Gonder, Ethiopia

Sunday 19th August 2007 Belegese Pension, Gonder
Woke up very early with the sound of wailing priests and headed back to Gonder to prepare to leave for Sudan early tomorrow morning. We have to check Landy and stock up with groceries. In this town they charge firenje prices, which could be anything from double to 5X normal price. It makes me really angry that they think they can hook the foreigners. Trouble is they can and do.
Not sure of the internet or cell phone availability in Sudan, so watch this space…..

Saturday 18th August 2007 Dib Anbessa, Bar Hadar
After a chilly night we headed towards Gonder.
Just as I was thinking that Ethiopians spend too much time in the churches or on the roads, and not enough time working, we visited an un-typical community which is setting a shining example to them all. It was founded by Zumra Nuru, the Awra Amba Association (Box 36, Wareta), in 1974 with 18 others. Their motto was, to help everyone, to learn and use their brains, and work hard. They are monotheistic, but their worshiping consists of helping each other in all ways. They use education to haul themselves out of poverty instead of religion and prayer. They have a neat school and library made only of local materials with the shelves, tables and benches made of cow dung and mud plastered over poles. The old-peoples home was a dormitory of cubby-holes. They had designed a stove out of cow dung and mud to prevent children falling on the fire in the middle of the floor. They make their living out of weaving, have 17,5Ha of land, and have just started a small dairy. It is so difficult to start with absolutely nothing and the cogs have just started to turn although they have been going 30years. They are a community of 100 families.
We arrived at Bahir Dar next to Lake Tana which is the start of the Blue Nile, and booked into the above Hotel.

Friday 17th August 2007 Simien Park Hotel, Debark
I'm getting really tired of stinky toilets and showers that don't drain. Anyway, we finished our tour around Axum. We went to the quarry where they used to mine the stellae before transportation. There is a lion carved into the rock from 4AD. We then saw more tombs and a huge stella which had fallen down, but no archeologists are excavating at the moment, there must be an enormous amount to discover.
We headed west towards Debark along a more level area of plateaux which were relatively more fertile and the valleys flatter, but they were still cultivating to the top of the hills. Nev decided there was more than enough ground to feed the nation, but the ground they do have needs to be more productively utilized by more efficient farming methods and better fertilization.
Then… the road to Debark was the scariest yet!! We rose 2000m with hairpin bends piled on top of each other. This was Sani X10. I found myself closing my eyes and lying on Nev's lap. At one place the road had been scooped out of the cliff. We couldn't believe that anyone could have dared to make roads on cliff faces like this. The Italians should have stayed in Ethiopia more than the 6 years they did, and this country would have been far more developed. They had planted gum trees wherever there was a bit of soil on the side of the road and these are now huge 70-year old trees. Other places were sheer drops of 500m Nev said if he had been told to build a road there he would have run away and become a monk!! It had rained just before we got there and there were waterfalls cascading onto the road, and there were several rockfalls and landsides. It was really beautiful but I ended up with a tension headache!! The simian mountains nearby were mostly covered in clouds, but some of the finger-like peaks towered above the clouds.
Really chilly. We reached Debark at 2800m