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  • Ethiopia Pictures

    I'll leave it to the mods to decide if this should stand as a separate thread or not. I figure that people who have no interest in my wordy travelogue might just like the pretty pics. Rather than providing any more than a brief commentary on each photo I'll link to the relevant posts on the other thread.
    Last edited by Bigfella; 10 Dec 13,, 01:11.
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  • #2
    Lake Tana

    For more detail on Bahir Dar & Lake Tana a more detailed account of my travels is here.

    http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/wor...s-sorta-4.html



    People on Ethiopia's Lake Tana still use traditional Papyrus boats - as they have for millennia. These things have lifespan measured in months. When they become waterlogged they are dried & used as fuel for fires.



    Northern Ethiopia is just littered with monasteries. They are all over the countryside. They have a similar structure - an outer section like this & an inner decorated section that contains a replica of the Ark of the Covenant & other religious paraphernalia.





    The art in Ethiopian churches & monasteries has a unique style that resembles orthodox & Coptic art of the first millennium BC.



    Ethiopian Christianity retains some aspects of Judaism, including a Saturday Sabbath, gender segregation in churches & the use of the menorah. The books are all on parchment (goat skin) and some are over 500 years old.
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    • #3
      More from Bahir Dar



      The head of the Blue Nile flowing out of Lake Tana. Totally COOL!!!



      The Blue Nile falls. Before the hydro plant was installed above the falls water poured over virtually the whole edge of the cliff. There is talk that they might restore flows to get tourists back.



      A memorial to the Civil War (1974-91) overlooking the Blue Nile at Bahir Dar. There is supposed to be water running from the top, but like a lot of things in Ethiopia it wasn't 100% working.
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      • #4
        Cool pics dude. The thing had no water when I went either.

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        • #5
          If you mean the falls then apparently they are good during the wet season - but that is the worst time to travel to Ethiopia, so no good for tourists. If you mean the monument, it was a pattern. The larger one at Mekelle was the same. Guess the war was a while ago.
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          • #6
            The monument. I did not bother with the falls.

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            • #7
              As you can see, you didn't miss much. Nice walk, however.
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              • #8
                Great pictures. What about the food? I'm told the food is really yummy there.

                Cheers!...on the rocks!!

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by lemontree View Post
                  Great pictures. What about the food? I'm told the food is really yummy there.
                  The food was awesome, though I don't have many pics. I eat the stuff every week, so it isn't so 'exotic'. A lot of it comes down to whether or not you like injera - a sort of sour tasting soft bread/pancake that is served with everything. If you don't like it then the food sucks because you actually eat the food with the bread (some hotels will give ferengi cutlery, but not often). If you are a beer or coffee drinker the place is paradise. Both are cheap, plentiful & high quality.

                  Even better, despite being warned by everyone about stomach trouble I was fine. In fact, given that my diet changed from low carb & lots of fresh produce to virtually all protein & carbs I came close to having quite the opposite problem. In one of life's little ironies I did get a tummy bug in lovely modern Muscat - dodgy shwarma at an Indian-run place on the Corniche (sorry Indian folk ;) ). Nothing serious, however. Didn't slow me down.
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                  • #10
                    Thanx for the wonderful pix BF. Ethiopia looks to be a beautiful and varied country.
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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Minskaya View Post
                      Thanx for the wonderful pix BF. Ethiopia looks to be a beautiful and varied country.
                      you ain't seen nothin' yet Minnie.
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                      • #12
                        w o w.............the place has really changed in almost 40 years!

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Tamara View Post
                          w o w.............the place has really changed in almost 40 years!
                          Beyond recognition Tamara, though I imagine some things are still much the same, especially in the countryside.

                          Did you visit there in the 70s?

                          Development stalled in the latter years of Haile Selassie & in some ways the place went backwards under the Derg, but the last 20 years under Meles Zenawi & the EPRDF has led to rapid modernization. Much to do, but at lest movement is in the right direction.
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                          • #14
                            to Gondar



                            In rural Ethiopia everybody walks....everywhere. No matter where you drive it looks a bit like this - even in the mountains. Ethiopia also has the second largest population of donkeys in the world after China (in absolute terms). Ideally suited to a rocky, mountainous land.



                            It takes about 3 hours to drive from Bahir Dar to Gondar and involves climbing hundreds of meters into the foothills of the Simien Mountains. This great mountainous plateau sort of looms above you. The entire plateau was created by volcanoes, so many of the more spectacular peaks are the eroded cores of extinct volcanoes....a bit like this.



                            The roof of Debre Birhan Selassie church. In the 1880s an army of Sudanese led by the Madhi (yep, the same guy who killed Gordon & Churchill later fought) sacked Gondar. Legend has it that this was the only church that survived because a swarm of bees attacked the madhists & then St Michael appeared to scare them off for good.



                            Music is important in the Ethiopian church. It is provided exclusively by the drum, the sistram (a sort of metal rattle) & a stringed instrument...plus the human voice.
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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
                              Beyond recognition Tamara, though I imagine some things are still much the same, especially in the countryside.

                              Did you visit there in the 70s?

                              Development stalled in the latter years of Haile Selassie & in some ways the place went backwards under the Derg, but the last 20 years under Meles Zenawi & the EPRDF has led to rapid modernization. Much to do, but at lest movement is in the right direction.
                              Playing with you a little.

                              About the biggest change was, of course, that Asmara was part of the country then.

                              I was a child then, well, a teen, and I think we made 3, but at least 2, trips to the country between 73 and 75. Asmara and Addis Ababa. I think the former was for dental care, the latter for a photo safari. T'was a primitive time.....we flew around in C-54's and 118's.

                              I'd have to go back and look at the family pictures to stir up any memories aside from the swimming pool at one safari site that was very dark and Mom wouldn't let us go near it for fear of all the things we could catch, micro wise. Between there and Mindanao, I think that's about the most southern I've been on this planet.

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