OUR FAMILY HOLIDAYS

9150 Ethiopia – To Bihar Dar

From Axum we flew around the Simian Highlands to international airport at Bihar Dar. We were not able to go to these highlands, since they were still full of land mines from the war. This was a shame since the mountains are amongst the most beautiful in the world. However, flying around these Simian Highlands - since they were too high for the small airliners to go over them, still allowed us to watch them out of the window. 

Perched on their sides, going up to well over 15,000 feet, were the farms of the Ethiopians. Each one had fields hacked out the sheer sides of the mountains.  Especially visible were the threshing circles.  These littered the landscape. The circles, which still had the freshly threshed corn on them, were a very obvious feature of the landscape, and were central to the life of the farmers there.

 Threshing the grain

Bihar Dar airport had an international standard runway.  Unfortunately, it's new terminal had been bombed to destruction by the Derg.  Accordingly, the new terminal -- which we used -- was a series of tin sheds.

 The bombed international air terminal

In Bihar Dar, and for the rest of the tour, we stayed at Ghion hotels; most of which were quite modern. In fact the one in Bihar Dar was beautifully located.  It was on a promontory overlooking the lake. We sat in the garden and watched the fishermen catching fish which we would eat at night.  They fished from boats made out of reeds bound together, rather like the one Thor Heyerdal used. The hotel itself was of three to four star standard, even by western standards. The room, with en-suite, was very comfortable and the dining-room was of quite high standard. The problem was, of course, that we were the only guests in the hotel. Even worse, because there were shortages of water, this was only turned on for a hour or so a day -- which posed problems for having a bath or even flushing the toilet.  But we managed to cope with this and it was very comfortable even so.

Bihar Dar is not particularly interesting in itself -- though its market was quite fascinating to see. However, it is the starting point of the Blue Nile.
 

 The Nile Falls

In particular it was the site of the Nile Falls.  To get to these, though, we could only be taken part way by the obligatory land cruiser.  Beyond that we had to walk for a couple of miles over rough ground to a position where we could overlook the Nile.  It was not the rainy season, so they were not at their most spectacular since the really vast quantities of water were not roaring over them. Even so they were still spectacular enough with significant amounts of water going over a dozen or more different falls.

Our one other tour, from Bihar Dar, was across Lake Tana to a monastery on a promontory on the other side. To get across we had to hire a complete ferry to ourselves.  This ferry would normally have carried 100 or more passengers across the lake and we had it all to ourselves; sheer luxury!  Thus it was, we steamed across the lake watching the pelicans fishing. We stopped at the other side and climbed through groves of wild coffee beans, or at least of coffee berries since they were not yet ready to harvest. Seeing them in their natural habitat was fascinating in itself. 

At the top, though, we entered a very old church, round which we were shown by the resident priest.  It was very interesting, in historic terms (being in effect an ancient cathedral) but the problem with all Coptic churches is you aren’t allowed into the inner sanctuary where the best of the art is.

 Coptic Christian art

One problem about Bihar Dar, which we didn't encounter elsewhere, was that of the children pursuing us to try and get money from us.  This was quite objectionable at times where – unlike the situation in most Third World countries – we didn’t experience elsewhere in Ethiopia.

The only other outing was to see the actual start of the Nile itself, at the southern edge of the lake, and then on to Haile Selassie's country house. This had been built for him and his family, though it was rumoured that they had only been to it twice. The main thing that was impressive about it was the long drive, a mile or more long, which was fringed by jacaranda trees. These were all in bloom, a symphony of blue.  The house itself was on a bluff overlooking the Nile. It was quite small, but remarkably luxurious. In effect it stood on stilts so that the area under it could be used for barbecue parties. The main accommodation itself was very luxurious, not least the bathrooms had solid gold fittings.  Haile Selassie, who used this almost as a country cottage, was clearly used to quite a degree of luxury.

[back]     [home]

hits