Ethiopia

During the first week of May, Bill and I traveled with our friends Kathy and Gerise to Ethiopia.  In a nutshell:  what a place!  We flew to Addis Ababa, one of the craziest cities in the world (so they say), and from there we visited Bahir Dar, Gondar, and Lalibela.  This is the historic Ethiopian Orthodox Church Crawl.  If we had had a few more days, we might have included Axum, which has some serious history going on, but we didn't.

Ethiopia has the distinction of being the only country in Africa that was never a colony of anyone.  The first occupation was by the Italians leading up to WWII.  The northern part of the country (where we visited) is mountainous and severe.  It is also very beautiful.

I could hold forth on the varying quality of the accomodations, taxis, attempts to overcharge foreigners, but I don't feel like it.  As in any developing country, if a hotel says they have hot water, that means they try and sometimes succeed in providing hot water.  Sometimes not.  Reliable electricity is also subject to the whims of the gods, but the better hotels have generators.  Which are not attached to the hot water heaters.

Here are pictures from our trip.  I have a new camera, and I got kind of snap-happy, but these are the highlights.