Ethiopia II: Bahir Dar and Lake Tana

We flew from Addis Ababa north to Bahir Dar on the morning of August 25, 2019.  Mike joined us that morning, and the beautiful photos in this and the following Ethiopian blogs are his.  We took a boat ride across the lake to Ura Kidane Mihret, one of the beautiful monasteries along the lake.  As we hiked the half mile to the monastery, we passed shops with Ethiopian crafts.  I bought small paintings of Jesus washing his disciples' feet, and of the Last supper. 

The monastery was founded in the 14^th century and was covered, between 250 and 100 years ago, with murals depicting New and Old Testament stories.  As our guidebook commented, “The paintings are positively Chaucerian in their physicality, ribaldry, and gore.”  I especially enjoyed the painting of sinners being dragged down to hell, presided over by a blue, horned devil.

 Since it was Sunday, there were many Ethiopians attending church near the monastery, wrapped in white shawls.  They gathered around us inside the monastery, as anxious to include us in their cell phone photos as we were anxious to include them in our SLR photos.

 One fellow who wanted a photo with Camille positively snuggled up to her!

 Bayau was our "country guide," traveling with us throughout our trip.  At each stop, he hired a local guide to tell us about that site.  This man was our guide at the Lake Tana monasteries.

 In the afternoon we drove 25 miles to the beginning of a hike to Blue Nile Falls.   Most Ethiopians, at least in northern and central Ethiopia, wear crosses around their necks.

 We paused, halfway along the hike, to watch a woman make injera by pouring batter in concentric circles on a ceramic stove. 

 At the end of the trail, an Ethiopian man played a flute as we looked over the falls.  The water coming over the falls was meager, as a result of a power plant curbing the flow.  Demme said that the power plant may be shut down to preserve the beauty of the falls, reputedly the second largest in Africa, after Victoria Falls.

 “You’ll like this hotel,” Bayau said of the Kiriftu Resort and Spa, and I definitely did.  It was truly a resort, right on the edge of Lake Tana, with lush gardens, a swimming pool, and spacious rooms scattered around several buildings among the gardens.  There was a wedding in the restaurant in the evening, so we sat at a table on the porch to eat dinner, looking out at Lake Tana.   We then crawled into our bed, covered with a mosquito net, and went to sleep to the sound of Ethiopian pop music!