Ethiopia the land of the surreal

Ethiopia – land of the surrealAncient walled cities, hand-fed hyenas, jaw-dropping scenery, volcanic landscapes and 700-year-old monasteries all add up to a truly amazing African destination

By Sharon Gilbert-Rivett

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Blue Nile Gorge.


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Travelling in Africa is often punctuated by surreal moments. You know the sort of thing: flying over the Victoria Falls in a microlight, or thousands of wildebeest plunging headlong into the Mara River... But negotiating hairpin bends on the

wrong side of a particularly rugged stretch of road, while descending almost 2 000m vertically into Ethiopia’s Blue Nile Gorge, accompanied by Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye pumping out You are Everything on a cassette tape almost as old as I am, has to be up there with the best of them.


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Ethiopia’s pretty much surreal. This land-locked nation in the Horn of Africa is to the continent what Salvador Dali was to art, offering more jaw-dropping moments in a week’s worth of exploration than the Kardashians can dish up in a lifetime of reality TV.

Take driver/guide Asrat Solomon. He’s singing along with Diana and Marvin like there’s no tomorrow as we plunge into the abyss formed by the 800km-long Blue Nile (or Abbay River, as it’s known locally). We’ve followed the river from the city of Bahir Dar on Lake Tana, some 300km to the north, on our way to the capital of Addis Ababa, which lies about 200km to the south. It’s taken us six hours to reach this point and we have another four to go. It’s an epic journey in a country where epic journeys are par for the course.

Asrat’s part of the team at Tatu Tours, a company specialising in off-the-beaten-track destinations throughout Ethiopia. Founded by ex-pat Kiwi Pamela Robbie and renowned local guide Tatek Bezabeh, it’s fast making its mark on the country’s tourism landscape – a landscape I’m battling to get into my camera’s viewfinder while Asrat negotiates the treacherous road ahead of us.

It’s a battle I’ve been losing since I arrived. Ethiopia’s simply too big, in every respect, to capture visually. All I get are snippets – vignettes of what has to be one of the most fascinating, but frustrating countries on the continent.

The journey began a week ago, in the sprawling

metropolis of Addis Ababa. Set in a natural basin surrounded by mountains at an altitude of almost 3 000m above sea level, the city’s home to some four million people. This is the seat of the African Union, in the only African country never to have been colonised. It was briefly occupied by Italy under the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini shortly before and during World War II. The interlude contributed some interesting architecture and an endearing passion for Italian food, with pasta and pizza on the menu at most restaurants and cafés.

Ethiopia’s contribution to Italy, and the rest of the waking world, is coffee. Coffea arabica – the coffee plant – originated here and the beverage is an integral part of everyday life around the country. It’s served with what seems like half a kilogram of sugar in tiny cups called cini. The combination of caffeine and sugar delivers an instant energy boost which the average Ethiopian can’t resist for longer than a few hours at a time. As a result, coffee stations are found everywhere, from upmarket cafés to makeshift roadside stands on every major thoroughfare – and, thank goodness, at Bole International Airport, from which I embark on a journey back in time to the ancient

walled city of Harar, some 500km to the east.The city of Dire Dawa, close to Harar, offers an

altogether different landscape from the capital’s lush surrounds and cool climate. Arid, rugged and hot, dotted with umbrella thorns and low scrub, this is the centre of one of Ethiopia’s most lucrative and controversial industries: the growing, harvesting and export of the Catha edulis shrub, commonly known as chat. It’s a

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Left: A mother and child from the Borana tribe.Below: The morning routine in the ancient walled city of Harar has gone unchanged for centuries.


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highly prized stimulant which is chewed as part of a Muslim social custom dating back thousands of years, both in the Horn of Africa and on the Arabian Peninsula. And Harar, the fourth-holiest city of Islam and a Unesco World Heritage Site, is the world’s chat capital.

According to guide Biniyam Mengistu-Fiyato, some 15 million users drive the chat market from Harar to neighbouring Djibouti and Somalia, some 250km away, as well as Oman, Yemen and the Far East.

Chat, plus a strategic location, helped make Harar a significant trading city, leading to it being walled in the

13th century in order to fortify it. There are more than 82 mosques, some dating from the 10th century, within its 48ha of winding alleyways. Traditional Harari homes are built from a combination of endemic volcanic rock, mud and straw.

One, Rawda Guesthouse, gives visitors the opportunity to completely immerse themselves in the city’s colourful history. Decorated with baskets and carved bowls hewn from local acacia wood, its basic, but comfortable

accommodation offers a completely authentic Harari experience. At times the plumbing leaves a lot to be desired (a common problem in Ethiopia, to be fair), but layered, deep-fried Harari pancakes and freshly-brewed coffee at breakfast more than make up for practical shortcomings.

Just outside the ancient walls lies another of Harar’s quirky drawcards. At 7pm every evening, Yusuf Mumey sits down on a rock he’s been using for the past three decades and begins to whistle. At his feet is a jerry-can filled with strips of meat and offal donated by local

butchers. Soon he’s surrounded by spotted hyenas which he proceeds to feed, using a stick to deliver chunks of flesh to eager jaws. It’s a centuries-old tradition. According to Harari folklore, hyenas are sacred animals and if they’re fed at night, they won’t attack people or livestock. Once a year they’re fed porridge in a special ceremony to ward off bad spirits, known as jinn.

Perhaps it’s the jinn who switch off the hot water in Rawda Guesthouse’s shower on the morning of my departure… who knows? The ensuing drive to Awash National Park seems equally jinxed. A mere 225km away from the walled city, it nevertheless takes nine agonising hours on rough roads filled with trucks from Djibouti, suicidal donkeys and kamikazi cattle to reach Awash Falls Lodge.

Located on a scenic drop alongside the Awash River, one of Ethiopia’s major waterways, the lodge

Ethiopia’s simply too big, in every respect, to capture visually. All I get are vignettes of one of the most fascinating and frustrating countries on the continent.

Above: A hyena feeder preserving an ancient custom.

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offers a base from which to explore the surrounding environment. This is stunningly beautiful bush filled with endemic species of animals and birds, like the white-bellied bustard and the Beisa oryx. A morning walk with resident ornithologist Abel Belay nets a host of sightings and provides welcome relief from sitting in a vehicle.

The road from Awash back to Addis is a lesson in geology, taking us through fields strewn with lava and a horizon littered with relics of Ethiopia’s volcanic past. Collapsed craters, jagged peaks and dusty moonscapes remind me that the country lies on the edge of three tectonic plates and the great East African Rift Valley. Hot springs abound and near the border with Djibouti and Eritrea lies the legendary Danakil Depression and Erte Alle, an active volcano with a lake of lava which has been heaving and spewing molten rock since 1967.

Watching dust devils whipping up the parched earth passes for entertainment, but at Nazret, just 90 minutes east of Addis, lies a secret oasis in this desert-like wilderness: Kelly’s Retreat. Owned and run by Addis-based entrepreneur and environmental warrior Kelly Seifu Yohannes, this 11ha plot is home to her life’s work – a country-style hotel, business and conference centre surrounded by more than 1 000 species of flora, all planted and nurtured by Kelly herself. It’s cool in more than one sense of the word and a late, sumptuous lunch is interrupted by paradise flycatchers, parakeets and a host of other birds which nest in Kelly’s garden.

Twenty-four hours later, birds of a different kind are capturing my imagination on Lake Tana. Rafts of African pelicans are bobbing in the wake of papyrus boats, hoping for cast-offs from unlucky fishermen. I’m on my way by boat to the Zeghe Peninsula with guide Yalew Metku to visit more surreal Ethiopian showpieces: the 14th-century Ura Kidane Mihret and Azuwa Maryam monasteries.

From the outside, these Ethiopian Orthodox Churches look rather uninteresting, but one step over their respective thresholds reveals hidden treasures in the form of 700-year-old paintings, which adorn the walls of these unique holy tabernacles. Created by monks using nothing but crushed berries and natural colourants, the spectacular array of lively Biblical depictions leaps off the walls at every turn, brought to life in a technicolour kaleidoscope.

Manuscripts dating back to the ninth century are displayed alongside robes, cloaks and crowns which adorned the heads of emperors of yore.

It’s almost too much to take in. Which is why a bowl of ice-cream, fresh pineapple juice and a relaxing swim are in order on my return to Kuriftu Resort & Spa on the

shores of the lake. The resort’s an indication

that Ethiopia’s ready to take the international tourism market by storm, with excellent service, great food and world-class facilities. The ablution services may be unreliable and toilets on the mammoth road journeys few and far between (a roll of loo paper is essential, as is a strong constitution), but the smiles on the faces of Ethiopia’s culturally diverse and wonderfully friendly people, as well as its fascinating history and breathtaking scenery, make it a jewel in Africa’s tourism crown. CONTACT DETAILSTatu Tours: www.tatuethiopia.comEthiopian Tourism: www.tourismethiopia.com

Above: A centuries-old painting of Mary and Jesus at the Ura Kidane Mihret monastery church.Left: A papyrus boat on Lake Tana.

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Ethiopia the land of the surreal

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