During our Christmas frenzy, the Herrmann +1 went to Bahir Dar. Bahir Dar is the capital of the Amhara region (where guess what, they speak Amharic) and is located at the source of the Blue Nile, on the biggest lake in Ethiopia believed to cover 3000 km2. Because of the lake, Bahir Dar is very much a beach resort with big avenues surrounded by palm trees, a bit like Nice in France (as it certainly was 50 years ago).
We were coming from Lalibella, the city of an old visionary king who decided to reproduce Jerusalem, the Abyssinian style, with its fantastic churches, its amazing culture, its magnificent hotel, the Tukul village and its lack of touristic vision, so it was a bit of a cultural choc. Bahir Dar is pretty but nothing really unique. The lake is impressive and apparently (we unfortunately missed that) hosts hundreds of small islands, each shelter to a monastery. Unfortunately, you need three hours of boat to get to the interesting ones and we had a busy schedule.
After an extremely quick stop at the Bahir Dar market, (might be a good attraction on Saturdays but weekdays, it is not worth mentioning), we headed to the Blue Nile Source, situated 5 minutes from the town center. After a small ride in a tuktuk, we arrived on a bridge where, our driver swore, the Blue Nile starts… well well… Great birds and an enormous hippos made the trip worthwhile, but for the rest! You can't stop on the bridge (policemen actually chased us up and down to make sure we were not taking any pictures, that was without counting on my cunning father and his under-the-arm technique!), you can not take pictures on/of/around the bridge, the water isn’t that pretty anyway and I did not see one crocodile!
That also make me think about revealing a secret to you. Hippos? Overrated. Yes they are very very very big animals, and birds do like to seat on their back, but they don’t do nothing! They don’t move, they don’t swim, they don’t eat, ours didn’t even bother making a noise! They are amazing at imitating rocks, but that is pretty much it. Oh, sorry, and they move their ears… great!
We then went on to see the Blue Nile Falls. They used to compete with the Victoria falls, apparently once the pride of Ethiopia, but an hydro-electric station has now been built and takes most of the water away from the falls. Once a month, they open the tap, and the falls regain their reputation as the Tis Abay (smoking water), or during rainy season it might be a bit more impressive. The walk to the falls is beautiful, a bit of real Ethiopian countryside life, and another Portuguese bridge made of ostrich eggs. However, it is clearly THE attraction and it is full of tourists and tourist spotters (birr, food, tee-shirt, shoes, football, children will ask you for anything they can think of!). But it was a nice afternoon, with a small boat trip to cross a branch of Lake Tana, which was most appreciated after the walk. The falls are pretty, not that impressive for big travellers, but still smoking!
We then went back to the hotel, the (in)famous Ghion hotel, apparently one of the older hotel in Ethiopia. Well, I say apparently, but surely the oldest hotel and they clearly haven’t done any thing to renovate it. We had the terrible rooms at the back, disgusting, horrible and stinking. Marion made us laugh by sleeping in her “meat bag”, protecting her from any contact with the room and Ben bravely thought for 2 seconds about taking a shower but gave up when he saw the grey/wet towels!
So here is my recommendation for you future abyssinian travelers, don’t loose too much time in Bahir Dar and definitely don’t go to the Ghion! You might want to stop by to see the monasteries on the lake, but a day is enough.
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