18 -20 December 2011
GONDOR
Town of hassles
Easy transport to Gondar across fabulous countryside as we
leave the lowlands behind. Nearing the town of Gondor, the hassles start before
I even get off the minibus! Firstly a group of young men have spotted the
fanaji, get on board and make demands to take me to a hotel. I respond with my
confident “I have a booking” which works for a moment until they ask what hotel
and “You should get off here.” Too late she cried when off the bus after
listening to them and checking my map, I see I should have continued on. The
lads would like to lead me (for a tip) but I assure them they are unneeded.
With that I receive a barrage of complaints that I should pay them anyway. Huh?
Then I hail a tuktuk and ask how much to the hotel – 20 birr, when I know it
should be 2 birr. Tried bargaining but he won’t move on his price. Ah well, I’ll
walk and manage to get to Genetics Guesthouse ok, where I am harried up the
steps by a young dreadlocked bloke. Assuring them I have a booking, I am shown
a room and told $30 (over 600 birr). Countering this by telling him that when
making the booking I’d been quoted 250 birr, he offers the room for $25. OK,
this is getting plain silly now and I reiterate the 250 birr price and he
shrugs me off, telling me to go elsewhere. With that, I let fly and soon have
two of them arguing with me that I should relax and just pay the money whilst I
berate them and Gondor, for their faranji attitudes quoting the tuktuk price as
an example. We soon get an audience, they accept my complaints, the room comes
down to 350 birr, I accept and we are all best friends again. I am going to
have to try harder to work out some of this Ethiopian psyche, in anticipation
of hitting the ‘historical circuit’ up north & manage my reactions to the
expected hassles there. The guesthouse name is a misnomer and it is really akin
to a hotel with comfy furnishings and satellite tv. That night, watching a
movie, the program menu suddenly appears on the screen. I start fiddling with
the remote and then I twig – the guys in reception didn’t like this program therefore
we all change stations to something a bit more light (or would that be trite?).
Earlier in the day I found my way up a huge hill to visit church of Debre
Berhan Selassie, or Light of the Trinity,
originally built in the 15th century but probably rebuilt in the 18th
century after fire destroyed it. However legend tells of a swarm of bees saving
the church from marauding dervishes in the 1880s. Whatever the story, this
church is stunning. The roof is decorated with row after row of winged cherubs,
between the rafters and the walls and doors are covered with paintings of
biblical tales and medieval history, all well preserved. Various tourists with
their guides would visit, pointing out different highlights of the church to
them (and me). But boy was that ceiling was hard to photograph and I spent at
least an hour there walking the compound with its age old cemeteries out back
and entering the church again trying not to wake the old priest to hear his
muttered requests for tip money again. My second day in Gondor was dedicated to
trawling Emperor Fasilidas’ Royal Enclosure here, a massive compound with many
palaces and castles nearly all restored by UNESCO to make it a world Heritage
site in 1979. Emperor Fasiladas built his royal capital here in 1636, but
besides understanding why he chose this remote location, no one has traced the
source of the architecture which inspired the palaces here. Some were modelled
on old Arabian palaces – but there are two and three storey rectangular blocks
with domed towers and turrets within two metre thick, fortified walls.
Walking more
neighbourhoods and out to the Fasiladas Bath I find myself fascinated, watching
a women making a complicated effort of transferring a mountain of soil from one
spot outside the wall to another inside the wall. A group of eight women
working in pairs tote a wooden and tin stretcher to the pile of earth, where another
woman would put three shovelfuls (I kid you not) onto the stretcher and the
pair would walk into the compound, tip it onto the new pile and return afresh.
A prime example for a time & motion study and I watched fascinated, not
understanding their thinking AT ALL. Visiting Empress Mentewab’s Kuskuam
Complex nearby, built in 1730 after the death of her husband (Emperor Bakaffa)
because “It’s said that she chose to move out here because she was a bit too
keen on boys and living out here would keep her out of gossip’s way. According
to locals, when James Bruce stayed here with the empress during his
explorations of the highlands, he got to discover more than just the source of
the Blue Nile.” Was also a fine church
here but destroyed by the Dervishes. The museum, however, houses a small
glass-fronted coffin with the remains of the empress, her son Emperor Iyasu II
and her grandson Iyo’as, the last emperor of Gonder! And to add to the
atmosphere, below the complex are a series of tiny mud-and-stick houses for
religious students to live in while training to become monks or priests.
Third day was a lovely lazy walk around town to merkato, other
churches and relax! Fab lunch again, after so long travelling in Africa,
Ethiopian food is so amazing tasty & varied making travel pleasant, despite
the incessant demands.
FACT (or fiction): Ethiopia has never in its history been
colonised, unlike every other African country. The Italians tried in 1895 and
were and were defeated much to Europe’s horror. They tried again in 1935 under
Mussolini, eventually invading and occupying for a brief time, until the end of
WW2.
Many myths and fables abound here in Ethiopia, including a
legendary Christian patriarch and king, Prester John, who was popular in
European chronicles and tradition from the 12th through to the 17th century. He
was said to rule over a "Nestorian" (Church of the East) Christian
nation lost amid the Muslims and pagans of the Orient. Medieval popular fantasy
depicted him as a descendant of the Three Magi (Wise Men) ruling a kingdom full
of riches, marvels and strange creatures. At first, Prester John was imagined
to reside in India; then after the coming of the Mongols to the Western world,
accounts placed the king in Central Asia, and eventually Portuguese explorers
convinced themselves that they had found him in Ethiopia, which had been
officially Christian since the 4th century. Prester John's kingdom became the
object of a quest, firing imaginations of generations of adventurers, but always
remaining out of reach. He became a symbol to European Christians of the
Church's universality, transcending culture and geography to encompass all
humanity, in a time when religious tension made such a vision seem distant.
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