I spent a rather restless night. I was quite cold when I went to bed – in particular my feet – and I spent half the night trying to warm up. I kept moving my icy toes towards Giggles, but she kept wiggling away from them. It seemed hours before I fell into a deep sleep. At one point I awoke, worried that perhaps Laolao hadn't set the alarm right after all and we'd miss our wake-up time, only to overhear Laoye say from the other room "What time did you set the alarm for? It's already (mumble mumble). Shouldn't it have rung already?" To which laolao replied, "We have another two hours to sleep." So I did.
The call came all too early, and I woke Giggles, hopped out of bed, dressed, and put the few last-minute things into the suitcase. Our driver, Fasil, knocked on our door at the appointed hour and we set off in the early morning darkness.
By the time our flight left the sun had risen and we had a good view of the city's southeast section from the airport's upper storey. Mount Entoto is located in that direction, up which women climb every morning and down which they come hours later, heavily laden with firewood. We boarded around 6:45 and proceeded to take off at 7:10. An hour later we touched down in Bahir Dar, a city of some 250,000 people located on the shores of Lake Tana, Ethiopia's largest lake, capital of the province of Amhara. The airport at Bahir Dar is a very small affair, in size (though not in amenities) much like one that we would find in a small Canadian city with only local service.
From the airport we were taken to our hotel, the Tana hotel, set on the shores of the lake. After a short interlude during which we checked in and took our bags to our rooms, we were met by our guide, Kas, and headed off for our day's adventures.
The main event of the day was a trip to the Blue Nile falls. To get there, we first drove some 30 km along bumpy gravel roads, though small villages and alongside farmers' fields. Giggles was very excited to see cows! goats! and especially donkeys! carrying heavy loads of all sorts. Along the way we stopped briefly while our guide, Kas, purchased a stick of sugar cane. We proceeded to peel and chew it, sucking out the sweet juice and spitting out the woody pulp. A lovely treat
When we arrived at our destination, Kas gave us the option of walking the long route to the falls, which would allow us to see them from above, or taking the short route, which involved a boat ride across the Blue Nile river and would allow us to get quite close to them from the bottom, even feeling their spray. We chose the latter option, as much because I'm not the best walker as for the chance to get close. Some of the village children and youth tagged along up to the river. One young man saw that I was being particularly cautious and slow navigating the bumpy, rocky ground, and asked if I wnted a stick. "A walking stick?" I asked him, to be sure. "Yes," hr responded. "Sure!" I said. I always use a walking stick when hiking, but had not brought one from Canada, figuring they might object to my carrying it on the plane.
(When we went to China I was able to take my stick with me there and all around the country, meeting with objections only on the final return flight from Beijing. But I had taken one of my more ordinary sticks just in case it was taken away from me. This time the one stick I might have taken had broken shortly before we left, and I didn't want to risk losing the others, so I came without one. We often just make a "stick-of-the-moment," finding a good branch in whatever forest we happen to be walking through
So off he trotted, and came back with a lovely stick – just the right height, thin but strong and not too heavy. I thanked him, and he said he'd wait for me at the river crossing and when we came back I could return it to him. While crossing the river, a few musicians got into the boat with us and played some traditional music. Our guide explained that these were Asmari (?) singers, who sang praises of people – and the people praised then paid them some money. Okay, our first taste of tourist trap enterprise…
The Blue Nile at that point is not too wide, and the water is muddy brown in colour. Kas jokingly told us that the reason the water is brown is because the Ethioppians bathe in the water and it takes its colour from them! As we were crossing, we saw some egrets, pelicans, and a few other birds Kas couldn't identify.
Once across, we started our trek to the falls. The path was wide and generally smooth, though there were a few rocky parts where I was very glad to have a walking stick. By now the day was getting hotter. Bahir Dar, at 1800 metres (about 6000 feet), is at a lower elevation than Addis Ababa (about 2400 m or 8000 feet), so is generally several degress warmer. We passed numerous bunches of cows or goats, each with one or two children standing guard.
Some of these children, Kas said, would be too young to go to the village school (but still old enough to herd cattle!) or they might go to the afternoon shift at the school. Or they might not go to school at all, though the government mandates that all children should.
As we approached the falls, we needed to cross a small streamlet. Rocks served as stepping stones, but I missed my footing at one point and ended up calf-deep in mud. My white shoes were now all muddy, and even my jeans had suffered! This rather upset Giggles, wheo insisted on finding some large leaves and cleaning some of the mud off. That still left them rather dirty, but we assured her that we'd be able to clean them off later.
Finally, a good half hour later, we arrived at the falls. The roar of their thunder had been steadily increasing, and now we saw their beauty. We had crossed the river upstream from the falls; here they plunged about 40 to 45 m (133 to 150 feet) over a cliff of volcanic rocks into a first pool, then some 30 or 40 meters downstream took another, smaller dive before continuing their lengthy journey towards the Mediterranean Sea. As we approached the path we were to take, we watched some young women driving their cattle down a steep, rocky path to drink from the pools at the base of the falls.
We then descended from the height of land down a path that was slightly less steep. As soon as we were over the llip we could, indeed, feel the falls' spray, carried to us by a strong wind that seemed to be of their' own making. I sat there for a while on a rock enjoying the scenery and basking in the sunshine while Laolao, Laoye and Giggles went with Kas down another path that led right to the water's edge.
As we bagan our return journey, I noticed a cluster of cows and people in a small tree-shaded patch of ground where the young women had driven their cattle earlier. They seemed to have been joined by others, perhaps for a midday drink of water, perhaps to benefit from the falls' cool spray and the trees' shade in the heat of the midday sun.
One of the musicians had accompanied us on the walk to the falls and now, on the return journey, he stuck fairly close to me and was quick to provide assistance over the rough patches of ground. Normally I don't really require assistance except over particularly rough or steep terrain, and Laolao and Laoye know to judge when that is. And frankly, the "help" offered by strangers is often more of a hindrance, as they tend to grab me by my elbow or arm and try to hold me steady, when what is useful is for me to have something to hang onto that I can use to hold myself steady – which is a horse of a different colour and not something someone else can judge. But this fellow mostly just proffered his hand for me to hold, which was of some assistance and so mostly appreciated.
On the return journey Giggles was up to her usual tricks, chasing butterflies and dragonflies and spotting birds. Sharp-eyed as she is, she spotted a firefinch and a few other birds before anyone else did!
More musicians had appeared out of thin air for the return trip over the river. While I was quite content to pay the fellow who had accompanied us and helped me at the rough spots on the trail we all felt rather miffed at the expectation of payment on the part of the others, as we had not asked them to play for us, we had not invited them to join us, the entertainment they provided was skimpy at best, and they provided no real service.
I contrast these musicians to the young fellow who had fetched the stick for me. He was waiting for us as promised. I offered to buy the stick off him, as I knew I would be wanting one during the adventures to come. He was quite agreeable to that. He also noticed the state of my shoes and offered to clean them for me. At first I said it was okay, we'd do it ourselves later, but he said his house was close by and it was no problem, and ran ahead so that by the time we passed by he was sitting ready with a brush and a bucket of water. So what could I do but stop? He did a great job cleaning them thoroughly, brushing the muc off and rinsing them inside as well. I was quite happy to pay him for that service, since it did save me the effort later and I felt good seeing how clean and shiny my shoes were when he'd finished with them.
I saw in him an enterprising young man who saw a real need and found a way to respond to it, offering a real service. One does not mind paying for real services. The musicians, on the other hand, were doing nothing to benefit us. It may well be that their function within their society is as described, but I would imagine that they have a well-defined role, with a place and time for performing their functions. I would doubt that within the context of their society they force their unwanted presence upon total strangers and demand payment for doing so.
This is where the business of being a tourist becomes tricky. We go to a foreign country seeking an 'authentic" experience, but we are indeed foreign to that society and do not know its customs and practices. In seeking out the "authentic" we may cause it to distort itself and become something other than what it is in order to feed our appetites for the unique, quaint, or otherwise picturesque.
Getting back to my young friend, though he looked to me like he might have been in his late teens or early 20s, he was probably still a young teenager, as he told me he went to the local primary school (Grades 1-8) in the afternoon shift. I asked him what time the afternoon shift started. "Six thirty," he replied. "That's awfully late," I said. "No, it's only about twenty minutes from now." Right, in Ethiopia the day starts at 6 a.m. so noon is 6 o'clock. I knew that! I hope that he is given good enough opportunities to make a good life for himself. People with initiative like that – no matter how small the matters might be – deserve to do well.
On the ride back to town we were all rather sleepy and dozed a bit. Giggles had a fairly good nap but I found the road too rough to sleep particularly well. Our itinerary had called for an afternoon of sight-seeing around Bahir Dar, but we were all too wiped out, it was already after 2 o'clock and we hadn't yet eaten lunch. We ate in the hotel dining lounge, then Laolao took Giggles for some playtime in the hotel gardens while I had a nap in our room. After I awoke, Giggles showed me the lakeshore path where she and Laolao had walked. Then we played near the dining room and watched the sun set over Lake Tana at around 6:30.
Supper came next, followed by an early bedtime. Giggles was so tired she fell asleep before I'd finished reading her a single page of These Happy Golden Years, one of the Little House on the Prairie books that we brought along for bedtime reading. I followed suit shortly thereafter.
(Continue to 17 December: Bahir Dar - Lake Tana)
No comments:
Post a Comment