Aksum

 by Red

40 – From Aksum to Mekele, Crushed Underneath My Backpack

Tue 5th Jan, Dallas Hotel, Mekele
Traveling by bus can be tiring. Traveling by bus from one 2100m town to another 2100m high town over 6 hours with your 60 litre Osprey luggage on your lap restricting your movement can be very tiring. Thank goodness the road was paved.
Reached Mekele at 12pm (why oh why do Ethiopian long distance buses set off at 6am and earlier?) and found a hotel near the bus station. Mekele is a larger town in the northeastern Tigray region (the girls here are prettier!) with nothing much to see, but it is a pleasant place to wander about. Slower pace for me than Gonder’s castles, the Simien Mountains’ baboons and Aksum’s tombs and stelae. I can finally relax and type decent entries here too. The last few days deserved much lengthier accounts and i feel guilty about slipshod work. So attached below will be backdated photos from Kassala back in Sudan (day 33), and Aksum (day 39).
We could leave the day after to Lalibela and still catch Leddet festival on the 6th and 7th but after some thought decided against it. The Norwegian girl we met in Aksum is flying to Lalibela and needed to reserve hotel rooms at 3 times the normal price. We need 2 more days by bus and will arrive at the tail end of the festival, with possibly no vacancies or exorbitant prices. Hence the decision was to stay two nights in Mekele and chill. I think we must be the only tourists in Ethiopia trying to avoid the festival on the 6th in Lalibela.
The Dallas Hotel was near the bus station. Rooms with shared bathrooms are 30 birr but there’s no running water (no i don’t get it either) or power sockets. I stayed in a room with bathroom (60 birr) that comes with a power outlet. Dinner was tibs, strips of meat with berbere sauce together with what tastes like wasabe. It was pretty good, especially since i got bread instead of injeera. But i really miss Sudanese food. And chicken rice. =/
Ok. The following pics are of me back in Day 33 scampering atop Toteel Mountain, and hanging out with the Kassala street vendor. Oh and the barber that shaved it all off…
The next set are yesterday’s photos Day 39 with shots of Aksumite ruins, stelae and my bread/tomato/yoghurt/egg dish.
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 by Red

39 – Stelae is a new word in my dictionary

Mon 4th Jan, Africa Hotel, Aksum
Started out the day late. We may pass on the festival days in Lalibella on the 6th and 7th, since the crowd there would mean advance booking and private transport. Going by public transport, it takes maybe 3 days, with stops in Mekele and Woldia. Not worth the trouble in my opinion.
Had brunch in one of the cafe/restaurants. In my quest to find local food that suites my palate that is not injeera, i have come across special fir fir (at least that’s what i think it is called). It is a dish of pieces of torn bread drowned in some sort of bolognaise sauce, topped with sour yoghurt and scrambled egg. It actually tastes better than it sounds.
Next I visited the sites Aksum is famous for. The remnants of the Aksum dynasty litter the now small town of Aksum. The ticket (50 birr / half price students) covers all the sites around Aksum except the Mary Zion church (100 birr). First was the Northern Stelae Park. A stelae is a tall pylon or obelisk or plinth erected upwards that extolls the might of the Aksumite rulers. And the park had the biggest ones. The highest (around 30m) has toppled. Around the ruins are tombs as well. Took walks to the Tombs of King Caleb and the Queen of Sheba’s palace in the other direction.
(Have not uploaded the photos for this entry yet. And frankly i have no idea how to edit my post later it since i am posting as emails for now. This will be how it’s done till i get out to the next country. Plan is to hit Djibouti and Somaliland wherehopefully I can access my OWN blog!)

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in Africa / Ethiopia 2 comments
 by Red

38 – On the winding road to Aksum

Sun 3rd Jan, Africa Hotel, Aksum
Not too much to be said of the day. It was a full day of travel. Beginning at the lodge, we headed down at 7+ am. The terrain was truly spectacular, winding through the mountains, into the valleys and back up into the mountains. To Aksum, it was a full 12 hour journey, with a lunch stop at Adi Arkay. The road was gravel and sand. Everyone was breathing dust, and i could imagine how much more uncomfortable it would have been had we taken a public bus instead of the minivan.
On reaching Aksum, we boarded at Africa Hotel (90 birr, double bed), before going out for dinner. Tomorrow’s plan would be to explore the town and its surrounds.

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