Creature Comforts

Some more general notes about the conditions on the trip

Food and Drink

Only the breakfasts were included in the cost of the trip, but most or all of us usually ate together, though not always the same kind of food. I missed out on the best breakfast buffet of the trip, at the Magnolia Hotel in Addis Ababa, because I had set my alarm for 5.40 instead of 4.40 and only realized at 5.20 that it was time to get up in order to leave for the airport at 6. A quick snack of bread and cucumber and melon washed down with mango juice, and I picked up some ginger cake and a bread roll to eat on the bus.

The worst breakfast was at Axum: bread with honey and peanut butter, the first and last time I have eaten/will eat the latter. I could have had an omlette with it, but did not fancy one on that occasion.

Lunch was wherever fitted in with the sightseeing, usually at a cafe with a choice of Ethiopian and Western food. Two interesting restaurants: the Four Sisters at Gondar, with a varied buffet of spicy and non-spicy meat and vegetable dishes for 250 birr (one of the most expensive meals at about £8)

and Ben Abena in Lalibela, run by a Scotswoman who had come to Ethiopia as a volunteer, married an Ethiopian, and stayed on. The architecture and the view were stunning, and she took in her stride my request for just beer and a bread roll, as I had reckoned on getting to an ATM before lunchtime.

We went back there for supper the next day, and I had vegetarian shepherd’s pie with shiro (a spicy chickpea sauce). Others opted for Ethiopian Scotch egg (with a chickpea paste instead of sausage meat), or pizza.

Beer and soft drinks cost about the same – less than a pound – so I usually alternated between beer and mineral water, removing the labels from the beer bottles for the benefit of a fellow traveller who collected them. One amused me, with the statement that the beer was cold enough if the label on the back of the bottle had turned blue. An exotic drink which some of us enjoyed on the very last day was a layered mixture of fruit juices, served at a women’s collective in Addis Ababa where we had gone in search of coffee beans.

Most evening meals were in the hotels, for convenience, and I learned to avoid the buffets there which were overpriced, with a limited choice and rather tough meat. One meal out was at a cultural cafe in Axum, with dancing on a stage. The customers were mostly tourists – the more adventurous members of the group had been to a similar cafe the night before which was much more Ethiopian in its clientele. We shared trays of injera (bread) with various toppings between three of us; the subdued lighting makes it look more sinister than it really was.

Hotels

There was not really that much to choose by way of basic amenities between the hotels with a plush entrance, like the Planet in Mekele, and those our tour leader regarded as basic. You could always get a hot shower some of the time, and no water at all on other occasions. All the rooms were clean, and some even had plugs in the washbasins. When I needed to wash clothes, I put them on hangers and they dried overnight.

The best garden was beside Lake Tana, where we had time to relax after our morning flight to Bahar Dar.

The Yeha hotel in Axum had a good view over the stelae field, the main tourist attraction, and a memorial plaque to a young man who had campaigned successfully for the return of a stele removed by Mussolini. He had left a message in Italian for his friends; the English translation reads:

Be of good heart, pilgrim! Your voyage cannot end here! Many people await you along your path, and destiny has reserved many more surprises for you.

There was not as much free information to take away as in other tourist destinations I have visited; but our hotel in Lalibela at least had some informative displays, including the map shown on the Lalibela page.

The bus

This was how we travelled, with the same bus and driver from Bahar Dar to Lalibela, with our main luggage showed under the blue tarpaulin on the top. Two seats on one side of the aisle, one on the other, with a fold-down seat between for occasions when we had to pick up local guides and, for the Simien Mountains walk, armed guards in case of leopard attack. (Ashu, our leader, has only once seen a leopard.) It was reasonably comfortable unless you happened to be sitting over a wheel for one of the very long drives; at one of the short stops for photo opportunities and comfort breaks I asked Ashu to give us a lesson in Ethiopian dancing.

Our driver, Tariqa, was amazing, taking the speed bumps and potholes very gently and always good-tempered even on the very long day’s journey to Lalibela, where he had to put stones in a trench before driving across, and, later, ask us all to get out where a stream crossed the road.

Children and animals

Children were everywhere. The bus had only to stop on an apparently deserted road for them to come running up. It is difficult to get the balance right between responding to their friendliness and refusing their requests for a pen, chocolate, or money. Perhaps they should have been in school, like the primary school we visited where we were greeted in English by a class of youngsters. One of the group, a teacher in Australia, had brought a back of pens as a gift from her class, and it was handed over to the head teacher with the request that he should give them discreetly to any in need.

Many of the children were looking after donkeys and other animals. I did not get any good animal photos, though I kept my phone ready in case the bus would slow down just as we passed a donkey with a huge load of hay. From Axum onwards, we saw camels on the road as well as donkeys, mules, cattle, sheep and goats.

Buildings

could be anything from a skyscraper to a tin shack. Many of the little houses in small towns and in the country were rectangular and made of wood, sometimes covered in mud. Wood was often used for scaffolding, even around big modern buildings. We wondered how they survived the rainy season. Later, small stone houses with thatched roofs predominated. In the Lalibela area, these could even have an upper storey, to allow humans and animals separate living spaces.