repaired, we’d have to just tough it out by having a wonderful brunch in gorgeous surroundings. 

 

Although we had not seen any rain so far in the trip, Ethiopia’s rainy season begins around the end of May, so we’ve been watching the skies for a few days; it’s just a matter of time, and once it hits, heavy  daily rains will be the norm beginning between 2:00 and 3:00 every in the afternoon.  Mike had explained that because the “road” to Robit is so poor, we cannot risk travelling it in bad weather, so if we didn’t have two good vehicles by 1:00, we’d have to cancel today’s visit.  Unfortunately, by that time we had heard the vehicle could not be repaired anytime soon, and a new one would have to be found for the next day.

Gondar is an old city that has seen a lot of history.  In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it rivaled many of the cities of Europe as a crossroads of art, culture, and commerce.  With such a rich history, there is of course much to explore, so we decided to do some of our “touristing” a bit early.  Our first stop was a castle we had seen from our mountaintop view, the palace of King Fasilidas.

 

Fasilidas was the first of six kings to make Gondar their capitol city, and he and his five successors’ large stone castles are all located within the same walls.  Our excellent guide “Hugo” had an encyclopedic knowledge (all self-taught, we were very impressed to learn) of the history of each one, and regaled us with interesting stories for over two hours.

 

We learned that one of the kings had suffered from a skin condition, and that King Louis XIV of France dispatched his personal physician to assist.   The doctor stayed for many years learning and writing of the Ethiopian culture and history.  In his writings, he said that the palace in Gondar was the most elaborate and beautiful in the world.  Even allowing for a bit of exaggeration for the benefit of his hosts, that’s quite a statement considering this was a man who had walked the halls of Versailles.  However, it was sobering to think that only two-and-a-half centuries later, the fortunes of Ethiopia had fallen so that the royal palace of Menelik (which we had seen in Addis) was little more than a larger and more elaborate version of the mud huts of his subjects.

 

The best-preserved of the castles was that of Johann, Fasilidas’ son, who was particularly well-loved by his subjects because he eliminated the collection of tributes and taxes, and instead wove baskets to sell to fund the operation of his castle.  Many of the other palaces had been in good shape until early in World War II, but were now in various states of ruin.  The Sudanese and their Italian supporters had occupied Ethiopia in the late ‘30s, and with the coming of the war, the British had bombed the site of the castles, which were being used as military headquarters.  Even though the beautiful castles had been largely destroyed, the guide seemed to bear the British no ill will about this, considering it an acceptable cost for driving out the hated Italians.

 

From the palace we crossed town to the Baths of Fasilidas.  Fasilidas’ father had, to great controversy,  converted from Orthodox Christianity to Catholicism.  Criticized by his ministers, he finally abdicated, and Fasilidas had himself very publicly baptized into the Orthodox faith, in conjunction with his coronation.  The baths still stand today, a small palace suspended over a large pool somewhat larger than an Olympic pool.  To this day, the pool is flooded from the nearby river once a year in late January (Othodix Epiphany) in celebration of the baptism of Christ.  Tens of thousands leap into the cold waters in one of the four great religious festivals of the Ethiopian year.

 

Our car was still not repaired in time on Saturday for us to try to get to Robit, so we spent the morning touring the Ploughshare Womens’ Training Center outside Gondar.  This is a wonderful operation where widows, HIV/AIDS sufferers and other disposed women can live and produce goods to support themselves.  We watched as they made the craft items, farmed their fields and orchards, and went about the process of daily life.  After we had done some shopping at the center, they made us feel especially welcome by performing an Ethiopian coffee ceremony for us, burning incense and preparing their very stout coffee in the traditional manner over a charcoal brazier.  

 

After lunch, we again gathered Hugo for another day of tourist destinations.  From the beautiful view at the hotel, we had spotted a castle on the opposite side of town from Fasilidas, and that turned out to be one of our stops.  This was the castle to which one of the empresses, who had from some twenty years acted as her young son’s regent when the king had died, had been banished after he took power.  We were surprised when, in the tiny museum section, the empress herself made an appearance: Hugo pulled back a cloth from what we had thought was a table, but which turned out to be a glass-topped coffin containing the bones of not only the empress, but two later kings as well!

 

Our other stop on Saturday was the Church of Debre Birham Salassie.  The stone walls have twelve towers (one for each of the apostles) in which monks and nuns now reside; the chief priest lives in a small apartment over the main gate.  The church itself is only a plain rectangular structure, but inside the mud walls and even the ceiling have all been elaborately painted in colorful pictures illustrating stories from the Bible.  Three centuries ago, a single monk worked for years to create the beautiful works.  In this way, the lives of Christ, Mary, and the saints and Crusaders were brought to a largely illiterate congregation.  Many of the stories were quite familiar (if somewhat alien; the Orthodox tendency is to show the Triune God as three identical old men) but their church also has a rich theology of the life of Mary, the “Queen of Heaven,” not only the tales we know from the Gospels, but also stories from her early and later life, and one wall showed these.

 

Gondar was once called the “City of 44 Churches” but the Dervishers from Sudan raided the city and destroyed all but four; this church and its beautiful and inspiring paintings is one of those that survived.  The legend has it that bees in the large trees around this church attacked and repelled the Muslim invaders, who decided that it must be a sign that Allah wanted them to spare the church.   

 

As we were leaving, I stopped to pick up a rock from the yard in front of the church.  Our guide asked why, and I explained that my daughter had asked that I bring her back a rock from Africa.  We agreed that if any stone can be blessed, it would be one from this inspiring place.

 

Gondar is a wonderful place to be a tourist, but we were impatient to finally see Robit.  Sunday we would finally get our chance.

 

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Sorry for the lateness of this post.  Gondar is a wonderful city with many great features, but reliable internet service is not among them.

 

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Friday started early, as we left the Beer Garden Inn before dawn to catch our flight to Gondar, a few hundred miles to the northwest.  We were pleasantly surprised to see that the turboprop plane for our Ethiopian Airlines plane was quite modern, in fact better than a lot of commuter planes I’ve been on in the states.  The flight lasted less than an hour, and we landed at a much smaller and less advanced airport than we had left in Addis Abeba.

 

The first thing one notices about Gondar is there are a lot more trees there than in the capital city.  Addis Abeba (in fact much of Oromia) has been largely deforested over the years, as the growing population has used up many of the trees for building materials and firewood.  But the drive to Gondar from the airport was on a road lined with tall shady trees.  The result was that it seemed a bit cooler, although the temperature was probably mid-70s as it has been for the whole trip (eat your heart out, you sweltering Texans.)

 

The city also seems a little less hectic than Addis Abeba, probably due to the much calmer traffic.  But with fewer automobiles comes a great increase in the number on pedestrians, and since there are few sidewalks, everyone walks in the middle of the street.  In addition to people, there are a great number of the familiar horsecarts and donkeys carrying various cargo to and from the markets.  Donkeys take their own time getting out of the way of vehicles; we also stopped a few times for flocks of sheep coming down the road.  I noticed that our driver used these delays to test the gears in our SUV; we seemed to have only first, second, and fifth.

 

After crossing the city in second gear, we finally reached our destination, the Goha Hotel, on the east side.  To get to it you take a series up sharp switchbacks up a steep hill until you come to the very top, where a guard in a blue uniform snaps off a salute to anyone entering the hotel grounds.  The view of the city from this spot is breathtaking, so we all piled out of the vehicles to enjoy the sight and stretch our legs. 

 

Our plan after checking in was to head straight out to Robit.  It’s about a ninety minute drive, but without a fully functioning vehicle we might not make it there (or back) so we decided that while it was being repaired, we’d have to just tough it out by having a wonderful brunch in gorgeous surroundings. 

 

Although we had not seen any rain so far in the trip, Ethiopia’s rainy season begins around the end of May, so we’ve been watching the skies for a few days; it’s just a matter of time, and once it hits, heavy  daily rains will be the norm beginning between 2:00 and 3:00 every in the afternoon.  Mike had explained that because the “road” to Robit is so poor, we cannot risk travelling it in bad weather, so if we didn’t have two good vehicles by 1:00, we’d have to cancel today’s visit.  Unfortunately, by that time we had heard the vehicle could not be repaired anytime soon, and a new one would have to be found for the next day.

Gondar is an old city that has seen a lot of history.  In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it rivaled many of the cities of Europe as a crossroads of art, culture, and commerce.  With such a rich history, there is of course much to explore, so we decided to do some of our “touristing” a bit early.  Our first stop was a castle we had seen from our mountaintop view, the palace of King Fasilidas.

 

Fasilidas was the first of six kings to make Gondar their capitol city, and he and his five successors’ large stone castles are all located within the same walls.  Our excellent guide “Hugo” had an encyclopedic knowledge (all self-taught, we were very impressed to learn) of the history of each one, and regaled us with interesting stories for over two hours.

 

We learned that one of the kings had suffered from a skin condition, and that King Louis XIV of France dispatched his personal physician to assist.   The doctor stayed for many years learning and writing of the Ethiopian culture and history.  In his writings, he said that the palace in Gondar was the most elaborate and beautiful in the world.  Even allowing for a bit of exaggeration for the benefit of his hosts, that’s quite a statement considering this was a man who had walked the halls of Versailles.  However, it was sobering to think that only two-and-a-half centuries later, the fortunes of Ethiopia had fallen so that the royal palace of Menelik (which we had seen in Addis) was little more than a larger and more elaborate version of the mud huts of his subjects.

 

The best-preserved of the castles was that of Johann, Fasilidas’ son, who was particularly well-loved by his subjects because he eliminated the collection of tributes and taxes, and instead wove baskets to sell to fund the operation of his castle.  Many of the other palaces had been in good shape until early in World War II, but were now in various states of ruin.  The Sudanese and their Italian supporters had occupied Ethiopia in the late ‘30s, and with the coming of the war, the British had bombed the site of the castles, which were being used as military headquarters.  Even though the beautiful castles had been largely destroyed, the guide seemed to bear the British no ill will about this, considering it an acceptable cost for driving out the hated Italians.

 

From the palace we crossed town to the Baths of Fasilidas.  Fasilidas’ father had, to great controversy,  converted from Orthodox Christianity to Catholicism.  Criticized by his ministers, he finally abdicated, and Fasilidas had himself very publicly baptized into the Orthodox faith, in conjunction with his coronation.  The baths still stand today, a small palace suspended over a large pool somewhat larger than an Olympic pool.  To this day, the pool is flooded from the nearby river once a year in late January (Othodix Epiphany) in celebration of the baptism of Christ.  Tens of thousands leap into the cold waters in one of the four great religious festivals of the Ethiopian year.

 

Our car was still not repaired in time on Saturday for us to try to get to Robit, so we spent the morning touring the Ploughshare Womens’ Training Center outside Gondar.  This is a wonderful operation where widows, HIV/AIDS sufferers and other disposed women can live and produce goods to support themselves.  We watched as they made the craft items, farmed their fields and orchards, and went about the process of daily life.  After we had done some shopping at the center, they made us feel especially welcome by performing an Ethiopian coffee ceremony for us, burning incense and preparing their very stout coffee in the traditional manner over a charcoal brazier.  

 

After lunch, we again gathered Hugo for another day of tourist destinations.  From the beautiful view at the hotel, we had spotted a castle on the opposite side of town from Fasilidas, and that turned out to be one of our stops.  This was the castle to which one of the empresses, who had from some twenty years acted as her young son’s regent when the king had died, had been banished after he took power.  We were surprised when, in the tiny museum section, the empress herself made an appearance: Hugo pulled back a cloth from what we had thought was a table, but which turned out to be a glass-topped coffin containing the bones of not only the empress, but two later kings as well!

 

Our other stop on Saturday was the Church of Debre Birham Salassie.  The stone walls have twelve towers (one for each of the apostles) in which monks and nuns now reside; the chief priest lives in a small apartment over the main gate.  The church itself is only a plain rectangular structure, but inside the mud walls and even the ceiling have all been elaborately painted in colorful pictures illustrating stories from the Bible.  Three centuries ago, a single monk worked for years to create the beautiful works.  In this way, the lives of Christ, Mary, and the saints and Crusaders were brought to a largely illiterate congregation.  Many of the stories were quite familiar (if somewhat alien; the Orthodox tendency is to show the Triune God as three identical old men) but their church also has a rich theology of the life of Mary, the “Queen of Heaven,” not only the tales we know from the Gospels, but also stories from her early and later life, and one wall showed these.

 

Gondar was once called the “City of 44 Churches” but the Dervishers from Sudan raided the city and destroyed all but four; this church and its beautiful and inspiring paintings is one of those that survived.  The legend has it that bees in the large trees around this church attacked and repelled the Muslim invaders, who decided that it must be a sign that Allah wanted them to spare the church.   

 

As we were leaving, I stopped to pick up a rock from the yard in front of the church.  Our guide asked why, and I explained that my daughter had asked that I bring her back a rock from Africa.  We agreed that if any stone can be blessed, it would be one from this inspiring place.

 

Gondar is a wonderful place to be a tourist, but we were impatient to finally see Robit.  Sunday we would finally get our chance.

 

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –