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1. Ethiopia – land
of the surreal
Ancient 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

2. ethiopia
Blue Nile Gorge.

3. T
ravelling 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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4. 46 Sawubona April 2015
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
ethiopia
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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6. 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.
48 Sawubona April 2015
ethiopia

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8. ethiopia
50 Sawubona April 2015
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 DETAILS
Tatu Tours: www.tatuethiopia.com
Ethiopian 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.
SHARONGILBERT-RIVETT.GALLOIMAGES/GETTYIMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO