Vacation of a Lifetime with PHE and Ladybirds

Wow, the past 5 days of traveling to the Northern historical sites with my friends Mesy (PHE), Mery and Nardy (Ladybirds) have been so much fun. While the language barrier was a bit rough at times (see my next blog, Uber-honest confessions from a white OC girl in Ethiopia), overall we had an incredible time and became really close friends. We also took about a million and a half hilarious pictures, which I’m sure we’ll all treasure our whole lifetimes!

Thursday April 15, Mery picked me up in our land cruiser with chill driver Solomon at 6am, and we quickly scooped up Nardy and Mesy before hitting the road out of Addis. We slept on and off, and woke up to the gorgeous Nile River valley opening up below us in a flat yellow landscape dotted with scrappy green brush and mesa-like flat hills. Since none of us understood the geology of the place, we called Negash to get his view, and he told us the valley was caused by two tectonic plates pulling apart, similar to the Rift Valley. Super cool! He also tasked us with a few work-related items, of course. :) At breakfast, Mery cracked me up when we paid for our meal and I owed her some change, and she said “I’m gonna make you dance for this one bihr!” I belly-laughed and everyone in the restaurant stopped to stare and laugh. Then in the car Nardy said she identified 5 of my laughs… belly, chat, office, movie and fake. AWESOME. :)

565 kilometers later, we arrived in the touristy city of Bahir Dar at around 5pm. We checked into the super nice Papyrus Hotel and I went for a swim in the pool, where I actually pulled off a back flip off the diving board (woo hoo!), and made friends with a fellow swimmer named Desaline. I just swam 10 laps, ‘cuz I’m starting to get really nervous about being in shape to hike Mt. Kilimanjaro in a few weeks! We had dinner and then went to the Balgeru cultural show, where I drank pretty strong tej (honey wine) and got invited to shimmy-shake it with the dancers on stage. Mery said she was proud of me and the lady next to me said I was a professional, haha… but oh well, it was fun.

Friday April 16 was pretty action-packed, with visiting the Entos Jesus Monastery on Lake Tana, cruising around the lake to see birds and a hippo, and then driving out about an hour to hike to the origin of the Nile river, aka Nile Falls. I really enjoyed talking with our 26 year-old tour guide Zelanam along the way, who had really pretty golden eyes and an interest in international media and politics.  He explained all of the religious symbols of the churches we saw, and answered all my questions about the environment and tourism in the area. At the falls, I actually swam to the other side for a photo! I was much more scared of alligators and crocodiles than being seen by everyone in my undies, haha, and thank goodness survived to tell the tale. ;) That night Zelanam took me to the gym for an hour, and then we all went out to the Fasika cultural show and stayed in the Blue Nile Hotel, where again I was asked to shake what my mama gave me in front of everyone. Good times!

The next day we woke up at 5:30am to drive 180k to Gonder, where we had a tense breakfast at 9am in deciding whether we’d have enough time to drive the next 365k to Lalibela. It turned out the road is super rough and it wouldn’t feasibly work, so I had to sacrifice my last day in Addis and accept the fact that our 6 day trip would now be 5 days. Tired of arguing and resigned to our new plan, we ended up having a blast in Gonder, taking hundreds of photos of the “Fasiladas” castle which is also known as the “Camelot of Africa.” We checked into our Kwara Hotel by the Piazza, where I again exercised by climbing 77 stairs with my backpack 10 times… hopefully it will help to have strong hamstrings on Mt. Kili! After our pizza lunch we visited the beautiful Debre Berhan Selassie church, where the girls were really moved by what an ancient priest told them in Amharic about life and how to be a good person, then we drove to the Fasilada’s Bath to take a few more fun pictures of the beautiful trees and stones. That night we went to the Balgeru Cultural Show, where the girls said I was famous because men kept approaching me and one apparently fell in love with me, haha.

Driving the 365k to Lalibela the next day was certainly a bumpy, long adventure! We started at 5am since it was supposed to be a 10 hour drive, and we drove through villages, pebble-strewn roads, stacks of wood and people moving those stacks of wood everywhere. Everyone on the side of the road wore cloth scarves and the men carried dula sticks to brace their shoulders on long walks. The dark brown, dark green and yellow landscape with clear blue skies was breathtaking! We passed by all these men on the road with the wisest old withered faces, and I just thought about how they must have the most incredible stories to tell, the most fantastic belief systems, and the most diverse skills sets of anyone I’d ever seen. I had a ton of fantasies about organizing events on campus next year to have people try carrying huge loads on their head, or doing a week of action on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Let’s hope I’m not too crazy busy next year to be a student activist again! :)

We arrived in Lalibela at the top of a dusty, rocky mountain in the middle of nowhere at about 3pm, and it was SO worth the trip! It’s full of 11 rock-hewn churches that are out of this world, like nothing I’ve ever seen before, from the 12th-13th century, and excavated by chisels and axes from the top down! Inside are barrel arches, vaults and frescoes, and I was dumbfounded to discover that there were no European influences in constructing them—they’re entirely Ethiopian. It’s actually a big mystery on how they were constructed in the first places… my Lonely Planet said researchers say it took 40,000 people working to do it, but the locals—and my friends—believe it was accomplished by angels. I had a big discussion with them on whether aliens or angels were the more likely architects, haha. ;)

Although the churches were architecturally fascinating, the insides were more calm, peaceful and serene than any church I’ve been in. Gracing the cold stone with my fingertips or stepping on the carpet-covered rock floor filled me with warm tingles throughout my whole body, and you could just feel the profound history everywhere, perhaps because it’s a “mecca” destination for so many Orthodox believers. While it was really special for me, it was even more so to watch how Mery, Mesy and Nardy were spiritually moved by the place, as they chatted with the priests and ritualistically kissed the gold crosses of each church we visited.

That night we stayed in the Lal Hotel and had a chill night with no electricity, and the next day we saw the remaining 6 churches we hadn’t seen the previous day. I bought a ton of souvenirs before we hit the road at 1pm, making it half-way south to Addis and checking into the Sunny Side Hotel in Kombolcha at 8pm. It was our last night and of course we had to end it with an adventure, eating tibbs and shiro at a local restaurant and then walking 20 minutes home in the dark, clutching each others arms and laughing at how kinda dangerous it was. ;) The next day we had a delicious mango and avocado mixed juice before leaving at 8am, and we were able to make it back to Addis by 5pm, just in time to meet Negash at the office and get a few work things done in time for Earth Day. Overall the vacation was SO much fun, and I’m really happy it only cost me $300. I can’t believe that I leave Addis in 3 short days—I’m totally not ready—but at least I’ve had this wonderful time to bond with my Habesha friends!