Ethiopia: Culture, History, & Nature

Marcia's Travel Photo Blog

My recent trip to Ethiopia offered so many varied experiences.  Ethiopia offeres cultural, historical, and natural experiences to the traveller.  Unfortunately, in our limited time, we were unable to do everything, which may mean that we will one day return.  Here’s a taste of what we did experience while there.

Ethiopia is known for their rock hewn churches.  Our itinerary did not highlight these churches, so therefore we missed out the famous one, Lalibela,  but we managed to see a few. Abraha we Atsbeha has beautiful paintings inside unlike other churches in the area which were burned.  It was so interesting to see stories of the bible depicted with African figures.

At Wukro Cherkos, the paintings were less and you could see the burn marks.  We happened to be visiting at a time of pilgrimage and we were able to witness the priest giving holy water

Medhane Alem Kesho was…

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Danakil Depression: Hottest Place on Earth

Well maybe there are hotter places on earth, but with highs of 40 degrees during winter, no shade to protect you and the alkaline earth reflecting the sun’s rays, you’ll believe whatever they tell you.  The Danakil depression is 120m below sea level and part of the Great Rift valley in East Africa.  There are many unique geological sites to visit, if you can take the heat.

My friend and I signed up for a 3 day tour with Magma Flow Tours.  It ended up being a 1+2 day tour.  We were supposed to spend one night sleeping in a village (which I may add had reviews of dirty camp sites with goats taking lots of interests in their visitors) but for whatever reason were brought back to the main town of Mekele to spend the night in a hotel.  Part of me was relieved while the other part of me was disappointed.  I was curious as to how the conditions of this camp really were.  I mean, waking up to a goat licking my face, why not!

Day 1- We headed to Dallol.  Here we were able to see formations made from salt, sulfur, potash.  I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

Salt mountain

Sulphur lake

New crack in the ground- salty waters

Lake asale- salt lake

Believe it or not, but this area is inhabited by the Afar tribe.  9 months of the year, you can find them here mining blocks of salt.

Salt mine

Salt mine

Salt mine

Day 2 & 3- The next part of this tour was our night walk to the top of Erta Ale, an active volcano, to watch a lava lake churning inside its cauldron.  Here a group of 7 Russians joined us who started the drinking the hard stuff at 11am.  The drive to the volcano is about 6 hours with probably approximately 4 hours on asphalt.  The other two hours of driving requires a 4WD vehicle with an experienced driver.  The first half of the drive is over dirt roads.  The second half of the drive is over solidified bumpy lava lumps. I had the fortunate luck of being in the back middle seat.  They call the experience of riding on dirt roads in Africa, the African massage.  This was beyond a massage.  Massages are supposed to get tension out of muscles, every muscle in my body was engaged!

Finally we arrived at base camp.  After a dinner and the sunset, we got ready to start our 3 hour walk up the volcano.  It’s not a difficult walk, just that it is done in the dark over changing terrain.  As the Russians had been drinking from morning, they were struggling with the walk.  We were the slowest group to get up there because the Russians were just too drunk to walk.  We finally arrived to the base camp at the top of the volcano.  Then it was just a short walk to the rim of the volcano where we could see probably the most awesome natural phenomenon that I have seen in all of my travels.

Note: When you visit this region, you are accompanied by armed local guards.  The volcano has military posted there.  There is an armed group that occasionally attacks the site of the volcano.  There was a tourist attack in 2007 and 2012.  4 nights after our visit, there was an attack and unfortunately a German tourist was killed.  Travel advisories state to book with a reputable tour company in the region and to keep close to your group during your visit there.

Ethiopia: Exploring the Omo Valley Tribes

Omo Valley in Ethiopia is known for its tribes that give tourists an insight into ethnic groups that are so culturally different from our own.  We had amazing experiences visiting with them, learning some of their cultural practices.  We also had some adventures.  I’ll feature the different tribes that we saw:

The Mursi

This tribe lives in Mago National Park and they are still very much nomadic living in small huts.  To be honest, this tribe can ruin the experience of visiting tribes.  It has become very much a business for them letting tourists come to take photos.  In all of the tribes, there is a fee for taking photos of people.  Usually 5 Birr. With the Mursi, as soon as you step out of your vehicle, you are surrounded by them as they grab at your arm demanding “photo.” We were ready to pay for photos but were too overwhelmed by being surrounded by everyone wanting to earn some money.  (It’s such a shame what tourism has created).

We only took a few photos.  This tribe is known for the woman wearing a clay plate in their lower lip.  What I enjoyed with this visit was this little interplay between my driver and some of the men of the village.  I was mistaken for Ethiopian all over the country and when we arrived here, the men were asking if I was Ethiopian.  My guide had developed a story where my grandparents were from Ethiopia and therefore that is why I don’t speak Amharic.  As he tried to convince them, they started to have doubts.  A couple of them moved close to me and then said something to me.  I just smiled and laughed.  They had a great laugh as they turned to him and said she’s a faranji (foreigner).

Dassenech

This tribe was an interesting visit.  We had to cross the Omorate river by a dug out canoe (the most primitive I’ve ever been in).  They charge a flat rate to take photos and

then you can take as many photos as you want and the whole village benefits instead of just the individuals.  We learned here how you can tell by how the woman’s hair is arranged if she is single or married.  Once married, the woman does all the work while the man gets to chill all day drinking his local brew.  They put on a some dancing for us and we were welcome to join them.

Konso

This tribe was worth the visit as they are a Unesco World Heritage site.  The structure of their village is very fascinating.  They have circular rings that are connected by zigzagged pathways.  The walls are built by rocks.  You have to see it in order to have the awe of how amazing the architectural design was.  We were able to see the stone that the young men have to throw in order to get married.  My friend tried to lift it (although she is not a man), let’s just say she is still single.

 

 

 

Ceremony Rock

Dorze

This tribe had quite an interesting hut that they built for their home.  It looked like an elephant because in the past when there were more elephants roaming the lands, they lived in harmony.  Their homes are built tall and over the years as termites eat away at the bottom, the hut shrinks.  We also learned about false banana which is a banana tree that doesn’t grow bananas.  They use this plant to make Kocho, a flat bread.  When the plant is large enough, they grind down the leaves and then put the pulp into the ground for 3 months to ferment and then take it out and make the bread.

 

 

 

making Kojo/kocho

Bena

We befriended a 19 year old boy from this tribe, Mango, who was the happiest boy on earth.  Of course, he has the notion that people from white countries are rich and he hopes to move there.  We tried to let him know that life is not easy in our countries, but he wasn’t listening.  We were going to visit his home and he was worried that we would see his father’s cattle and think that his family was rich.  When we went to visit his home, his family was so sweet and they shared what they had with us.  Home made honey is quite normal in Ethiopia and they wanted to share it with us.  It was in a bucket complete with some bees and honeycomb.  They gave me a spoon and I carefully was extracting honey around the obstacles.  Mango’s dad noticed I was taking little amounts so he told Mango to take the spoon and do it for me.  Big spoonfuls of honey were given to me complete with bits of honey comb and bee.

Hamer

We were able to visit with this tribe during a bull jumping ceremony.  This is when a boy/man jumps over bulls for his rite of passage into marriage.  We were late to this day long celebration which would have included face painting, singing and dancing.  We were delayed because we had first a mechanical problem with the car and then on our way to this out of the way location (along a dry riverbed), we got stuck and lost time getting the car out of the sand.  We got there just in time to see some of the dancing and then to see the bull jumping.  You could not imagine it.  A naked man running across the backs of bulls that are being held in place by other men.  It was amazing to see it.  We had to leave immediately after the jumping had occurred.  It had started raining lightly for about 5 minutes.  Our local guide was getting anxious.  He mentioned that the river might flood.  The riverbed where our car and driver were waiting was very large, and I can’t imagine that the 5 minutes of rain would flood it.  But we ran back to the car and it wasn’t until we left the riverbed that we started to see the ground slightly muddy from rain.   We were out of the riverbed driving back to the town on dirt roads.  Suddenly we came upon 5 other 4WD of tourists that had left from the bull jumping about 45 minutes before us.  They had been held up by a river that had not been there before.  We were able to cross it in the vehicles.   Just as we were a couple of minutes from the asphalt road to town (10min drive from our accommodation), we came upon a gushing river that was definitely not there when we had driven in.  The drivers said that there was no crossing this river. If the cars got stuck, then the current would take the cars with it.  At least we had the company of the other cars.  The tour guide of those cars was constantly checking the river to see when it would be crossable.  It went from potentially crossable by foot to forget it.  We had to wait 6 hours to be able to cross by foot and the current was still strong.  The cars didn’t cross for another 6 hours.  After we crossed, we had to walk 50 minutes back to our lodge.  Did I tell you that this was 12:30am.  As we walked with our local guide (our driver remained with the car), I teased my friend as I reminded her that we were walking the same roads at night where during the day tribal men walk with machetes and Kalashnikovs.  Our driver later told us that the Hamer tribe are a friendly tribe and knowing that he allowed us to go off on foot.

What an amazing experience visiting with these tribes and learning a totally different way of life.