Cyber Ethiopia

Bahir Dar is a nice place to visit. It is a town you can walk around in. It is attractive, with wide boulevards lined with attractive palm trees. But the big attraction of Bahir Dar, particularly for the landlocked inhabitants of Ethiopia, is the magnificent Lake Tana. The main hotels of Bahir Dar are positioned to take the best advantage of the views of the lake. The faded glory of The Tana Hotel offers one of the best views. There is a nice sitting area outside, an empty swimming pool, a high ceilinged restaurant and bar, and nice old fashioned rooms.   The Ghion Hotel, on the main road into town, also takes good advantage of the lake view. The verandah on the lake side

overlooks a decayed but still attractive garden, where it is pleasant to look over a small bay of the lake with pelicans floating by. The Dib Anbessa hotel is not on the lake side, it is on the boulevard. From the upper story restaurant or rooms you overlook the lake, with the additional height providing a longer view. Tis Issat fals Bahir Dar My personal routine in Bahir Dar is now fairly set. I stay at the Dib Anbessa. Apart from its slightly greater distance from the mosquitoes based on the side of the lake, it offers comfortable new rooms, many with nice lake views, at the best rates by far for foreign residents and visitors of the major hotels. For lunch, I choose the Ghion, with its pleasant verandah restaurant and nice fish. For a dusk drink I choose the Tana, with its outside sitting area next to the lake. For supper, I recommend the Enketash restaurant, near the Ghion on the way to the airport, for Ethiopian food with a fish emphasis as well. The addition of the new Papyrus Hotel, which is away from the lake near the market, provides another welcome alternative. It is a large and attractive hotel, with the unusual feature of an very large swimming pool. There is also an uncompleted resort on the lakeside, which has been under on and off construction for a long time, and promises relative luxury and watersports when, or if, it is ever completed! Bahir Dar is a bustling place. It is the capital of Amhara Region. Many buildings are going up. It has a movie theater (mostly Indian movies I think). It seems to be growing rapidly. The sights of Bahir Dar town are the old palace, the market, and the remains of an old Portuguese church. The old palace is across the large bridge over the Abbai (Blue Nile) River at the north end of town. The palace is to the left overlooking the river and the lake, although I’ve never been fortunate enough to find someone to let me look inside. I’ve had more luck with the old Portuguese church, which is next to the lake near the main square, behind the modern and attractive St. George church (Beta Giorgis). The Portuguese building is a ruin a couple of stories high, with an old stone staircase that you can mount. As the Portuguese ascendancy in the area was from the 1540’s to 1630’s, it is safe to say the ruins are about 400 years old. The Bahir Dar main market is a bustling place not far from the central square. I’ve found the woven shawls and scarves, with their bright red stripes against a white background are a good buy here. There are plenty of leather baskets for sale but beware, they look like a nice decoration but their odour can be overwhelming! Apart from the views of the lake, Bahir Dar offers a number of sights and excursions. The Blue Nile Falls, or Tis Issat Falls, or Tis Abbay Falls are well worth a visit. Boat trips on the lake take you to sacred islands. Bahir Dar is also the jump off point to the other magnificent sites in Ethiopia - Gondar and Lalibela. Bahir Dar Tis Issat Falls The Tis Issat (smoke falls) or Tis Abbay falls are 30 kilometers Southeast of Bahir Dar, down a road which is better in the dry season. It is a nice drive across the open fields, but you have to stop in a little hole of a village to buy your passes to the falls (15 birr per person last visit). You stop at a little parking lot, where the ‘helpful’ locals begin their siege for their share of the tourist dollar. I begin by hiring a guard, zebanya, who will duly receive their birr on my return. It is a pleasant walk to the falls, not too difficult, but you do require some nimbleness. You descend rapidly down a steep rocky path to the ‘Portuguese Bridge’, the only bridge across the Abbay River for hundreds of years. Ironically the bridge is attributed to the Emperor Fasiladas, who in fact kicked the Portuguese out of Ethiopia in the 1640’s. An aside - the Portuguese had been invited around 1540 to help the Christian Empire resist a challenge from the Moslem ruler of Harar, Mohammed Gran, then stayed on and made the mistake of trying to convert the country to Roman Catholicism. The Orthodox Church showed their resilience, not for the first or last time, and organized for Emperor Fasiladas to facilitate the exit visas for the estimated 9,000 Portuguese, more than the number of Ferengis in Ethiopia today. The bridge is very old and picturesque, crossing the river in a narrow gorge which is reputedly very deep. From the bridge you climb fairly gradually, passing some local homes until you suddenly turn the corner and see the falls. The falls are nice. They are about 15 meters high and send up an appreciable mist. If you’ve been spoiled by seeing Victoria Falls, which are about 30 meters high, then Tis Issat aren’t as impressive. But stack up against Niagara Falls and other famous sites. They are set in a lovely tropical forest. As you stand above them and feel the spray on your face it feels primeval. A short walk from the viewpoint over the falls, is the view from below the falls. It is not too onerous, but it is tricky in spots, particularly the two streams you have to cross, which can be too high in rainy season. The bottom of the falls not only provide an excellent alternative view of the falls, a massive rush of water foaming out above your head, they also give off a satisfying spray which soaks you to the skin in seconds. These are waterfalls that everyone from our ancient ancestors to countless generations of Ethiopians to the early European visitors from Portugal to James Bruce the ‘explorer’ have seen from the same spot. All of these visitors pre-dated by a large margin the various explorers who mucked around in Uganda looking for the ‘source of the Nile’. I find this mildly offensive. The Blue Nile supplies 59% of the total volume of water of the Nile, and the White Nile only 14% (measured at Aswan Dam with various other tributaries contributing according to Nile expert Professor Yaekob Arsano of the Addis Ababa University Political Science Department). Why the ‘discovery’ of the source of the Nile is still placed in Uganda is beyond me – it is in Ethiopia of course!