October Pictures

I've gone ahead and posted additional pictures that I've taken throughout the month here to a Picasa album if you are interested in seeing a bit more of my experience:

Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony Invite

October Randoms

Visits to the Historic Cities of Gondar and Axum

Last weekend we travelled North to visit two cities with a lot of Ethiopian history to take in.  The first city we stopped in was Gondar.  This city was founded in the 1600s when Emperor Fasilides started construction on churches and his famous castle (also known as Fasil’s castle).  The Royal Enclosure and many castles now located there was my favorite site within the city.

Me at the entrance to Fasil's castle, in front of some very tall doors!

To see more pictures of my visit to Gondar, click here.

We also stopped in the city of Axum/Aksum.  This city is well known for its distinctive giant obelisks, known as stelae, although there is no clear explanation as to how these massive structures were created, moved, and erected so long ago.  The city is also home to the remnants of Queen of Sheba’s palace and is said to house the Ark of the Covenant in the compound of the Cathedral of St Mary of Zion.

Starting off the day at the main stelae field

The rock build-up is new, but the original foundation in place below is believed to be Queen of Sheba's palace

It is the building here that is said to house the Ark...this is about as close as we got :)

To see more pictures of my visit to Axum, click here.

Ethiopia's Health Extension Program Is Making News

As I have mentioned previously, I am working on longitudinal survey data collected with respect to the implementation of the Health Extension Program (HEP) in Ethiopia (click here for details form a previous post).  Lately, there has been some increased attention paid to the program as the preliminary results of an independent survey, the Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey 2011, have been shared this past month.  Key achievements in areas of family planning and child health were highlighted.  See here for the press release from the Embassy of the United States in Addis Ababa.

Also last month, preceding the above press release, the HEP was highlighted in the Embassy of the United States in Addis Ababa's Newsletter.  It's a nice article with a broad overview of the program and also highlights some personal and practical aspects of its implementation.  See here for the article.

Ethiopian Lakes and Forest Adventures

After taking advantage of my time here and visiting some of the great lakes of Ethiopia the past two weekends, this weekend has been a bit more relaxing with some downtime and a day-trip yesterday.

Two weekends ago we took a 4+ hour drive out of the city to visit some of the lakes of the Rift Valley with our final destination being Awassa.  Along the way we stopped at the Sabana Resort to see Lake Langano and grab some lunch.  One of the big attractions of this lake is that is reported to be safe for swimming, and without bilharzia (a parasite that can be found in water here).  Although it was a beautiful day, and lovely to see, I didn’t jump in. 

We continued along to our final destination of Awasa – the largest city in the Ethiopian Rift Valley – with the main attraction being its lake – which ironically is the smallest of lakes in the Ethiopian Rift Valley.  Here we were able to relax a bit at the resort, spot some wildlife (monkeys and many many birds), and take a nice boat ride out on the lake to see the sights and a local fish market.

On the way back home, we stopped at the Abiata-Shala National park.  Although we did not continue all of the way into the park to view the lakes, we took a short hike to view some animals!  Here there was also very picturesque African landscape...what had pictured before arriving, but a bit different from much of what I have experienced in Ethiopia so far.

To view more pictures of the Rift Valley Lakes trip, click here.

On a side note – it is the Rift Valley in East Africa where many very early fossils have been discovered, including perhaps the most famous "Lucy", who was discovered further North in Ethiopia.

Last weekend we flew to the city of Bahir dar, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Ethiopia with top attractions including the Blue Nile Falls and Lake Tana.  We stayed at the Kiriftu resort there, which was gorgeous and probably one of the most luxurious places to stay outside of Addis in Ethiopia – it was a special treat. 

Our first day there, we visited the Blue Nile Falls.  After a bumpy dirt road ride out to the Falls area, they are only visible by another thirty minute hike, which was a very popular route with the locals that day being market day and the weekend before the Meskel holiday.  We definitely had lots of company, besides our guide, on our walk out that way.  The Falls were a spectacular sight and apparently we went at a perfect time, it being the end of rainy season, and the Falls being very full.  There were very few other tourists that we passed along the way and we had lots of open space to enjoy the scenery.

On our second day we took a boat ride out on Lake Tana – Ethiopia’s largest lake.  This area is known for its abundance of monasteries, many on islands.  We stopped and visited both the Ura Kidane monastery on the Zege peninsula and the Entos Eyesu monastery on a very small island.  Afterwards, we continued on to the Nile Source, which is supposed to be the best place to spot hippos, although very sadly in the mid-day we did not see any.

To view more pictures of the Bahir Dar trip, click here.

Yesterday we ventured out in search of the Menagesha Forest.  In spite of it only being some 30km out of the city, due to a misunderstanding with the driver on where we were trying to go and a very long dirt road in quite poor condition and a non-4x4 vehicle…it was quite the long adventure to get there.  Although we didn’t have too much time to actually explore the forest, once we finally got there, and still have time to make it back during the daylight hours, it was still a fun trip with some beautiful scenery along the way.

To view more pictures of the Menagesha Forest, click here.