Giraffes during the sunset safari at Masai Mara

Nairobi has become our major hub during the East-Africa trip. Since there are a number of budget carriers located in Kenya, getting around this part of the continent is quite affordable. For instance, we did manage to buy our tickets for the Entebbe to Nairobi flight during a transit stop on our previous flight going from Addis Ababa to Kigali through Nairobi. The transit time of that flight was six hours, giving us enough time to check out various ticket desks while transferring in Kenya.

Wildebeest at Masai Mara

What would be Kenya without a safari. Remembering my childhood, glued to the television screen following the series “Daktari“, I was quite excited to get a glimpse of wildlife here. Needless to say, that we organized a safari as the very first thing upon arrival in Kenya.  In fact, once we checked in at our hotel, the organization of a tour to a National Park was almost a no-brainer. The receptionist called a representative from a nearby agency. Once he showed up five minutes later, everything was simply down to fixing duration, itinerary and cost. These are the momenta, where Evgeny really stands out with his negotiating skills as a business man. We had a clear figure of how much we were willing to pay and he haggled the guy from the agency down to that amount. It probably was still a good business deal for him, but so it was for us, too. We consequently fixed the start of the tour for the next morning and went to bed early. Being downtown Nairobi, our hotel was strategically located for the purpose, but it was noisy, too. Falling asleep therefore was a pain, especially the counting of the cockroaches crawling in and out underneath the room door didn’t really make me tired. But hey, that’s also wild life – just on a different scale.

Evgeny and Tanya at a Rift Valley lookout and rest stop

Early in the morning, our driver arrived and we left Nairobi for Masai Mara National Park. On the way, we crossed the Rift Valley, which is a spectacular valley, about 100km wide. The serpentine road down the valley seems to be a real bottleneck for traffic. We saw an impressive accident where a truck was stuck halfway downhill and upside down after having missed a curve on the mountain road. Onlookers still gathering at the site meant that this accident just happened. We started to wonder whether it would have been us down there, if we hadn’t taken the short coffee break at the valley lookout spot a couple of kilometers back.

Cheetah in Masai Mara

A part of being a scenic traffic obstacle, the valley itself is a mix of fertile grasslands alternating with desert areas. The soda lakes are home to birds, I did not expect to see here in Africa: Flamingos. The Rift Valley is huge and marks the border with Tanzania (South), Uganda (West) and Ethiopia and Sudan (North).  A very interesting six hours after departure from Nairobi, we arrived at a very comfortable bush camp in a peaceful environment. After putting down our bags in the tents, we immediately went for an sunset safari by jeep.

We were told that Masai Mara is Kenya’s richest wildlife reserve. There are elephants, wildebeest, zebra, eland and Thomson’s gazelles. We figured that there would be a good chance to see the “Big Five” (elephant, lion, rhinoceros, leopard and buffalo) which was Evgeny’s goal to for this part of the trip. Given that the reserve is 1510 square kilometer in size, chances were good. Tanya quietly enjoying nature also seemed to be happy and after a two hour trip we arrived back at the romantic lodge which compensated her for all the basic, dirty and dangerous places we have been so far on this journey. On the next day, we went for a full-day safari. After an hour into the trip, I gave up counting the different species of animals we could spot. Taking pictures and admiring wildlife from the safety of our jeep, I felt almost like a child again. This time not in front of the television set dreaming of Kenya, but in front of the real thing.

Vultures in Masai Mara

Halfway through the morning, our driver got news of a giraffe that was attacked and killed by lions. Which seemed unusual to him and he told us that probably the giraffe was old or sick. We drove to the spot where the dead animal was lying and the lions had a feast by eating the flesh of the carcass. Together with another five or six jeeps, we were circling the area about 50m away from the predators who seemed to be absolutely uninterested in us.   Vultures were sitting on the trees waiting for their turn. Notable other stop was a family of Cheetahs which tried to hide in the bush grass. Our driver knew how to approach without disturbing them and we spotted some baby Cheetahs I immediately fell in love with.

On day three we went to the Tanzanian border where we saw herds of wildebeest and zebras. During our lunch break, monkeys kept all the tourists busy scrambling to keep their food and belongings safe. The vervet monkeys were the major attraction among the visitors, because of their bright blue balls. To wrap up the safari, we returned to the area where we spotted the dead giraffe on the day before. There wasn’t much remaining. Just n furred carcass with almost no flesh remaining. And then there were flies. Thousands. Tens of thousands. And the smell was awful. The jeep drivers seemed to have fun by driving their cars into the direction of the wind and then smiling and shrugging at their passengers: “Hakuna Matata“.

After such an eventful safari trip, it was time to wrap up and return to Nairobi to catch a flight for our last destination: Mombasa. But that is another story…

African globe

Our land border crossing on the road from Kigali (Rwanda) to Kampala (Uganda) was easier than anticipated. The ceremony of getting processed at customs resembled some South American crossings during my recent trip there: Getting off the local bus, filling out immigration forms no one ever reads, queuing to get the exit stamp in the passport, walk about 500 meters across the border, filling out again customs forms that no one ever reads, bribing my way through the queuing crowd, getting the entry stamp and – finally board the bus again. All in all, this process took Evgeny, Tatjana and me about one hour. We then arrived a few hours later – notably after crossing the Equator – in Uganda’s busy capital city, Kampala.

Murchinson Falls

Readers of this blog know my affinity for countries starting with the letter “U”. It may be a simple coincidence, but for some unknown reason, whenever I enjoy staying in a country, then it starts with that particular letter of the alphabet. As if there is no exception to this rule, I felt very comfortable and happy in Uganda. Although we were very busy arranging our trip to the famous Murchinson Falls National Park further north from Kampala, we found plenty of time to sight-see the capital city and enjoy a very tasty Chinese (sic!) dinner in a posh restaurant.

Although our hostel was very helpful in organizing the upcoming country-side trip, we did not really appreciate the very touristy atmosphere. Some of the backpackers looked just as if they arrived from Europe and needed a hiding place from the African reality. Others treated staff like if they were in a five star hotel at the shores of the French riviera. Luckily, there was a small outside terrace, a bit away from the crowd. Very quickly, Evgeny figured out the Vodka brand and price. Which meant that we went to the dorm really, really late. And getting up very very early next morning to hit the road was a bit of a drag. But our trip to the Murchinson Falls National Park was quite scenic.

However, the ministry of (silly) roads in Uganda must have fallen in love with speed bumps. Never ever have I seen so many sleeping policemen (as we call them back home) on a road. In one instance, the road had hundreds of speed bumps just meters apart, which considerably slowed traffic. We measured 8 kilometers of these bumps, each about 15 meters apart. You do the math. Some of these obstacles had been flattened by the heavy use of vehicles rolling over, defeating their very purpose. Our driver (and most others) seemed to know at which maximum speed and at which angle a car would be able to cross over the bumps. Looking at the traffic in front of our car therefore looked a bit like if cars were dancing a Waltz, shifting from side to side and jumping relentlessly.

Antelopes

Eventually, we reached our destination, the “Red Chili Guest House”, a backpacker lodge near the Murchinson Falls in the center of the National Park. That place was really great to hang out before and after the safaris. But somehow the owners might run into a problem by targeting backpackers as customers, because the overall fees in the park are exorbitant: Entrance US$30/person, boat ride to the Murchinson Falls US$20/person, US$20/car for a park ranger during the safari. But most notoriously, there is a US$10/person ranger fee for a short walk from the boat landing to the top of the falls.

We were given the explanation that these fees would help to cover to maintain the trail, as well as the training for the locals being employed as rangers. However, on closer investigation we learned, that there was no trail maintenance and that that rangers see no return of these fees. Which is not really surprising. Anyhow, this total amount of $86 per day, just to be in that park, is beyond a backpackers budget – so we kept our visit to a minimum.

As for the MurchinsonFalls themselves, we were not disappointed. The force of the water squeezing through a narrow gap of only 7 meters is quite impressive, despite the relatively low height of the drop (45 meters). This part of the Nile river is called the Victoria Nile. Along its shores we saw numerous animals, ranging from Elephants, Rhinos, Monkeys, Crocodiles and various species of birds. On the second day of our stay, we went on a short safari through the park. The early morning sunrise at the ferry landing and the subsequent spotting of animals just waking up and wandering around was absolutely beautiful. Sadly, we had to leave the park a bit early to catch our flight for Kenya leaving from Entebbe that same afternoon. But that’s another story…

Giraffes

View over Kigali

One of the surprises for this trip was presented to me by Evgeny just before we left Moscow: We would visit four instead of two countries in East Africa. So I came pretty unprepared to Rwanda. Evgeny’s Lonely Planet guidebook served me to have a quick glimpse at visa procedures which seemed to be no problem at all. Like most other African countries, Rwanda also grants the so-called “visa on arrival” at the airport. What the book left out though, was the fact that these procedures had changed since it went to print.

Downtown Kigali

Rwanda has become a very modern country and the immigration procedure has to be done through the Internet – in the form of an electronic visa application. Since we missed this news and our flight arrived just before midnight, the customs officer was quite annoyed by yet another group of stupid tourists having omitted to apply online beforehand. He finally granted us a four day visa for 60 US dollars. Which was sufficient in terms of time we had planned for Rwanda, as we wanted to visit only Kigali – the capital town – and then leave by bus for Uganda.

Despite the hefty price tag, we only got a tiny little stamp by the size of a 25 US cent coin. A bit disappointed by this poor return of investment to keep in our passports, we headed to the baggage belts to collect our rucksacks. As we were ready to leave the customs area, Tatjana got stopped by another quite angry customs officer. He was not interested in her backpack, but wanted to confiscate her duty free bag.

Since she was carrying our duty free items as well, we were sure that the customs agent suspected her to have exceeded her duty free allowance. Therefore, Evgeny and I quickly gathered around her and pointed out that the three bottles of Vodka and the cigarettes were for all the three of us. But the agent wasn’t interested in this unimportant fact either.

As he spoke only French, I was the only one of us understanding what he said – but I first could not believe what he was asking for: “Il est interdit d’importer des sacs en plastique au Ruanda” (It is forbidden to import plastic bags into Rwanda). Consequently, I tried to explain to him, that our one and only plastic bag could hardly be considered as an import business of plastic bags. Since it was late, we finally decided to let go and let the officials confiscate our duty free bag, after having stowed its contents into our various backpacks.

Once we left the airport and arrived downtown Kigali, we learned from the locals that plastic bags are banned in Rwanda – for environmental reasons. Although I was introduced to this odd law a bit brisk, I found it to be very good and I wonder why no-one ever tries to introduce such a ban in the “industrialized world”.

Coming from Ethiopia, it was absolutely amazing to see clean and modern roads with sidewalks. There was a total absence of live stock wandering on the streets and people were using proper sidewalks. It all looked almost like in Europe – but it was midnight and we were being driven to a neighborhood known for having the cheapest crash pads for backpackers. Actually, Evgeny’s guidebook suggested to “look elsewhere” instead, since our intended hostel was a bit “too basic”. The term “dodgy” is quite an understatement to describe the road where our hostel was located. Just in front of the heavily locked entrance gate were gangs of glue sniffers and other people probably also high on various drugs. Obviously, as European tourists, we drew all attention while banging on the gate and then entering. Once inside in our rooms, I was telling myself that everything would look normal in daylight next morning.

Local transport in Rwanda

However, none of us had anything to drink (except for the Vodka), due to the customer-unfriendly airtravel security rules, which disallow liquids in the baggage. Therefore, Evgeny and I decided to walk three blocks to buy some water in the 24 hour store. On the way there, we were escorted by half of the glue sniffing gang. They were insisting that we needed body-guards. Yeah, actually the only reason, we needed protection was to be protected from them, I thought. Eventually, we made it to the “Nakumatt” (the 24h store) and back without trouble and without having to pay any bribe.

After our return, we were asked to pay the rooms in advance by one of the hostel staff. He was searching for a receipt pad which hadn’t been used for months. A member of the gang who accompanied us joined in and he explained to me that I had to fill out the receipt myself. Slowly more people came to look and see what happened. Finally, four guys were gathering as I filled out the form and handed over the money to the clerk. Everyone made sure that I would not omit a single detail, although I seemed to be the only one being able to read and write. They also helped the clerk to count the money I just handed in. This is when I figured out, that – at least – part of the glue sniffing gang was sleeping in the same guesthouse. And that they were probably genuinely eager in wanting to help and protect us.

Next morning, Evgeny, Tatjana and me did set off to explore the city of Kigali which is located in a hilly environment with lots of lookouts, trees and parks. Being very small and on the cute side, it is almost unbelievable that we were on the very spot that has seen one of the worst genocides in the last century. One million Tutsi and Hutu (names of two local tribes) were slaughtered here in the mid-1990′s. Comparing this figure to the 1991 census which only shows a population of 250’000 people living in Kigali (today 850’000), it is almost unimaginable how horrible the Rwandan war must have been. One of the respective sites we visited, is the hotel “Mille Collines”. It became a refugee center during the genocide and is depicted in the famous movie “Hotel Rwanda”.

Eternal flame at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center

“I lay down again among the dead bodies. It was three days after the killings, so the bodies stank. The Interahamwe would pass by without entering the room, and dogs would come to eat the bodies. I lived there for 43 days…“

Another major stop was the visit of the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center, located a bit outside of town. I have seen quite some memorials, such as Auschwitz in Poland or the Khmer Rouge prison S21 in Cambodia. No, I am not going to go into any superlatives about the Kigali memorial being even more horrible. This would not be appropriate in respect to what all these places are about. The displays in the center are very well documented, outlining the reasons that led to the genocide, the war and the effects of post-war traumas. Countless screens feature real-life stories from survivors. According to the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center’s website, the reason of the memorial’s existence is to provide educational facilities for the young generation of Rwandan. Some of whom may not remember the genocide, but whose lives are profoundly affected by it.

Downtown Kigali

Needless to portray how different we looked at the city after our return from the memorial. Despite on what I wrote about our first night, Kigali today is very peaceful during daytime. People are very friendly and helpful. Numerous times, when we were on the streets looking into our map, we were proposed help by locals. The “Country of a Thousand Hills” – as Rwanda is being dubbed in French – has left an impact on me. We left on the third day, early in the morning, on a bus to Kampala (Uganda). As the superb green and hilly country side flew by, looking through the bus window, I knew that Evgeny and Tatjana were thinking about the same thing as I did. Haunting stories of genocide survivors.

Standing at the top looking at the Church of St. George, Lalibela

Having read the excellent sci-fi novel “My Soul To Keep” by Tananarive Due, I was familiar with the town of Lalibela which featured as “the city of priests and rock-hewn churches” in the story. As much as I had trouble to stop reading this great novel, I found it difficult to leave the “holiest town of Ethiopia” after the visit.

Almost forgetting to feed ourselves, we pivoted between rock-hewn churches, the market and our guest house. Lalibela was planned to mark the grand finale of the Ethiopian trip. And it lived up to our expectations.

Downtown Lalibela

Upon arrival, we decided to sleep in the most inexpensive guest house, located spot in the center of the local market. Our guidebook claimed that the rooms came without windows, but the toilets would “come with a view”. Having a courtyard a bit elevated, we could only get glimpses at a potentially scenic view over the market and other parts of downtown Lalibela. Definitely, our rooms situated around this terrace were windowless. And the squat toilets definitely came with a fantastic view. If they would have been a bit less dirty and stinky, we might have wanted to sit there enjoying the sunset view with a drink.

Known for its monolithic, rock-hewn churches, Lalibela is a favorite tourist spot for those visiting Ethiopia. There are thirteen churches, which were built during the 12th and 13th century. Today, this UNESCO World Heritage Site separated in various areas, unfortunately most of the historic buildings are covered by roofs, which require ugly, large steel poles. As much as the historic architecture is interesting, the new, protective construction is plain ugly and upsetting.

The rock-hewn churches of Lalibela were called the “Eight Wonder of the World”, which made me smile – since a few days ago, the same labeling was applied for the stelaes of Aksum that we visited. Moreover, during my round-the-world trip, I have encountered numerous advertisements calling a certain place the “Eight Wonder”. So, I went to Wikipedia and found a pretty good list about sites being dubbed as such. To my surprise, I visited many of them – whew!

Particularly impressive and beautiful is the Church of St. George. Located in the middle of a giant rock, it is very impressive to see and analyze how this structure has been hewn out of the surrounding stone. Being armed with (Russian language) Wikipedia printouts and the “Lonely Planet” guidebook, we had all the necessary gear to explore the various areas ourselves. Again, we had to fend off official guides who charge the published fee of more than 20 US dollars. Moreover, the guidebook claimed “you would be foolish to explore the sites on your own” – recommending to hire tour guides. An odd recommendation which the local guides obviously knew about and therefore we saw many backpackers shelling out this outrageous fee.

Priest at Lalibela

However, people reading other guidebooks – the French, for example, travel with the “Petit Futé” or the “Guide du Routard” – did not consider for a single moment to take up a tour guide for the visit. Discovering and exploring the sites was definitely more fun than following blindly a local. Sure, we may have missed smaller details – but the grand picture of the area unveiled steadily as we were walking through a maze of tunnels, caves and churches.

Leaving Lalibela next day, we visited the morning mass at Nakuta La’ab, which is a monastery carved in the opening of the mountain. It is named after its founder, the King Nakuta La’ab, who succeeded King Lalibela. Evgeny and Tatjana decided to stay outside of the church since a mass was in progress. I followed our driver, who acted as a facilitator, through the praying crowd to see the priest of the church. He did halt the mass so that I could enter the building and get some information about its features, such as paintings and artifacts.

Spotting the waiting people outside the church was definitely making me feel uncomfortable. However, both the priest and my driver-translator did not show signs of wanting to speed up my visit. Eventually, we left after fifteen minutes when I was a bit reluctant to wade my way back out through the impatient crowd.

Finally, we were on our way back to Addis Ababa, where we arrived after a night stop in the town of Kombolcha to break the long journey. Organizing air-tickets to Rwanda was next on our agenda. Luckily, all the relevant airlines were located in one big complex, the Hilton Hotel in Addis Ababa. Quite a shock to stumble through this posh castle, full of “important” people and overpriced services. After one hour, we secured tickets on Kenya Airways – flying from Ethiopia to Rwanda via Kenya. This itinerary did cost less than half of what Ethiopian Airways asks for a direct flight. Weird airline tariffs…

After spending nine days eating local food, we did enjoy arriving in in the capital city where pizzas are hanging from the trees and spaghettis grow in every garden. Well, almost – but you get the picture about our dinner that night.

Make sure to come back to read about the next leg of our trip, the capital town of Kigali in Rwanda. Definitely a much different experience from Ethiopia in various ways.

Morning prayers in a rock-hewn church near Lalibela

Priest at rock hewn church in the Tigray region

A visit to the Tigray region, in the northern part of Ethiopia is a must for any visitor on the historic circuit through this country. This region is bordering Eritrea and Sudan.

Although the travel advisory of the Swiss government did warn about visits to this area, Evgeny and I found it to be very safe here. Maybe we were just ignorant and lucky, since we spotted numerous abandoned, rusty tanks next to the streets and a number of locals were carrying rifles.

The reason to see to this province are the amazing rock-hewn churches, which are scattered in several clusters over an area of 50’000 square kilometers. Each cluster has a name, such as Gheralta, Tkatisfi, Atsbi, Tembien and Wukro. Dating back to the 8th century, these churches sometimes feature Aksumite relics that were incorporated in the Christian structure. Looking much the same as the design of the obelisks in Aksum, the architecture of these churches is very unique.

Since the Tigray region features over 200 known churches, some of them on mountain tops and only accessible by climbing up ropes or chains, we had to focus on a small, scenic sample of sites. Actually, the exact number of churches in the Tigray region is unknown.

Hostel in Wukro

Against all advice of the Lonely Planet guidebook, we established our base in the center of the region – in the town of Wukro. Most tourists choose instead the towns of Adigrat or Mekele, which involve a two hour drive to most of the rock-hewn churches.

Our choice of staying in Wukro meant that we did not plan to encounter a lot of infrastructure and that we would need to cope with what was on offer in town. This was good enough for us, since we liked local food and had no problems sleeping in very basic hostels. As it later turned out, the hostel in Wukro would become the cheapest one during our entire trip (at less than a US dollar a night) – featuring a spotless shared bathroom and a beautiful, small little courtyard.

We had dinner in another brand-new tourist hotel. In fact, it was so new, that the kitchen wasn’t fully equipped and therefore not operating. We were offered local food which the waiter would get for us from a stall across the street. Since the bar was well equipped and the terrace quite inviting, we accepted the offer and spent a great evening in this small town.

Derg monument in Mekele

Next morning, we visited the churches, which involves handing out a small sum of Birr, the local currency, to a kid who will guard the parked car, handing out a small sum of Birr to the guard with the key to the church – and handing over a small donation to the priest sitting next to the entrance.

Moreover, Evgeny and Tatjana were busy taking pictures with some kids, which involved yet more “de-Birring”. Throw in a few random kids here and there, who do casually jump around in front of tourists by asking for pens (and money) and you’ll get the picture how strenuous a day at the churches can be.

Our road trip through the Tigray region was quite smooth, mainly due to the extensive road work in this part of Ethiopia. In some places, expanding the narrow roads meant to tear down parts of buildings, exposing rooms to the public.

Leaving to our next destination, we made a quick stopover in Mekele – which is the capital of Tigray. Oddly enough, the impressive Derg monument, which monopolizes the scenic view of the city, was off-limits to us tourists at the time we visited. In recent history, Mekele is associated closely with the catastrophic famine in Ethiopia during the mid-1980′s. There were hunger camps around the city, sheltering more than 70’000 refugees and tens of thousands waiting to be allowed in the area. During that time, around 50 people died each day in these camps.

Shop in Mekele, Ethiopia

Today, Mekele shows little sign of this part of its difficult past, however – there are monuments as a reminder of the other dark past of the town: The war with Eritrea.

A particularly gripping story we were told, was the one about a bomb which was dropped by the Eritrean Air Force during a 1998 air raid. It did hit the Ayder elementary school, killing eleven children, one teacher and a woman with a baby on her back. We left Mekele, after hearing similar gripping stories, with a bit of emotional feelings. Planning to fly next to Rwanda in a couple of days from now, we better had to get used to the gruesome reality of recent history.

Luckily, we got distracted by the beautiful scenery and landscape while we drove along the road to visit the highlight of our Ethiopian trip: The awesome and historic village of Lalibela.

Rock-hewn church in the Tigray region

Mountain panorama on the road from Aksum to Wukro

Still confused about the last posting about traveling back in time using the Ethiopian calendar? Well, then let me stir a bit more the possum: Ethiopia uses a 12-hour clock system. The first cycle is from dawn to dusk, the second one dusk to dawn.

This means, that the start of the day is dawn (not midnight). Consequently, 7:00am on a tourists’ watch corresponds to 1:00 in daylight hours in local Ethiopian time. Noon becomes 6:00 in daylight hours, and 7:00pm becomes 1:00 in evening/night hours.

Stelae at Aksum

Obviously, this creates sometimes discussions when negotiating with Ethiopians. It seemed to us that they run purposely tourists through the calculation exercise, since most official timetables are used to the Western Standard time calculation (starting at midnight). Nevertheless, locals among themselves definitely use the Ethiopian time descriptions.

Another confusing point is the language. Besides of Amharic – the prevalent modern language used in Ethiopia – Ge’ez is the de-facto language used in the catholic orthodox churches. The letters of both languages are the same – they are like beautiful paintings, unreadable to an unskilled traveler like me.

Ge’ez has its roots in the Askumite Empire (400 BC to around 900 AD) and was widely spoken in the area of the African Horn, which are today Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Northern Sudan. The town of Aksum was the trading center of this Empire – and it shows everywhere.

Being full of historic sites, this was one of our major point of interest during our trip through Ethiopia. Tatiana, Evgeny and I did settle in a small hotel after our arrival from a very scenic road trip next to the Simien mountains.

Although Aksum was very beautiful, having a lot of small markets and narrow streets, we quickly did figure out that one half day was more than enough to visit most of the places.

However, the itinerary we worked out with the car rental organization before setting off, was stating one full day (two nights) in Aksum. Although travelling independently, adapting the schedule to our need was a bit of a problem, since car rentals in Ethiopia usually do come with a driver.

And they obviously try to sell longer trips. We soon discovered that renting a car, wanting to go where we wanted and when we wanted, would be a tough business.

Stelae in Aksum

Next morning, during breakfast, we did confront our driver with the new plan. He first went into big blurbs that the distances on our proposed schedule were too big, once we clarified this one, the road conditions would not allow to drive that far. Clearly, since we wanted to leave around noon to our next destination, he did figure out that we were aiming to finish our trip faster – which means also a shorter hire period.

Once running out of arguments, our driver called his boss in Addis Ababa and we exchanged arguments over the mobile phone. Oddly, car rental company owner seemed to worry solely about us wearing down his rental car and the driver by “using it too much”. Hiring a car to move every day from site to site was an alien concept for these guys. But renting a car to stay several days in one place was an alien concept to us as well. Eventually common sense (we) succeeded in getting the itinerary changed according to our wish.

Simien mountains

Although we lost a bit of time in arguing, we were ready and on the the major site, the Northern Stelae Park, by around nine in the morning. The impressive structures at this park are in perfect condition – in fact they look as if they were new. But they are hundreds of years old. The tallest standing stelae are around 25 meters high. There would be another one, taller at 33 meters length, but it is lying broken on the ground.

Back in 1937, Italian soldiers shipped a 1700 year old obelisk to Rome. In 1947, a United Nations agreement specified this stelae to be shipped back to Ethiopia, but it took another couple of dozen years before this happened. In April 2005, this obelisk finally was shipped back to Aksum, where it was re-erected in 2008. (Picture of the Stelae in Rome)

The Northern Stelae Park is only a small sample of the Aksumite Empire’s skills and technology. In fact, everywhere throughout town, we did spot smaller stelaes, which are markers of underground burial chambers.

Ezana Stone in Aksum

Numerous were the other sites that we visited that morning. The Ezana Inscription, which is a relatively small site, contains a memorial inscription which belongs to an Aksumite king of the 4th century AD, known as Ezana. This stone reminded me a lot of the Rosetta Stone, sice it is inscribed in Greek, Sabean and Ge’ez translations. In this inscription, King Ezana announces the victories over his enemies.

The Queen of Sheba’s Bath (actually a reservoir) was a bit of a pointless visit – imagine a plain, square pool filled with water – but the Dungur ruins outside of town were quite interesting from a historical point of view. Measuring 52 meters by 55 meters, the Dungur complex’ central building is 18m square, dating back to the 6th century AD. It was probably the residence of Aksumite nobles. Next to these ruins is located yet another stelae field.

Transport for road workers in Ethiopia

The tombs of Kings Kaleb & Gebre Meskel were reminding us of visits to Egypt, although the Askumite tombs are dating to the 6th century AD. Set on a hill outside of town, this site also did offer beautiful landscape views. The architecture is quite intruiging, since the irregular shapes of the stones do lock without requiring iron clamps.

Happy, but groggy from an overdose of history, names, dates and places, we were setting off for our next destination around noon time (I think this is 6:00 daytime in Ethiopian standard). And we were eagerly looking forward to see another site (Wukro and the rock-hewn churches of Tigray) next day – not having to stagnate around Aksum, which paid us a beautiful farewell landscape as panorama on our road out.

Trees at Fasiladas Bath

A journey through Ethiopia means traveling back in time. For example, the date of May 1st 2009 becomes actually August 23th, 2001 in the Ethiopian calendar, which has thirteen months. Twelve of them have 30 days each, the thirteenth month has five days (respectively six days on leap years which occur every four years without exception). There are several other facts that involve the calendar date calculation, which is much better explained in this Wikipedia entry.

Fasiladas Palace

Visiting the town of Gondar, which is probably best known for its numerous beautiful castles with architecture derived from Spanish and Portuguese, was like a surreal journey to the past. Often called as “the Camelot of Africa”, it has several sites that are laden with historical stone castles and palaces, dating back to the 17th century. By that time, the town had a population of 60’000 inhabitants and was the capital city of the Abyssinian empire. Although a lot of the treasures in this city have been looted over time, the most damage was caused by British bombs during the second world war.

The most impressive tourist attraction is the Royal Enclosure, which is an area of 70’000 square meters, containing castles and other ancient buildings. High stone walls protect this site from the bustling city traffic. Again, we did spend a lot of time fending off official and would-be guides, since we had a pretty good idea of the complex we wanted to visit. Eventually, we succeeded in being able to visit the Royal Enclosure independently on our own. These are quite impressive ruins, much to our relief, since we didn’t expect too much after our disappointment of the hyped monasteries back on Lake Tana.

Palace of Iyasu

Some of the buildings at this tourist site contain the name of Fasilada (or sometimes: Fasilides). He was an Ethiopian emperor in the 17th century who did end the period of commerce between his country and Europe. Which led to a government of complete isolation that lasted for two centuries. In the Royal Enclosure, there are Fasiladas’ Palace and Fasiladas’ archive. And a bit outside of the town center, there is Fasiladas’ Bath, where there is still a bit of renovation going on. The bath is actually filled once per year for celebrations, where a cheering crowd jumps into the water to replicate Christ’s baptism. The walls of around the pool feature impressive trees which did remind me and Evgeny of the temples at Angkor in Cambodia. Needless to say that we enjoyed strolling around that site and the nearby garden featuring Zobel’s mausoleum.

At the end of a very busy day, we did visit the Debre Berhan Selassie Church. It is said, that the walls and the ceiling of this rectangular shaped church hold the country’s most important artwork. Indeed, the compendium of saints, sins and other depictions on the walls are beautiful. They all date back to the 17th century, a time when this building was circular (as the churches and monasteries in other parts of the country).

Most of the pictures are quite terrifying, describing punishment of sins in detail. At the time we traveled through East Africa, Pope Benedict had his first papal visit to the continent, where he did reject condoms as the answer in the fight against HIV/Aids. I tried to imagine what kind of picture (and punishment) would describe the sin of using a condom. Who knows, maybe revisiting this church again in a couple of months from now will give me the answer.

Woman praying at Debre Berhan Selassie church, Gondar

Aside of this, a big stone wall containing 12 towers surrounds the Church. Each tower represents one of the apostles. The largest, 13th tower symbolizes Christ.

Gondar was the only place during our travel, where we met other backpackers in our hostel. Because our top-choice, the Fasil Hotel, wasn’t operating anymore – and the Yimam Hotel was full – we did end up in the touristy Belgez Pension. Besides being overpriced, it was a clean place. Annoyingly, it was also a perfect spot to get updates from obnoxious overseas people about all the current television series. We really did not want to mingle with them and these tourists kept staring at us like if we were wildlife on a Safari.

Once we did leave for dinner, we enjoyed the vibe in downtown Gondar which was much more interesting. And we were spared from having to deal with missionary people from “Gods own country”. Quickly, we made our way to a beautiful, small local restaurant. There, we did order our favorite staple, Injera bread, with Shiro – which is minced meat with a spicy and tasty sauce.

As usual, Evgeny ordered six beers for the start. He took up this habit, since service in Africa can be on the slow side sometimes. Six beers for three persons therefore avoids the unexpected wait between empty bottles. Which is sometimes a bit of a problem when ordering a second round of six beers, since the small tables would typically run out of space for so many bottles (and food). To be fair, we actually rarely had to wait for very long when being served in Ethiopia. Somehow, things run smoother and faster than further South on the continent.

Painting at Debre Berhan Selassie church, Gondar - depicting punishments for sins.

We were very happy to leave the other tourists on the next morning and were bound for a very scenic drive from Gondar to our next stopover town, Aksum. The road passes next to the Simien mountains National Park, where the highest peaks reach 4200 meters. The views along this windy gravel road – particularly up to the town of Shire – are absolutely spectacular. Although we did not cover a lot of distance, the trip did take the better part of the day, because we stopped so many times to enjoy the breathtaking views from the tops of countless valleys that we did cross.

The pinnacles of the mountains did remind me of the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile, South America – although the peaks here in Ethiopia were much more spectacular and bigger. Unfortunately, being on a tight schedule, Evgeny and I decided not to hike in this park. We would have to spend at least three to four days here to absorb nature on one of the many trails. But the Simien mountains National Park has definitely become a hotspot on my list of places to visit (or re-visit) in my future trips.

As for the big Ethiopian star attraction, Aksum – and pictures from the mentioned road trip – stay tuned for my next blog entry…

On the Lake Tana

Africa is another beast of travel – technology-wise. Either the Internet connections were painfully slow, computers were not functioning – or in most of the cases – there was simply no electricity at times. This is why I am posting the articles about the journey through East Africa a bit late.

My Russian friend Evgeny, whom I met back in Patagonia, did invite me to join his “expedition” through various countries on the Africa continent. Together with another Russian friend, Tatjana, we did meet in Moscow to prepare for this trip. Our flight would take us from Moscow to Addis Ababa, having a change of plane and a longer transit stay at the airport in Istanbul, Turkey.

Although the plane ride was quite uneventful, we were shocked about the prices in the “Food Court” of the transit area at Istanbul airport. A small Döner and two beers did set us back with over 35 US dollars – each! Triggered by this excessive pricing, we started to look closer at the duty free shops of that airport. We were amazed how many people would buy mostly overpriced items in these “duty free” stores.

Derg Statue in Addis Ababa

Anyway, we eventually landed at the airport of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia in the early morning hours. We decided to squat some chairs in the arrival hall to get a bit of sleep until the opening hours of the shops in the town.

Once sunrise had established over the capital city, we went to town to hire a car (with driver) which we stocked up with water and food. Then, during the afternoon, we did set off to the North of the country on the so-called “Historical Circuit”.

The first major site on that circuit is the beautiful town of Bahir Dar, located on the shores of lake Tana. Being the largest lake in Ethiopia, it is also the source of the Blue Nile. On the way to Bahir Dar, we stopped overnight at the settlement of Degen (or: Dejen), after a very scenic road trip through windy mountain roads near the Blue Nile Gorge.

Hiring a driver is the only way to rent a car to get around the country individually. There is no option of self-driving hired cars outside of the capital city. Roadsigns – if present – are written in Ethiopic script, which is beautiful to look at, but simply unreadable to tourists like us.

Moreover, traffic conditions with “dead” vehicles from traffic accidents laying in the middle of the road, groups of people wandering along the streets and casually crossing them without paying attention to the traffic, plus a wealth of domestic animals living, literally, on the fast lane – hiring a driver together with the car is the sensible way to travel independently through Ethiopia.

Priest holding the Lalibela Cross

Our driver acted as an interpreter for menus in local restaurants – and it was not long before he introduced us to “Injera”, the national staple. It looks like a very large pancake on which the meat (or other food) is placed. It is quite tasty and fills the stomach like bread. The basis of this pancake (or should I say: bread) is the Ethiopian cereal “Tef”. This gives the very distinct grayish-brown color to the Injera. We got used to this pancake very quickly. Evgeny and I loved to eat spicy food using Injera to wrap small pieces.

Once we arrived at Bahir Dar, we hired a boat from a local fisherman to sail to the islands on Lake Tana. There, a number of monasteries from the 16th century were waiting to be discovered by us. In fact, 20 of 37 islands do feature monasteries.

Although the boat ride was quite scenic, enabling us to see various wildlife, we did not chime into the hype surrounding Lake Tana. We were a bit underwhelmed by the smallish shacks that are called “monastery” – many of them featuring tin roofs and other building features not available in the 16th century. Being only our second day in Ethiopia, we were a bit reluctant whether other parts of the “Historical Circuit” would be of the same kind of disappointment.

Our guidebook prepared us for a potential other disappointment in this area: The Blue Nile Falls – once 400 meters wide cascades – are now a stream of a dozen meters width, falling 30 meters over a shallow edge of a plateau. A hydroelectric plant is diverting most of the water volume to generate power.

Near the Blue Nile Falls

Being mentally prepared as such, we visited the site anyway and – we enjoyed every bit of the visit. Thanks to the guide books (and the global financial crisis), there were virtually no tourists. However, we were encountering many local people with donkeys carrying goods on the paths around the waterfalls. And we got introduced to the desperate locals who are missing the usual tourist crowds and do jump on any occasion to make money of the remaining visitors.

Monastry at Lake Tana

This day, we created – unknowingly – the mantra for our whole trip through East Africa: “No guide, please!”. Armed with maps from guidebooks and a bit of common sense and orientation skills, we really did not want to pay guides to point out to us the obvious. Moreover, their broken English is sometimes hard to understand for non-native English speakers like me. But most importantly, they make me feel stupid, because many times, these people explain local folklore which they think I should know about. It usually goes something like this:

“This is the tree from where Yekuno Amlak stole an apple.” “Who the heck is Yekuno Am….?” Big rolling eyes from the local guide: “He is a descendant of King Solomon and Queen Sheba. He was the most important ruler of the Ethiopian Middle Age.” While I try to look intelligent by memorizing the name of the “Queen of cat food”, the guide will almost certainly continue to impress me by mentioning that during this Middle Age period, the “Kebra Negast” – the nation’s epic in Ge’ez literature – was written. Oh sure, I’ve read that book, geez…

Also, guides simply don’t follow my pace of visiting a site. I can easily stay for hours looking at the door frame of the ticket office (dating from the 1980′s) in awe, whereas visiting the subsequent Rosetta Stone will take me half a minute. Luckily, Evgeny and Tatjana do think the same as I do. Therefore we visited the Blue Nile Falls without a guide – despite all their claims that we would have big trouble finding the place and probably get lost.

In fact, we stayed quite some hours at the falls, because the place is definitely scenic. Recommended as side-trip to anyone staying in the town of Bahir Dar.

Blue Nile Falls

One of my picture sorting tasks consists in assembling – using software – various “special scenes”, which I’ve been shooting during my round-the-world trip. Fiddling with “High Definition Range” (HDR) photographs and panorama shots is a good past time while waiting for the necessary visas required for my next trip to Ethiopia.

Here are some of my random HDR and panoramic pictures. I hope you like them.

Sunset at Phnom Bakheng temple in Cambodia

Anakena Beach at Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

Panoramic view over Queenstown (New Zealand) from Ben Lomond

Cave at the Bungle Bungle Range in Western Australia

Machu Picchu in the morning fog

Machu Picchu

“It was in July, 1911, that we first entered that marvelous canyon of the Urubamba, where the river escapes from the cold regions near Cuzco by tearing its way through gigantic mountains of granite. From Torontoy to Colpani the road runs through a land of matchless charm. It has the majestic grandeur of the Canadian Rockies, as well as the startling beauty of the Nuuanu Pali near Honolulu, and the enchanting vistas of the Koolau Ditch Trail on Maul. In the variety of its charms and the power of its spell, I know of no place in the world which can compare with it.”(from “Inca Land, Explorations in the Highlands of Peru”, by Hiram Bingham – source: Project Gutenberg)

Selecting the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu as “Grand Finale” for my round-the-world trip worked perfectly. Reading books about the discovery of this site did put me in the right mood, as I was preparing the trip from the nearby city of Cusco. There are several ways for the pilgrimage to Machu Picchu. The most famous one is the “Inca Trail” (or as the locals call it: “Gringo Trail”). But it seems that I have come here a couple of years too late: Peru has professionalized its tourism infrastructure and it is therefore not possible at all to hike this trail independently. Fares for organized hikes – including porters, cooks and already prepared tents on arrival – range from 300 to 700 US dollars for the four day hike (depending on the agency and the bargaining skills). More annoyingly, I would have needed to book this trek at least four to six weeks in advance.

Hiking under such prerequisites was not appealing to me at all. I might opt to go for a trek with porters and chefs when I’m retired – not being able to carry my own backpack, then. Even the slight variations of this trail – using mountain bikes or alternative routes – weren’t appealing at all to me. This solved a potential dilemma in choosing how to go to Machu Picchu, since there is also the option of taking a very scenic and famous railway to the “basecamp” town of Aguas Calientes.

Being a railway buff, I was more than happy to hop on the “Backpacker Train” (which is the official name of the service), leaving early in the morning from Cusco to Aguas Calientes. This route has five switchbacks (which are called “El Zig-Zag”). They enable the train to gain altitude shortly after leaving the train station in Cusco. Arriving on the hills surrounding the town, the train actually drives down the “Sacred Valley”.

However, there are not a lot of backpackers on the “Backpacker Train” and I found myself surrounded by tour groups and elderly people who complained that they could not travel sitting backwards. Each switchback they were playing musical chairs while moaning about how cumbersome this travel was.

Morning fog at Machu Picchu

Nevertheless, this great train ride was a fantastic experience and I did not regret having abandoned the thought of trekking to Machu Picchu. Unfortunately, parts of the train services are off-limits to tourists and only available for Peruvians. Moreover, all tourist trains are ending in the town of Aguas Calientes, where the Peruvian government has a purpose-built, functional, ten year old modern train station building.

Actually, describing the location of the small town of Aguas Calientes could be misleading to some readers, since it is nested in a deep valley next to Machu Picchu, surrounded by high peaks of forest mountains – featuring a small mountain river that slices the settlement in two parts.

However, what sounds like a nice place to stay before or after visiting Machu Picchu is as ugly as one can imagine. It’s a chaotic mess of square concrete houses, that are mainly left in an unfinished building state since years. In fact, my hostel had a very nice building front and reception. When I went to the first floor, I realized that an entire wall of the building was missing – and I was able to have a panoramic view of the river banks. Being on the second floor, each time when I went out of my room to the “hall way”, I would find myself actually walking in broad daylight, since not only one side of the house – but also large parts of the roof – were missing. This is truly a typical view in “downtown” Aguas Calientes.

Nevertheless, I opted to stay two nights there, since the word was out in the backpacker community to catch the very first shuttle bus to Machu Picchu to avoid the crowds. This bus leaves at 5:30 in the morning, which implies an overnight stay in this ugly little town. What caught my suspicion, shortly after arrival, was the notice board in the hostel, which informs guests that breakfast is being served between 4:45 and 8:00 in the morning. Although I was pleased to learn that I could have breakfast before catching the very first bus, I did figure out that I probably wasn’t the only one having this stupid idea to leave ahead of the pack.

Stone wall

When I got up next day, at the earliest possible moment, the breakfast room was already full of people. I quickly slurped a coffee and skipped the bread. So I left at five to the bus station. While I was walking there, I passed two other hostels and saw – through their non-existing walls – the same scenes of very busy tourist crowds having breakfast, too. Arriving at the station, there were about thirty people queuing, with some locals selling coffee and snacks. I counted the people in front of and figured out that I would make it onto the bus. But there were a lot of bus company staff in uniforms hanging around as well. Soon, I realized that this is a regular scene every day here. Looking behind me, I saw the queue growing by the minute. As buses pulled into the parking space, I did estimate about two hundred people waiting in line. Some of them clearly being angry or put off, because they also thought that they would beat the crowd by doing the extra effort in getting up very early.

Nevertheless, having professionalized the tourism business, the Peruvians do a good job in managing to absorb such big tourist crowds. Because the “5:30 bus” is actually a series of buses, driving up to Machu Picchu in a convoy. Eight vehicles were needed to bring all tourists to the Inca site. You do the math (at 48 passengers per bus). Arriving at the ticket office on top of the mountain did require another short queuing. But at six o’clock, gates were opened and we were all let in. The historical site of Machu Picchu is big enough to hide well such a volume of people. To my surprise it didn’t feel crowded at all at that time – although I knew that I obviously wasn’t alone.

Visitor regulations, posted in various languages on information panels, on the admission ticket and leaflets, do forbid a number of things. On top of the usual one’s (no littering, no climbing of ruins, no smoking, etc.) – I did find the following rules a bit weird:
- no food allowed
- don’t use disposable containers or bottles
- no backpack more than 20 liters
- no walking sticks
There is actually no shop or kiosk beyond the entrance gate. Although I was carrying my water flask, I was a bit irritated by the fact, that an official entity would encourage dehydration – since most of the tourists these days are using disposable (aka “PET”) water bottles. However, it seems that no one really cares about these rules and I did spot many tourists drinking from their plastic bottles, eating – and some walking using sticks.

Machu Picchu

After a scenic day at Machu Picchu, I left Aguas Calientes for other Inca sites in the “Sacred Valley” near the towns of Ollantaytambo, Maras and Chinchero. Satisfied, but a bit saturated from all the historic sites, I returned to Cusco.

From there, I will catch a bus to Lima and fly back home to Switzerland. Yes, the round-the-world trip is over. Although I would have preferred to stay a while longer on the road, I got used to the idea of returning home. And I don’t expect a big culture shock upon arriving back in Switzerland.

However, I might need a vacation to recover from my round-the-world trip. Trekking through Ethiopia and Kenya is on the list of things to do in a few weeks time. But before that, I’ll be brushing up my Russian skills in Moscow. Sounds confusing? You then better stay tuned to this blog…