Tuesday May 10, 2011 & Wednesday May 11, 2011
I’m combining two days in Gondar because we didn’t do much on Tuesday! We left Lalibella, took a share taxi down to the airport. I started feeling nauseous in the car but the roads are extremely winding and I was turning around talking, so I assumed it was the car ride. We were at the airport extremely early and they gave us a blank boarding pass. Pretty funny how it works here. We chatted with a nice couple that live in New York and waited for the plane to arrive.
When we landed in Gondar, it was pouring rain with thunder and lightening!! We assumed it would pass quickly but it ended up pouring all night. We were picked up by Beza’s father (Ambassador Zemene), whom we have never met before. He owns a small hotel right in the city center so he took us out there and set us up with a room. I still wasn’t feeling completely normal, but I shrugged it off to hiking so much the day before.
We relaxed at the hotel, playing games on my mom’s iPod and had a huge traditional Ethiopian lunch. It was quite spicy, but I was able to eat it still. I went to bed early, before dinner because my stomach was feeling upset. I woke up around 3am, horribly ill. My mom laid in bed with me and rubbed my back until I was able to fall back asleep. I woke up again in the morning, still sick. We had a car and tour guide arranged for us at 9am, so I got up, looking like the walking dead.
We toured several historical sites in Gondar, including the church of Haile Selaisse, Queen Metubah’s palace, King Fasilede’s vacation home and what is known as the Camelot of Gondar, the palace of King Fasiledes, all from the 17th century. I was still feeling sick, so we took many breaks to sit down and rest. The guide was very sweet, taking me to shady spots to sit.
Haile Selaisse’s church was quite a treat, with paintings all over, in beautiful colors. They were mostly preserved with a little bit of sun and water damage. The ceiling was covered in 144 angels, all with large round eyes.
After the tour, we went back to the hotel and I took a 2 hour nap. My mom woke me up and we went in search of internet and food. My dad knew of another hotel that served decent pizza so we went there. We ordered the margarita pizza, which ended up being a vegetarian pizza with spicy tomato sauce. Not so good for my weak stomach! I ate the breading and had a Pepsi with it. After we went to an internet café that was super slow. My parents had left me there to confirm our flight for tomorrow and in the meantime found another hotel with fast wifi! WooHoo! I was able to get on for about 45 mins and get some important emails answered.
At 5pm, we had a car waiting for us again, to take us to Falasha Village, aka Beta Israel, which used to be where the Afro-Jewish community lived. They no longer live there, but they sold their land off and the people that live there still make the same products to sell. It was very commercialized; children wanting to sell us items bombarded us. I did buy one thing for Nichole and Mitch’s wedding. We didn’t stay there long, and went to Ambassador Zemene’s dairy farm to pick up their daily milk. We got to see the house he was born in, which was quite interesting.
Back to the hotel, for rest and another early night for me! Hopefully I’m feeling better for our flight back to Addis Ababa tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment