Ethiopian Tips

Addis Abeba:
Sishu for burgers.  Great food and awesome atmosphere.
 
Gusto is a wonderful Italian restaurant.  Has Jazz music on Saturday nights. 

http://gustoaddis.com/ 

 

Sabahar is a textile factory that has some amazing fabrics. Scarves for men and women alike, bed linens, table linens and decorative items.

http://sabahar.com/

Gondar:
Taye Belay Hotel-Good rooms, no elevator but the rooms with the balconies are worth the climb up the 4 floors.  The restaurant is reasonably priced and an the easy option.  The Hotel will book things for you and were very reliable.

http://www.tayebelayhotel.com/

Lalibela:
I would stay at Tukul Village in Lalibella.  They were full when we went but a friend has stayed there.  

http://www.tukulvillage.com/tukul_village/ 

There was a hotel near Ben Abeba that might be the Panoramic View Hotel. If it is the hotel that looked over the valley it would have had amazing views. 

Arrange for a tour guide and tuk tuk driver when you book your tickets to Lalibela, organize the price for the day for everything that you want to do when you book.  This can usually be done through your hotel.

Lalibela is worth spending 2 days at if you have the time.  You can see the main group of churches in a day, but there are monasteries and churches on the outskirts that sounded like they would have been amazing to see. 

Eat dinner at Ben Abeba

http://www.benabeba.com/lalibela/Home.html

Another suggestion is to bring easy to slip on and off shoes but that are also supportive.  You have to take your shoes off at each church to go inside, but also climb around on uneven ground throughout the complex.  

Weliso:
Negash Lodge is a great place for a day or weekend away.  There is a spa, but we didn't get to try it.  There are traditional style houses that have two bedrooms or rooms with amazing bathtubs near the restaurant. The Wenchi crater is nearby and tours can be arranged by the hotel. The monkeys hanging around were very cool and fun to just sit and watch.

http://negashlodge.com/ 

Ethiopian Adventure - Part 3 - Lalibela

We woke up, ate breakfast, checked out and then got into one of the dodgiest taxis ever!  The seats were just springs with a cover over them.  Sue kept saying don't push too hard on the floor board or we might go through! We made it back to the airport and had to go through the 'get your engine and passports checked at the gates" check to even get onto the grounds!

The flight was only 30 minutes and we had arranged for airport pickup again.  This time it was a bunch of vans that are obviously run by the same company because they picked us up on the way out as well.  We were in with lots of different people all heading the same way. The town again is something like 38km from the airport so we had another great drive through the countryside.

We checked into the hotel and arranged for a tuk tuk driver for the day to take use to the churches.  We were going to skip having a guide and just explore the churches on our own but we were followed around by Muchaw who was trying to get us to hire him.  Sue bargained hard with him and managed to get him to come down from $35 to $20.  You could definitely do the churches without a guide but I think that you would want to at least have a guide book with you.  Also I think that you wouldn't realize that all of the little "side" buildings are actually individual churches as well. 

Bet Maryam had the most amazing paintings on the inside that would have been painted partially by King Lalibela. The whole site at Lalibela is said to be because the pilgrimage to the holy land was so long and dangerous, King Lalibela received a vision to recreate the holy sites in Lalibela. So each of the holy sites in the holy land has a church to represent it in Lalibela. 


This is the 10meter deep fertility pool at Bet Maryam that people still use to help with fertility problems. 





 





This is the inside of the Bet Maryam church.  

The churches were all carved down into the stone of the mountains.  They would start by carving down the sides until they got to the door, then they would dig up to the height of the ceiling then start gutting the inside. The system starts at the top of the mountain and has tunnels and passageways that lead down to the lower churches.  There is a massive drainage system around the whole complex to keep them from filling up with water. 







This is the back of the second church we went to.  The three windows at the top are the father, son and holy spirit.  The three at the bottom represent the three crosses with the one in the middle being Jesus as known because of the cross above it.  The one on the right being the the thief that repented and was sent to heaven as know because of the cross above him. The one to the left being the thief who did not hence the symbol below stating that he went to hell. 

Priests of the churches. Notice that the crosses on top of their staffs are different.  Each church has its own cross style.

This is Bet Giyorgis one of the most famous churches.  It was the last of the churches in Lalibela to be built. It is the only church with drainage to remove water from the roof.

Monolithic Cross in middle of Drainage Ditch

Tomb of Adam-Main entrance to churches.

Traditional Tukul House

Door with nails representing the nails of the cross

We spent day exploring and climbing all over the mountains of Lalibela which is at 2,600 meters.  So not only was it tough because of all of the steps but the altitude was a killer! After all of that we went to eat at Ben Abeba.  Imagine if Dr. Seuss designed a restaurant and you can imagine what it is like.  But the views were amazing and we arrived in time to see the sunset, which was great.  Then we moved down to the bonfire to have our dinner.

Ethiopian Adventure- Part 2- Gondar

And the adventure begins!  We woke up early to catch a 7:40 flight to Gondar.  We took a taxi with some of the best fuzzy seat covers you have ever seen to the airport.  Once we got there we noticed a tour bus so we high tailed to to the entrance of the terminal.  After a bit of elbowing our way in front of the Germans from the tour bus, we made it into the terminal.  As we were checking in the gate attendant said "Do you need your bags in Gondar?"  We said yes, of course.  Then he said, "Well they were scheduled to go from Addis to Lalibela."  I said, well we would like to go from Addis to Gondar and have our bags come with us.  So he suggested we carry them with us, since it seemed that our bags had a different itinerary to use!

We managed to get checked in and on our plane. The flight to Gondar was only an hour long.  We arranged for the hotel to pick us up at the airport which was nice because he met us at the airport, loaded our bags and took us straight to the hotel.  The Gondar airport is about 20km outside of Gondar so we had a bit of a drive through the countryside on the way in.  The whole time Sue just kept saying, "This is what I think of when I think of Africa." We were in a what would probably be described as grassland, thought it wasn't flat.  We got to the hotel and checked in then we headed over to the Palace compound, Fasil Ghebbi.  

There were Palaces dating from 17th and 18th century.  I got a chance to play around with my panoramic shot on my camera!

After walking around the palace we went back to our hotel for some lunch before we headed out in an Ethiopian tuk tuk.  We went to Fasilides' Bath which is locally known as the swimming pool.  It was amazing and very deep!  The use it once a year as a pool of water that is blessed then people jump in. This is where I tried my first 360 degree picture on my phone!  Love them.  I am not sure how to share them so that people can view them but when I figure it out I will share it. 

 

Next we went up to Qusquam Palace and Church.  This is a round church with ruins from Princess Mentewab's Palace. 

    

Lastly we headed up to Debreberham Sellasie, which is another church on top of a hill but what an amazing one!

Ethiopian Adventure- Part 1

I have decided to start this blog with my latest adventure to Ethiopia for our October Break from the 18-25th, 2014.  I traveled with Sue from my current school to visit Sarah a friend whom I taught with in Thailand.  Our adventure began at Heathrow's Terminal 2, which only last May, Sue and I volunteered as testers to see if all of the systems were working.  It was nice to see to see the terminal up and running.  We both decided that it doesn't have enough grab and go kind of places to eat.

We arrived in Addis Ababa on Saturday morning after a night flight, which I hate by the way! As we entered the airport we all had our temperatures taken as an Ebola screening!  The wait for our visa took about an hour but after that we were able to meet up with Sarah and walk through customs using her red residents card.  We made it back to her apartment without much effort though it was easy to see that driving in Addis is not so straight forward with the pedestrians walking across anywhere they pleased, the dogs having a nap in the median, the goats grazing down the sides, and the horses having a rest in the middle of the roads!

After a quick nap we went out to lunch at a pizza place called Efoy.  They had good pizza. We decided to go to a shop near her school in order to see what things are available as gifts so that we had an idea while we traveled.  Then we went to Mr. Basket!  He had some amazing big baskets in front of his shop that would have made great laundry hampers.  I bought a couple of baskets to add to my collection at home.

After a bit of shopping we had a drink and a snack at the middle school principal's house before heading off to dinner at Gusto's.  We had a great Italian meal for dinner and were able to listen to some good jazz music before heading back and crashing for the night.

The next morning we had breakfast at the Radisson after a bit of a detour around Addis! Sarah then borrowed one of the school's drivers to take us to the National Museum and Mt. Entoto.  As we pulled into the National Museum parking lot Sarah informed me that this is where Lucy was housed.  I was so excited to see her, I mean how often do you get to see a 3.5 million year old fossil of humanoid!  I remember looking at my mom's book on Lucy over and over again when I was younger. The rest of the museum had a few history items from Ethiopia but it was still quite small.  Oh and it only costs 10 Birr - £.31 - $.50!  Can you believe that?  That is so cheap to see such an amazing piece of history!

 







 


We left the museum and headed to the top of Mt. Entoto which is one of the mountains that surround Addis Ababa.  It had a very typical Ethiopian Orthodox Church at the top, which was painted in the colours of Ethiopia! There was also a Palace of Emperor Menelik at the top.