| Ethiopia:
Abyssinia Adventure - Hwy 3 Bahir Dar / Bahar Dar Bicycle Africa / Ibike Tours |
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Bahir Dar's origins date back to at least the sixteenth century. The earliest mention of the town is by Pedro Páez, a Spanish Jesuit missionary in Ethiopia (1603-1622). Occasionally an Emperor came by and spent some time here. Emperor Haile Salassie considered it for the location of the capital at one point. One of his former palaces is located on a hill, overlooking Lake Tana, a couple of kilometers north of town. And the Italians occupied the city from their base in Gondar for a portion of WWII |
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On the outskirts of Bahir
Dar is a large and elegant
Medhanialem
Orthodox Church. Consistent with the traditional layout
of the grounds, it was surrounded by trees, which make it a challenge to
photograph. Even falling short on capturing all of its majesty, it still shows a strong presence. Prior to visiting Bahir
Dar much of what I had read was about its tourism sector and how much hustle
and hassle there was, so I had
my guard up. As we approached the city I was taken aback by how open and
friendly people were. |
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 Bahir Dar (1800m)
is the commercial focal point of northwest Ethiopia and Ethiopia's third
largest city. It is primarily known for tourism, but most of the
local inhabitants outside of the city are involved in agriculture and it has a
major university.On the road approaching Bahir Dar, we passed lines of massively loaded donkey carts hauling cut grass towards the city. The photo to the right is the Hard Rock Cafe and Restaurant, in the
southern outskirts of town. |
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For reasons that I don't know the tuk tuks (Bajaj) prefer a gas station at the very southern edge of the city and a gas station at the very northern edge of the city. What ever it is that these gas stations have the tuk tuks are willing to wait in long lines to get it. |
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 Closer to the city, but
still in the suburbs, the road turns into a broad divided boulevard, with a
planted center median, lined by apartment blocks for a long section.. The
apartment seem to all use the same basic blue prints for construction. Many
flats sport and exterior dish antenna.Where the adjacent land is not fully built out with apartment
houses and industrial buildings, the space is taken up by plant
nurseries and
horticultural projects producing flowering and garden plants destined for local
home improvement projects. |
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Going down the main
boulevard I got a couple of hustles from tourism touts, but before I found any
actually tourist traps I came upon the University of Bahir Dar -- further
validating that the city is multi-dimensional. There are several campuses
to the university and this one has an impressive main building. In the
traffic circle in front of the university's downtown campus there is a sculpture
labeled "Sculpture of Wisdom", showing an adult woman carrying a torch and
leading a child by the hand. |
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To both the south and north, well outside of the city, are additional campus of the University of Bahir Dar. At least ten kilometers south of the city is the School of Law and Institute of Land Management. At least as far north of the city is the Bahir Dar University College of Agriculture and Environment and Science. Both are impractical to access for most people without motor transport. There is some irony in having both an institute for land management and a school of environment in their respective carbon-heavy locations. |
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One of the economic engines of Bahir Dar and a tourist attraction is its central market. It was rows and rows of stalls with sections for vegetable, grains, spices, honey, green coffee, cosmetics and perfumes, tailors, ready made clothes, house wares, baskets, shoes, and the list goes on. Change is in the works. Large sections of the market have been torn down and the merchants moved to temporary stalls. In the midst of all this multi-story market building are being constructed. When it is finished building will have specialties like "spice and honey", "green coffee", "clothing", etc., and the central quad between the building is to be a park surrounded by streets. Time will tell if the merchants on the upper levels will prosper as well as those that are selected for the ground floor. |
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  Another
interesting retail arrangement in Bahir Dar is a half dozen well lighted
mini-malls, with 15-20 stalls in each, all selling mobile phones.It was also please to see a significant number of women with shoe shine businesses. Not that shoe shining is so lucrative, but usually it is dominated by males. |
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This is the entrance to Giyorgis Orthodox Church, in central Bahir
Dar. Despite the impressive entrance, its claim to fame dates back 400
years and the church itself is a side note: "Pedro Páez, a Spanish Jesuit missionary in Ethiopia (1603-1622), is credited with erecting several buildings in this city, one of which is "a solid, two-story stone structure, with an outside staircase that can be seen in the compound of the present-day Giyorgis church." |
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At the lake shore is a
the tiered public
park (left). It is an excellent spot to relax and watch pelicans, cormorants,
Africa fish eagles and assorted other birds, and people watching the local
Ethiopians from all walks of life, who had the park well populated and were also
watching the lake. The last picture was thought to be of an African Fish Eagle in the tree. At the best the eagle was hard to see with the naked eye. On closer examination of the enlarged image it appears to be two eagles having and amorous afternoon. |
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Adjacent to the Nile River is the Amharic Martyrs Monument (left) dedicated to those who died fighting the Derg. There is also a site museums covering the rebels role in the civil war to overthrow the Derg. |
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 There are more than 20 monastic churches built on
the shores and islands of Lake Tana.
Most were built between the 14th and 18th centuries. These
churches have provided sanctuaries for religious relics and royal treasures. For
a period, the Ark of the Covenant was said to have been stored at an island
monastery in Lake Tana. (It is now said to be in a church in Axum.) |
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 Beta Maryam
Monastery receives a lot of tourists and pilgrims. Perhaps as a
result of this the access path is lined with vendors selling religious items and
replicas, and general Ethiopian souvenirs.Almost camouflaged by the souvenir
booths is a forest of coffee bushes (right). The coffee plants are owned by
the monastery and the beans are sold to generate revenue. |
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As you reach the more densely inhabited section of the village/monastery, the roads and trails are often narrow and lined by high rock walls. During our visit, white-faced whistling tree ducks were in residence -- in the trees. They are very gregarious ducks that favor fresh water lakes or reservoirs with lots of vegetation. They can hangout with hundreds and thousands of their best friends, so this group is miniscule. If you are interested, they can be somewhat domesticated and kept as pets. Among the other large birds around the lake were African fish eagles and pelicans. We saw some of each, but never got in the right position to get good pictures. In the end, the pictures don't matter. It was great to see them in their environment, especially the fish eagle, which has some similarities to the bald eagle. |
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The church of the Bete Mariyam Monastery, on the Zege Peninsula, is built with the classical round architecture of Lake Tana churches. The monastery was founded in the 13th century near the tip of the peninsula; it is the oldest monastery on Zege Peninsula. The roof is thatched and the walls of the middle chambers are covered in paintings, most depicting biblical stories or other historical events. An interesting element of the art is figure with two eyes are of good character and figures in profile, with one eye showing are bad. (The second and fourth frames below have some one-eyed figures in them.) |
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| The monastery also houses a museum with both religious and royal treasures. Religious valuables can include manuscripts, iconography, the remains of priests, musical instruments, vestments, etc. | |||
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 Late
afternoon must be reading time at the monastery and in the village. As we
were on the way out, a man was sitting on the top of the wall of the monastery
studying some material, and as we walked back to the boat there were
several boys and girls along the trail engaged in similar pursuits.From our cultural orientation it was nice to see that reading is a popular pastime.. |
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 The
second stop on our brief tour was Entos Eyesu
Monastery. It had some distinct differences from Bete Maryam: There were no
curio sellers, no guide is required, the monks and nuns don't act like they have
seen too many tourists, and there is no village intertwined with the monastery.
It had more of the ambiance of a nature preserve. Much of this can
be attributed to its location on a small isolated island, rather than a
peninsula within easy driving distance of Bahir Dar.The church itself is not distinctive, but the interior walls are covered with bright paintings depicting biblical and religious themes and stories. |
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At sunset, we were still on
the lake. Hours before, we had started with a morning bike ride. We periodically stopped along the way to get a bite to eat and have nice conversations with whoever was standing nearby. The positive experience of Bahir Dar was a welcome surprise. And for the afternoon, we relaxed on a "cruise" and visited some monasteries, part of the core of Ethiopian Orthodox culture. It was a full day and one of the most interesting so far. |
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(South: Bure to Bahir Dar)
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