The end. Well, almost

So, this is it. The 2016 Favourite Aunties and Old Comrades Reunion Tour has come to an end. I have seen my favourite aunties, dozens of cousins and more old friends than I can count. I've seen a cousin get married in Africa, climbed mountains in Spain and Rwanda, taught the haka to Czech school kids, and explored a Soviet time-warp in a country that officially doesn't exist. On Thursday night I'll be back home in Kerikeri and on Saturday I'll be back at work. This isn't the end of my blog, however: I still have a heap of videos to post plus I'm hoping to compile a few photo galleries and a list of highlights and lowlights. So watch this space...

Mystery solved

I wasn't looking forward to the long flight home from Ethiopia but it turned out to be a breeze. When I went to check in online I found that someone had already booked me the best seat on the plane all the way from Dubai to Auckland; then during the flight Emirates staff gave me a cake (see picture above). I assumed it was a mistake - surely it was meant for someone celebrating a birthday? - but it was labelled with my name and seat number. I had to eat it all before I reached biosecurity in Auckland; fortunately, a few fellow passengers volunteered to help me out. No one on board could tell me why I was being singled out for special treatment. The mystery has now, however, been solved. It turns out it was the work of my awesome travel agent Aimee Ruka. Cheers Aimee!

Ethiopia's most colourful festival?

The end of my stay in Ethiopia coincided with one of the country's most colourful festivals, Meskel (known in English as the Finding of the True Cross or sometimes as the Exaltation of the True Cross). According to Ethiopian tradition St Helena was looking for Christ's cross in the 4th century when she was told in a dream to light a large bonfire - she did as instructed, added frankincense to the blaze, and watched as the smoke rose into the sky then returned to the ground. She started digging where the smoke touched the ground and discovered the cross. 

Every September 26, on the eve of Meskel, Ethiopians gather by the thousands to dance, pray, chant, make music and light tall, tapering bonfires. I went to the biggest celebration of them all, on Meskel Square in Addis Ababa. The security was over the top (I've never been frisked so much in my life) and I kept being turned back by jumpy policemen, but on the fourth attempt I got through the police lines. Once on the square I was spotted by a friendly soldier who ushered me to a front-row seat. 

Thousands of people took part in the celebrations which culminated in the lighting of a large bonfire in the middle of the square while the crowd lit candles, prayed and sang. It was an amazing spectacle. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story...

 

The monk and the sunbeam

A monk is lit up by a sunbeam in a 12th-century church carved from solid rock at Lalibela, Ethiopia. The monk was unimpressed with the photo but I'm pretty pleased with it.

A mountaintop monastery

The path to Asheten Maryam Monastery passes through green fields of wheat and tef, an Ethiopian grain

On my last day in Lalibela I hiked up to a monastery called Asheten Maryam where 15 monks live atop a 3150m-high mountain, in their words, "to be closer to God". The monastery itself is unspectacular but the walk, through villages, fields and wildflowers, past streams of people and mules lugging supplies up the mountain, and finally through a narrow cleft in the cliffs, was fabulous. I had to hire a guide this time because I couldn't have found the monastery on my own; that's him below. He's a lovely fellow, named Sisay, and unlike many guides here he doesn't talk incessantly so I could just get on with enjoying the scenery. 

 

Sisay, my guide to Asheten Maryam

Ethiopia's coolest restaurant

 

Is this a set from a 1960s sci-fi movie? A hippy house in California? A UFO landing pad? It is in fact a restaurant called Ben Abeba, built on a cliff edge in Lalibela by a Scottish-Ethiopian couple. The views are jaw-dropping (see the picture below) and the food's not bad either... 

Ethiopia's wonders of the world

Ethiopia is bursting with ancient churches - it's the world's oldest Christian country after Armenia - but one place stands out. At Lalibela Ethiopia's medieval kings created a series of churches, not by building them from the ground up but by carving them from solid rock. The largest churches are 15m high (which meant cutting 15m down through hard volcanic rock); some have been worn down by time but others remain in superb condition almost 1000 years later. 

 

Bet Gyorgis (St George) is the most famous of Lalibela's carved churches

The wedding crasher

I stumbled on a traditional Ethiopian wedding while I was visiting the northern city of Axum. Sometimes Ethiopians aren't keen to be photographed but in this case I was allowed to tag along and take pictures. I was even dragged into a few of the official wedding photos. 

Weddings are a big deal here. This one involved fabulous costumes, a band playing drums and flutes made from lengths of steel pipe, parasols, lots of singing, clapping and dancing, and a carriage drawn by a white horse. This was one of five wedding parties I bumped into during one day in Axum. 

 

Young wedding guests pose for a photo

The green, green grass of Ethiopia

Some of my happiest times in Ethiopia have been when I took a break from cities and historic sights to just wander around aimlessly in the countryside, and one of my favourite walks was in the hills around the northern town of Axum. Right now the wet season is coming to an end so the Ethiopian countryside is gloriously, brilliantly green with fields of wheat and tef (an Ethiopian grain used to make their staple food, injera). 

A girl takes a break from guarding her goats in the fields near Axum

The Ark of the Covenant

 

According to Ethiopian tradition the Ark of the Covenant - Christendom's greatest treasure, said to contain the stone tablets God gave to Moses atop Mt Sinai - is kept in this small chapel in the northern Ethiopian town of Axum. Only one priest is allowed to see the Ark and this was as close as I could get to the holiest place in Ethiopia (there were plenty of grumpy church guards to make sure I didn't venture any nearer). Someone should tell Indiana Jones he was looking in the wrong place...

Breakfast in Ethiopia

As much as I loathe those tedious foodie blogs I have to share a photo of my favourite meal in Ethiopia - breakfast at Ezana Cafe in the northern town of Axum. It's a mix of fuul (bean puree), scrambled eggs and yoghurt, served in a battered metal dish and washed down with tea. Great way to start the day.

Monkeying around at the airport

 

To get to Harar in eastern Ethiopia without spending two days on a bus I had to catch a plane to the nearest city, Dire Dawa, which is as dire as its name suggests. However, it has one redeeming feature - a band of monkeys which hang out at the airport, clambering over the airport terminal and running around in the car park. Best pre-flight entertainment I've had.

Subsequent research tells me these are grivet monkeys, found only in Ethiopia, Sudan and Eritrea. Curiously, the males have bright blue balls.

Mysteries of Ethiopia: #1 of a potential series of 23,547,902

 

Ethiopia is a land of mysteries. I'm not talking about the big ones, like: Is the Ark of the Covenant really hidden inside a small chapel in Axum? Or, how did medieval Ethiopians carve vast churches out of solid rock? No, I mean the little things that baffle me every day and for which I can find no rational explanation. For example, near Shane and Brukty's home is a large pile of gravel. Almost every time I walk past, day or night, a man is seated on a cinder block on top of the pile, wrapped in a purple robe. (When I snapped this photo he had company but he's usually alone.)  Is he guarding the gravel? Does he just like the view from up there? Is he one of the city's many thousands of homeless? So far no one has been able to answer my questions...

Getting around in Addis Ababa...

 ...is something of a challenge. It's a sprawling, fast-growing city with very few street signs and locals don't use official street names anyway. There are no set bus routes or timetables and buses aren't marked with route numbers or destinations. Instead, the fare collector hangs out a window shouting the destination as the bus roars past; you have a split-second to recognise the garbled place name then wave down the driver. When people give you directions they do it in terms of landmarks; I have to do the same when asking around for the right minibus (I ask to be let out at the Ambasa bus garage, around the corner from Nexus Hotel). Sometimes the buses or the new Chinese-built light trains are so packed you physically can't get on (or off, once you've managed to squeeze on). The first time I tried to get from the centre to Shane and Brukty's place by public transport it took three hours, sparking fears that I had been abducted or was hopelessly lost. Now, just as I'm about to go home, I have it down pat and can do it in half that time. Oh well...

Ethiopia's old soldiers

The best thing about travel is the unexpected, the chance encounters that happen as you're just wandering around. For example, I was checking out St George's Cathedral in Addis Ababa - built to commemorate the victims of Italy's 1930s invasion of Ethiopia - when a bunch of war veterans turned up for an official photo session. The Italians killed tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians, including with poison gas, and the country's war veterans are revered. (The invaders were eventually pushed out, just as they were in the 1890s). I'm not sure if these old soldiers are old enough to have fought in the 1930s but there was no mistaking the respect Ethiopians have for them. It felt a bit like being at an Anzac Day service in New Zealand. I didn't know enough Amharic to say anything to them but I'm sure they understood my salute.

Amani's 5th birthday

 

My visit here coincided with the 5th birthday of Shane and Brukty's youngest, Amani. Okay, it wasn't his real birthday but his cousins were out of the country at the time so he got to celebrate a second time, with a giant green birthday cake and a cousin in a purple unicorn suit. Happy birthday Amani!

A hyena back massage

 A tourist is treated to a hyena back massage

Every night for six generations a family in Harar, in eastern Ethiopia, has fed the hyenas that scavenge the city's streets and rubbish dumps. The family started offering the hyenas scraps of meat for spiritual reasons and as a way of discouraging attacks in times of drought, but when tourists started turning up at feeding time they realised it was good business too. 

I was very keen to see the "hyena man" in action but it took me three attempts. On the first night I discovered the feeding site had been moved from its traditional location by the city walls so I needed to hire a guide and/or transport to find it. Trouble was, every bajaj driver (a bajaj is a motorised rickshaw, called a tutuk in Asia) quoted me an exorbitant fare. I had better luck the second night but by then the hyenas weren't interested in free handouts because two feast days in quick succession meant they'd been gorging themselves on offal from slaughtered sheep and goats. By the third night I'd learnt the location and the hyenas were hungry. It was about half an hour's walk outside the city on the edge of a pungent rubbish dump. I soon found the hyena man - I just followed my nose, plus I could hear him calling his furry friends - and the hyenas soon found him.

The current hyena man (real name Abbas) knows the animals by name and feeds them chunks of meat he holds on a stick (they don't discriminate much between live fingers and meat scraps) or sometimes in his mouth. Any tourists that show up are given a chance to feed them too, but Abbas' special trick is to encourage the hyenas to climb onto tourists' backs as he feeds them chunks of meat. Abbas calls it a hyena back massage. I also had my shoulders massaged, not the most tender masseuse I've known but my only real complaint was that hyena paws smell so fetid I had to wash my clothes afterwards. I guess that's what happens if you spend all night wandering around a rubbish dump.

A hyena by torchlight

Seven hyenas showed up that night. It's eerie the way they slink around noiselessly but even eerier their distinctive whooping howl. They were skittish but didn't seem afraid of humans, happy to approach within centimetres if a free meal was involved.

It's a testament to the basic decency of rural Ethiopians that I was able to walk at night through unlit countryside and poor villages to the feeding site without feeling threatened. It did feel uncomfortable but that's because you attract so much attention as a foreigner here - much of the way I was accompanied by groups of children shouting "faranji!" (foreigner) or "you, YOU!". At one stage I wandered by mistake into a Muslim cemetery; instead of telling me off, a lovely old fellow took me by the hand and led me back to the proper path.

Hyena dinner time

Harar, a city in eastern Ethiopia, is famous for the hyenas which prowl its back streets and scavenge in its rubbish heaps by night. A couple of "hyena men" put on nightly shows in which they feed the beasts chunks of meat from their hands and mouths. Alas Harar's hyenas are too well-fed at the moment to be bothered with free handouts. Two feasts in the past week - the New Year plus a Muslim feast day - mean the city's rubbish dumps are piled high with the remains of slaughtered sheep and goats, and the hyenas just aren't interested in eating more. Still, I did see a few last night (one of which is pictured above), and I could hear their eerie, whooping calls all night. 

Colourful Harar

Harar, a city in eastern Ethiopia, is a fabulously colourful place. As in Rwanda, people here are not always keen to have their photos taken but I was allowed to take one picture of this ladies' wedding party when I ran into then in a back street. I think they were on their way to get some official photos taken before the big day. Thank you ladies! 

Happy New Year 2009!

No, that's not a typo. September 12 was the first day of the year 2009 in Ethiopia. The seven-and-a-half year discrepancy with our calendar is, I'm told, the result of a different calculation for the birth of Christ. The New Year was marked by a midnight fireworks display in Addis Ababa but otherwise it's a fairly low-key, family-oriented celebration here. I joined Shane and Brukty on a trip across the city for dinner at Brukty's mum's house, where her sister performed a traditional coffee ceremony. From washing and roasting the beans (pictured) to drinking the third and final round takes a couple of hours; it was the kids' bedtime so we only got as far as round two. It was great to experience a genuine coffee ceremony this way. 

The calendar is not the only unique thing here. Ethiopia has its own, ancient, 276-letter alphabet, which I'm told is not as impossible to learn as it sounds - the letters are made up of combinations of the 33 consonants and seven vowels. Still, it helps to explain why I've made little headway with Amharic, the national language. 

Ethiopia also has its own system for telling the time. The clock starts from zero at 6am our time, the start of the day; at 6pm the time goes back to zero for the start of night-time. So, when I turned up at this internet cafe this morning and found it was still locked, I was told it would open at 4 o'clock. That meant 6 + 4 = 10am in our system. To make it even more confusing Ethiopians often use the western system of telling time when dealing with foreigners like me, so I always have to triple-check what time they really mean... 

The most exotic place yet?

After just over a week with Shane and Brukty in Addis Ababa - playing nanny to their kids, welcoming in the Ethiopian year 2009 (more about that later) and getting over some health issues - I'm now in Harar, a city in the east of the country. Time is running out so I flew to the nearest big city, Dire Dawa, instead of taking a 12-hour bus ride. Harar couldn't be more different from Addis Ababa. While Addis is green and wet, especialy now at the tail end of the rainy season, Harar is hot and surrounded by dry scrubland. The people here are Muslim rather than Orthodox Christian, and I have to learn a whole new bunch of phrases - people here speak Oromo, which is unrelated to the Amharic spoken in the capital. But mostly this place feels totally different. With its twisting alleyways, spice markets, pastel-coloured houses and brightly dressed women like flocks of tropical birds, it feels more like Morocco than anywhere I've been in sub-Saharan Africa. Plus the coffee is reputed to be the best in Ethiopia - and that's saying something.
I spent my first night in a hotel overlooking a fantastically chaotic, busy market - I could have watched from my balcony all day - but was chased out by bedbugs. Now I'm in a guesthouse in a lovely traditional home in the middle of the old city. There's no street names or signs here so I have to memorise landmarks if I want to find my way back tonight...