MEDIEVAL MEANDERING

IN REHANA'S WORDS

23 September

It would be the grossest exaggeration to say that my recent illness was a life-changing experience. But it has inspired me – at least to no longer be a smoker (the doctor says I can’t smoke for six months and I don’t see the point of starting up again.)

During all the many hours I spent tossing and turning in my fever-soaked bed, I've thought a lot about Ethiopia and inspiration. Tuberculosis is such a fitting, old-fashioned illness to have in this country, where the vast majority of the 80-million population lives in what appears to be a biblical time warp, especially in the rural areas.
I keep expecting to see Jesus riding onto town on a donkey. Lots and lots of people ride into town on donkeys in Ethiopia.

With the kilograms dropping off my bones daily I’m fitting in even more with the beautiful Ethiopians whose bodies are twisted because their government couldn’t care to ensure that every baby gets two drops of polio vaccine on their tongues.
I fit in with the blind people who preside over scales on city pavements where the nation’s few fatties can weigh themselves with no fear of censure. I fit in with the “mentally disordered” who roam half naked through the towns and drape themselves on the tar on hairpin bends.
And yet I can’t stop smiling. Ethiopia inspires me.

Getting skinner by the day ... and looking more Ethiopian

And loving it!

Driving through mountainous rural Ethiopia to reach Lalibela completely justified our decision to do this journey overland. I am so glad we did not fly into Lalibela on one day and out the next day, like so many tourists do.

The gravel road to the town was much worse than we expected. The riverbeds were filled with loose grey gravel and when we drove across them our tyres struggled to gain purchase. Poor Jules, I couldn’t drive for weeks, it’s been all her, everything is nowadays.

We skipped from mountain ridge to mountain ridge, with valleys of green stretched out below. Several kinds of grain were being grown, many that we did not recognise, and their green varied from patch to patch – from a mixture with yellow to psychedelic shades of green. All of this was splashed with yellow and purple wildflowers and the road was edged with yellow and orange aloes.

Lalibela was circled with mountains and the town was surprisingly small for the big punch it packs in international tourism circles. Our aptly named Panoramaview Hotel was flanked by two rivals on a magnificent cliff top offering a view of verdant valleys rolling away to forever.

The view from our favourite restaurant in Lalibela

Many tourists in Lalibela visit the 11 rock-hewn churches – the town’s chief attraction – in one day. You can do justice to them in a day’s visit; they’re tiny. But we stretched it over three days. I couldn’t do it faster; my body was still too weak.

One man, King Lalibela, had a vision during a three-day coma in the 1200s and inspired (forced?) his countrymen (subjects? slaves?) to build a new Jerusalem at Lalibela, even contriving (coercing?) them to carve a new River Jordan out of the mountain rock.
I felt sorry for the carvers tasked with bashing out the spaces between cliff and church, how many of them did not live to witness the unveiling of an arched doorway or decorated pillar?

I felt for the guys who had to carve out the space between mountain and church

The churches are inspirational, if merely for their foolhardiness. I had some very fever-soaked dreams during my daytime naps and nighttime sleeps in Lalibela, during which it made sense that the churches were carved out of dark mountain rock rather than raised on Lalibela’s light-drenched mountain slopes. It made no sense in the daylight though.

But when you look closely at the exquisitely symmetrical little churches carved into hostile volcanic rock, you have to admire that insane, sweat-soaked vision of one man in a coma. It's easier to understand this madness when you watch the veneration that church buildings hold for Orthodox Christian Ethiopians. They kiss the gates, walls and doors of their churches and prostrate themselves on the stoeps and floors.

They see holiness in the structures themselves, which are all designed according to the same strict rules. Rule number one is that every church has a secret hiding place for the Ark of the Covenant and other treasures. It could be a replica of the ark, or the actual ark itself which is somewhere in Ethiopia and may be in a church near us. (Cue Indiana Jones theme music)

Only priests may enter these locked parts of the church. Some disused churches we visited have museums where they now display their treasures, and their art is sometimes amazing but mostly boring crap kitsch that looks mass produced in a Chinese factory. They also have ornate, moth-eaten ceremonial robes, umbrellas and several different crosses.

The churches of Lalibela are not the only fantastical buildings in the panoramic landscape that surrounds the town. On the edge of a cliff, surrounded on three sides by volcanic peaks, is the Ben Abeba restaurant, half owned by former teacher Susan, a Scot, who had come to Lalibela to teach English and never left; and her Ethiopian partner Habtamu. 

The building was designed by two young Ethiopians. While it may not be the most practical restaurant design (the staff have to go down a ramp to reach the level above the kitchen), not a single nook or cranny detracts from its magnificent view.
We ate there three nights in a row, Susan spoiling me with treats and dishes and resuscitating my appetite. She fed me mango-flavoured yogurt, lentil broth, the softest bestest Shepherd’s Pie and my favourite Ethiopian dish, spicy Doro Wot.

Great view, great food

The lovely Susan

And then Big Red Car skipped higher and higher on mountain ridges surrounding Lalibela and took us back to the tar. The mountains were terraced with ancient stone and the yellow and purple wildflowers grew lush in those ridges.

On the way to Gonder we stopped at Guzara Palace, a pretty shell of an ancient palace drenched in wildflowers. In the 15^th century an Ethiopian king built a splendid edifice with a pavilion on which he staged religious and other festivals. He chose the site because from the hill he could see all the way to Lake Tana, vital for the transport of agricultural goods that grew in his lush lands.
Today, there are only small plots below the palace, and small herds of cattle and goats being badly tended by boys who came rushing to beg when we pulled to a stop.

Guzara's remains sparkling in the spring sunshine

In Gonder, where we stayed for three nights, Julia briefly reuniting with Mike and Carol before they left again to camp at Lake Tana, we marveled at the royal enclosure, where six emperors built their palaces after the 17^th century. 

The ruins are the reason the town is known today as the Camelot of Africa. The palaces have been stripped bare, even those with sturdy roofs, so its hard to imagine the splendour with which these emperors lived, but it is much easier with Julia as a guide. She concocted a fairy tale which passed off as a rich and fabulous history.

Must have had some rockin' good parties here

On the outskirts of Gondar ... the route we planned but are giving a miss this time

Between Gonder and Bahir Dar we were given the finger of God

Next stop Bahir Dar, a big town on Lake Tana, with smooth tarred roads and expensive accommodation. We settled for a damp establishment on the lake, where I collapsed into a stupor after lunch every day. But I was no longer sleeping till dark, three or four hours was enough to revitalise me again.
There are many monasteries and churches on islands in the lake and on its shores, but we could only bring ourselves to visit three.
A nun at one monastery allowed Julia to take a photo of her tattooed face. Its not unusual for lay Orthodox Christians to also tattoo their foreheads, cheeks, necks and chests with the different versions of the cross in use in Ethiopia.

Hopelessly devoted

We also saw loads more weird religious art (this I don’t mind staring at for hours). At an old church on an island in the middle of the lake made of mud and straw, we found rifles painted into ancient biblical scenes.
And Mary leaving Bethlehem carrying the baby Jesus in her arms and behind her a servant bearing a woven injera basket pot on her head.

We took a boat ride to the source of the Nile in Lake Tana (boohoo, we meant to follow the river all the way to Alexandria).
On the day we left Bahir Dar we drove to the Blue Nile Falls outside of town. I managed the walk, up a hill, to the falls without collapsing. We chose a good time to visit – it was thundering thanks to the recent rains.

Ancient bridge over the Nile. Spot the men collecting rocks to crush into gravel and sell alongside the road

Blue Nile Falls

Thundering water heading north to wash away roads in Sudan

I walked to the falls and back

We’re back in Addis Ababa now, having completed a loop around the country over the past 40 days. I drove for the first time in more than a month, for about three hours on the highway to Addis, through a magnificent pass.
In a week’s time, we’ll be back in Kenya. Jules and I are feeling a bit sore about leaving Ethiopia as we’ve grown to love it.  Almost everything that could go wrong on our trip went wrong in Ethiopia and we were caught gently, helped generously and sent on our way.

The country is maddeningly stuck in the past. My heart hurts every time we drive up a hill and I see women bent over double under the weight of the produce, firewood and water that they carry. I celebrate when I see men driving donkeys burdened instead, or driving horse carts.

This country has a unique religion – more chapters in their Bible, more archangels and saints, more miracles, more feasts, more fasts – there has been no reform of their version of Christianity since it was introduced in the 4^th century.

Ethiopia adopted and developed devout forms of Christianity and Islam. People came from afar to marvel at their piety. The country developed strong kingdoms that traded with each other and nations to the north and east flocked to profit as well.
Until the Derge stepped in, in the mid-1970s, their society was feudal. They were ruled by a bastard Emperor and a flock of princes and decadent overlords who watched their people succumb to famine while they stockpiled food to push up prices and quaffed French champagne in their palaces.

Today, it’s hard to figure out who is ruling Ethiopia. The nation venerates their dead president Meles Zenawi. His face is on every billboard, draped on government buildings and on millions of T-shirts. I can’t name the current president despite being here for more than a month.

Ethiopians are not inspired by the Western world.  A German Lutheran missionary we met on the way to Gonder complained that they’re backward: they don’t listen. Ethiopians are inspired by themselves; and the height of their development was hundreds of years ago. Do they really need to follow our model of “development and progress”?

Industry was introduced by Selassie in the 1970s, but he, his family and cronies owned all the businesses and none were run for profit. In the 1980s the communists nationalised everything and almost everything of value is still state-owned today. 

Yet people are investing. Jules and I spent much time in Ethiopia’s small towns as we broke up our journey into manageable chunks for a recovering invalid. There’s a huge building boom of hotels, office blocks and state housing in every village and town.
Addis Ababa is a muddy mess of new road and skyscraper development. Julia says they should evacuate everyone and bring them back when the development is done – it takes a frustrating amount of time to get anywhere in the city.

The rural areas of Ethiopia creep all the way to the centre of the cities. There are few factories. We saw no squatter camps. Cows, donkeys and goats are herded through the CBD. 
Which of the two pictures below do you prefer? The young man on his way to yet another feast day or the development of an urban railway and highway network in the city?