I warn you; I won´t be able to be short when I write about my wonderful 1 month long vacation in Ethiopia! What I write is just as much a diary for myself as it is intended for you to read, but you are of course welcome to plough through every single word or just have a quick glance at the pictures, whatever you like. As for myself, I just feel so happy and privileged that I have finally been able to go back and travel around in my "second homeland," after 21 years, and grateful that everything worked out even better than I had planned!ADDIS ABABA
The meal Margrethe had promised me lived up to my expectations. And I actually had injera close to every day, sometimes even twice!
Good to be back at Makanissa, where I lived from I was 14-16 years old. Marianne came by car from Kenya, and she arrived in Addis the day after myself. Nice to have some days in the colourful capital with her, sightseeing, shopping, trotting. I also had my friends join in a nostalgic early morning breakfast at Entoto mountains! This time outside of the palace of Menelik II, completely by ourselves. No curious eyes staring, no kids leaning on their sticks watching.
Nice garden...
Silver shopping at Piazza.
Another nostalgic thing of mine - having ice cream on top of Wabe Shebelle Hotel. The ice cream tasted exactly the same, but the elevators had shrunk remarkably...
In the weekend we had a daytrip to Debre Libanos, one of Ethiopia´s most holy sites, where a saint was standing upright praying for 29 years, of which the 7 last were standing on one foot. Margrethe´s wonderful Ethiopian friend, Alem, and her sister joined us. A nun showed us around, and she even led us "the easy" way to the viewpoint on the cliff above the church. Alem and her sister met their relative where the nun lived, and unexpectedly we were invited to eat. Hospitality in Ethiopia is great. We Westerns have a lot to learn!
HISTORICAL CIRCUIT
part I - Lalibela
A two day bus ride for the price of 96 birr (about US $8 or 67 NOK) brought Marianne and me to Lalibela. Luckily one of the guards from Makanissa followed us to the Merkato Bus Station early in the morning, around 4.30 am. What a chaos! Crowded and noisy! The bus had uncomfortable seats and no seat belts, but I was offered the front seat where there was a little more space for the legs and excellent view (though that is not always what you want...)
Certain needs is always an exciting factor when it comes to bus rides of unknown lengths, and this kept us fasting for hours. But after some time the bus suddenly stopped for the passengers to be released. The funny thing was that there was not much to hide behind, so people just spread out all over, just across the ditch. I searched for a lone tree and wrapped myself in a kanga to hide my milky white shiny butt...
Fortunately we had a good bus driver on the steep and windy gravel roads that went up and down the mountain sides! The landscape as we approached Lalibela was spectacular!! It was still good to arrive at Seven Olives Hotel and the wonderful veranda with a view!
On day one in Lalibela the guide brougth us efficiently through all the 11 rock-hewn churches in town before lunch! Very interesting! A ceremony was going on in the most famous one, Bet Giyorgis, so we were invited to watch the priests and deacons chanting. In the other churches the priests gladly showed us the crosses, icons, old books, and other treasures of the churches. 
Bet Giyorgis, 15 metres high.
Due to our efficiency we got time to drive to the Yemrehanna Kristos monastery 42 km outside of Lalibela in the afternoon. This church was extremely beautiful, built from alternating layers of marble and wood, and beautifully carved windows, but the most amazing is just the idea of building such a masterpiece inside a cave far out in the middle of nowhere!
The second day we hiked up to Ashetan Maryam, a small monastery built in a cave atop of a mountain, at 3150m. Again, the most amazing thing is the idea of building these monasteries in such unaccessible locations. But that was probably the point.. Anyway, the hike was great, and it doesn´t happen very often that I have such a stunning view during lunch!
SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA
Lake Langano.
Before having dinner in town we stopped by at Tabor Seminary. Undescribable to see the house in which we used to live! Many memories and emotions! Memories of wonderful days of vacation playing in the house, looking for kittens in the bushes around the compound, having 12 at the most, having dinner under the pepper tree, fresh rolls and limonade on the veranda, my mother´s yellow jam made of papaya and passion fruit, playing with Marit and Anne Kari, playing "Dimo" with our Ethiopian neighbours, eating Mimmi´s best-in-the-world shiro watt. The memories of my sister and I getting up at dawn to bake cookies to bring back to the boarding school in Addis, the tears that always pressed on when one of the school vans came to pick us up and the vacation was over and we had to say good bye to Mum and Dad and our little brother, these memories were a bit more emotional I have to admit. But I´ll stay longer in Awassa next time I go to Ethiopia!
The next day we set off for Bale Mountains. In Dinsho we stopped and had a long break that included walking safari and horse riding safari! Some of the grown-ups found riding more scary than the children did, but after a while it was obvious that none of the old nags would move a single step away nor run any faster than they were really forced to.
The following day the Kiplesund family left us, and Mjølhus, Marianne, and I went to the Sof Omar Caves. Our guide was a descendant of Sheikh Sof Omar himself. As we had our lunch he went for a swim, since I guess keeping the monkeys away from eating tourists wasn´t part of his job... Anyway, my bread was snapped out of my hands by one of those cheeky little creatures! Since our guide hardly spoke any English and my Amharic is very poor, we were very happy that my friend and former classmate Gunn Eline and her husband Hans Ovar, who live an hour´s drive from Sof Omar Caves, arrived just in time to join us in the caves and translate everything the guide said into Norwegian! It really made the guided tour so much more interesting :)
After the tour I said good bye to Marianne and the Mjølhus family, and spent three whole days in Raytu with Gunnis and Hans Ovar. Remote, warm, dry, but at least there was power a few hours every night instead of every second day, as in the rest of the country. Nice to see where they live and work, and to get to know their great children! And I was lucky to get a lift all the way back to Addis, 13 hours of which 8 were on a bumpy road. That means BUMPY!
View from the veranda.
Nicely decorated hut in one of the Project villages.
HISTORICAL CIRCUIT
part II - Bahir Dar - Gonder - Axum
After a few calm days in Addis Margrethe and I took the bus to Bahir Dar. This bus trip was completely different from the one to Lalibela, as Selam Buses have comfortable seats, seat belts, TV/DVD player showing National Geographics programmes, Ethiopian movies, and music videos (especially music videos..). Breakfast and sodas was served. Ghion Hotel in Bahir Dar was a budget place, but just fine. We stayed for two days, and the first day we went on a boat trip to visit some of the monasteries on the islands of Lake Tana. We were surprised that the weather was so nice, and after 2,5 hours we arrived at the island of the Monastery of Narga Selassie. After a visit in the church we were invited to join the congregation in their meal outside the church, as it happened to be a holiday of this church. We had brought bread for lunch, but gave it away as injera, shiro watt and tella (lokal beer) filled our stomacks! The monasteries on the Zege Peninsula were not that impressive - you kind of get a feeling that they are all the same, but we were probably just filled for the day.
St. Giyorgis fighting the dragon. On the second day we went to the Tis Issat Falls, or the Blue Nile Falls. We planned to have breakfast first, but impulsively we found out that it might be smart to check the bus schedule first. It turned out that the bus was about to leave, maybe in 10 minutes, when it was full, which it seemed to be. But a bus can carry innumerably more passengers than there are seats. Anyway, we dropped our lunch and went to the village of Tis Issat, where we had a very simple breakfast of bread and tea, surrounded by flies. It had been raining, and the roads were nothing but mud! Nice walk, and this is about how the refrain that followed us sounded: "Hello Mister, what is your name? That is a nice name. My name is x. This is my shop. Do you want to buy something? May be when you come back? Remember me when you come back." But we did not come back. We met a nice French couple and crossed the river to get closer to the Blue Nile Falls, had some great Ethiopian coffee with a view, and then we had to cross the river again, by boat, before heading back to the bus.
Souvenirs for sale, and the Portugese Bridge.
The falls had shrunk! It did not at all look like the postcards I remember... A hydroelectric plant swallowes much of the water.
Walking back to the bus.In the evening it was good to have some food in a local restaurant, in one of the many colourful houses in Etiopia, before relaxing by the shore of Lake Tana, having a drink and watching the sunset.
The Ghion Hotel in Bahir Dar has a good reputation when it comes to organizing trips. That made it easier for us to accept the offer of taking a minibus to Gonder from the hotel. It would go straight and take about 2,5 hours (compared with 4 hours in a regular bus). We were told that the driver would take us to our hotels in Gonder, so it sounded like a good idea to pay the extra money and enjoy our breakfast for another one and a half hours. But we had not exited Bahir Dar before the driver stopped the van and loaded it with bags and boxes full of khat. His ears were completely deaf to our protests, and the khat chewing men that were hanging in the windows staring at us was not at all a very pleasant experience. The driver stopped several times along the way, to trade the khat, and even though the drive itself only lasted 2,5 hours, it took us more than 4 to get to our hotel. When we arrived in Gonder the driver had no idea at all where any of his passengers were going, and he refused to bring us to our hotel. We were so mad!! But on the phone to Ghion Hotel we were told that the deal was to bring us to the bus station. Next time we´ll take a regular bus. We missed the sight-seeing we had planned for the afternoon, but got our share the following day.
View from our hotel in Gonder.The guide that led us through the history and castles of the Royal Enclosure of Gonder was full of knowledge, and made our stay very interesting! Also Debre Berhan Selassie Church with the famous ceiling of cherubs, King Fasiladas Bath, and Empress Mentewab´s Kuskuam Complex was worth a visit!
Must have been quite some buildings and halls! The horns in the walls were pegs.
The famous ceiling.
Fasilida´s Bath. I loved the roots of the fig trees merging with the walls!
Empress Mentewab´s Kuskuam Complex from 1730
Also Gonder is a colourful city!!The taxi driver that would bring me to Gonder Airport early in the morning did not show up at 5.20 am, as ordered, and I was tripping till he arrived 20 minutes too late. He just laughed and said that if you are told to be at the airport at 6, that means you can leave home at 6. He turned out to be right. The airport had still not opened when we arrived a few minutes past 6. I was on my own, as Margrethe went back from Gonder to Addis by bus. The flight to Axum went smoothly, and so did finding the Afrika Hotel stand at the airport. Free transport to the hotel, which was cheeper and nicer than most of the other hotels that I had stayed at.
Close to the border. The mountains in the far distance are in Eritrea..
Close to the border. The mountains in the far distance are in Eritrea..I had breakfast in the sun, and then went to the Tourist Information Office to get an official guide for the day. Like all the other cities on the historical circuit, Axum also had a lot more to show than I was aware of before reading Lonely Planet. Interesting and intense day, but having a guide gave me company and spared me from the hustle. A tuc-tuc was rented for the three sites that were just outside the town (though walking distance on a good day), and even if it cost more than the bus from Addis to Lalibela I was happy to have it because of the heavy rain! For the first time, it was pouring down almost the whole day. Again I was amazed of the history of Ethiopia, the highly developed civilisation of ancient times, when it comes to architecture, written language, trading, etc. What happened?
Queen of Sheba´s Palace.
Impressive floor tiles (rocks weighing tons!), and the draining system.
The kitchen stove, and a brick used for bread decoration.
The Rome stelae that Mussolini brought to Italy in 1937,returned in 2005 and raised less than a year ago.
Tomb of the False Door. The coffin of the king is well sealed, and his closest slaves were buried with him, in a surrounding antechamber, so that the secrets of the king would be kept. 
A coffee break now and then is a necessity and a great pleasure! The Ethiopian coffee is undoubtedly the best in the world!!
The chapel in which the real Ark of the Covenant is believed to be kept.
Colourful souvenirs of Axum.