[2019]
[2019]
OUR FAMILY HOLIDAYS
9151 OU39 - Ethiopia - Holiday Package - Axum
After our visits with the aid workers, we took a standard tour package from the Ethiopian tourist agency. What we didn't know at the time was that the two of us represented something like 2 percent of the total tourist population visiting Ethiopia that year. All in all, only 100 tourists visited the whole country in the year! Accordingly, it was expensive -- since we had our own guide for each location who also drove us around in the obligatory Land Cruiser.
We flew around Ethiopia in small airliners, typically seating 30-50 people, and landed on grass strips with very primitive air terminals; the usual picture was of a group of bearers carrying our luggage on their heads across to where our Land Cruiser was waiting. But it was a superb service even so. In one particular in one situation, at Lalibella, when we got back on the plane to fly to our next destination -- having come in two days previously, the steward greeted me with "Mr Mercer you dropped your lens cap last time" as he handed the cap to me! I never had such service anywhere else in the world.
We started our tour at Axum, where there was at least an attempt at grading the landing strip, but the terminal was still just a shed roofed in tin. In Axum itself we stayed at a hotel which was small and quite primitive. We had chalet in the garden, with a very basic bedroom and shower room. On the other hand it was covered with Bougainvillia flowers which made it, and the garden, beautiful.
Axum is most notable for its ancient obelisks. They were the largest obelisks ever made in pre-history. Although the largest of them is now broken, there are sufficient remaining for you to see how impressive they must have been.
At the same time it was supposed to have been the capital city of the Queen of Sheba, We were proudly shown her palace, which again must have been consistent with the time of the Queen of Sheba -- well before the time of Christ. They were just a few walls left, and but those were sufficient to show that they at least had reasonable plumbing. We also saw what was supposed to be her bathing pool; a large, ancient reservoir held back by a dam.
We saw even earlier burial sites. All in all, it was very historic location and indicated the extent to which Ethiopian history is important to all of us.
The new Coptic church built by Selassie, was impressive in size but nothing really in terms of architecture. However, the little church nearby was important. This was where the ark of the covenant was supposed to have come to rest. The church, or monastery, was minute and was sufficient only for one priest to stay in it. However, once he went in he never came out -- and no else ever went in. The result was that nobody ever really knew whether the ark of the covenant really was there.
The religious leaders swore that it was, but only that one priest knew the truth.
hits