Travels With Maria

fasting food

Legends

After breakfast, our Axum guide, Mesgana, meet us in the hotel lobby. We walked from our hotel, the same route we had taken the night before on a futile search for an ATM. Today was the basket market, with a bunch of vendors sitting under a huge sycamore tree displaying their wares. Baskets in all sizes, woven in straw with wool blended in to make colorful decorations. We left the market and started climbing a long hill. Passing in the other direction were farmers taking their products to the market in the town below. Cows, goats, donkeys carrying bags of produce, the occasional chicken. Many/most of the people, men and…
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Not Like Other Africans

Ethiopia is unique among African nations in that it has never been colonized by Europeans. The Italians occupied twice and the British invaded, but no one successfully established a colony. Ethiopia has a very strong national identity that they trace back to the Queen of Sheba who they say gave birth to King Solomon's son and brought him back from Israel and established a Jewish kingdom in Ethiopia. Many other African "nations" are based on European borders that are meaningless to the peoples that live there. They claim that Christianity came here from Egypt in the first century. Probably it was really several hundred years later, but still way earlier…
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Ethiopian Emperors

Because of the mosquitos the other night, we started taking malaria pills earlier than we had hoped. The rest of our stay here is at altitudes over 6000 feet, too high for mosquitos. We had hoped to delay until we got to Uganda, but now we need to take them every day until a week after we get home. We spent the day today in Gondar, the third capital of Ethiopia. The first two, Axum and Lalibela are our next two cities. Somewhere along the line, a king established his capital here at Gondar and built a castle in 1638. Gondar is in a valley surrounded by mountains, so evidently…
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Addis Ababa

After 14 hours of flying and 7 hours waiting in Frankfurt (where we rented a small, in-terminal hotel room for 3 hours to sleep), we got to Addis Ababa at 10pm just in time to get in a huge line at immigration. 90 minutes later, we got to the front of the line only to be told that our eVisas were not authorized. It took another hour following guys around to keep our passports in sight when they finally straightened it all out and we were admitted. During this process, we saw another American woman's passport sitting on a desk - no woman in sight, so who knows what happened…
More

Legends

After breakfast, our Axum guide, Mesgana, meet us in the hotel lobby. We walked from our hotel, the same route we had taken the night before on a futile search for an ATM. Today was the basket market, with a bunch of vendors sitting under a huge sycamore tree displaying their wares. Baskets in all sizes, woven in straw with wool blended in to make colorful decorations. We left the market and started climbing a long hill. Passing in the other direction were farmers taking their products to the market in the town below. Cows, goats, donkeys carrying bags of produce, the occasional chicken. Many/most of the people, men and…
More

Not Like Other Africans

Ethiopia is unique among African nations in that it has never been colonized by Europeans. The Italians occupied twice and the British invaded, but no one successfully established a colony. Ethiopia has a very strong national identity that they trace back to the Queen of Sheba who they say gave birth to King Solomon's son and brought him back from Israel and established a Jewish kingdom in Ethiopia. Many other African "nations" are based on European borders that are meaningless to the peoples that live there. They claim that Christianity came here from Egypt in the first century. Probably it was really several hundred years later, but still way earlier…
More

Ethiopian Emperors

Because of the mosquitos the other night, we started taking malaria pills earlier than we had hoped. The rest of our stay here is at altitudes over 6000 feet, too high for mosquitos. We had hoped to delay until we got to Uganda, but now we need to take them every day until a week after we get home. We spent the day today in Gondar, the third capital of Ethiopia. The first two, Axum and Lalibela are our next two cities. Somewhere along the line, a king established his capital here at Gondar and built a castle in 1638. Gondar is in a valley surrounded by mountains, so evidently…
More

Addis Ababa

After 14 hours of flying and 7 hours waiting in Frankfurt (where we rented a small, in-terminal hotel room for 3 hours to sleep), we got to Addis Ababa at 10pm just in time to get in a huge line at immigration. 90 minutes later, we got to the front of the line only to be told that our eVisas were not authorized. It took another hour following guys around to keep our passports in sight when they finally straightened it all out and we were admitted. During this process, we saw another American woman's passport sitting on a desk - no woman in sight, so who knows what happened…
More

Legends

After breakfast, our Axum guide, Mesgana, meet us in the hotel lobby. We walked from our hotel, the same route we had taken the night before on a futile search for an ATM. Today was the basket market, with a bunch of vendors sitting under a huge sycamore tree displaying their wares. Baskets in all sizes, woven in straw with wool blended in to make colorful decorations. We left the market and started climbing a long hill. Passing in the other direction were farmers taking their products to the market in the town below. Cows, goats, donkeys carrying bags of produce, the occasional chicken. Many/most of the people, men and…
More

Not Like Other Africans

Ethiopia is unique among African nations in that it has never been colonized by Europeans. The Italians occupied twice and the British invaded, but no one successfully established a colony. Ethiopia has a very strong national identity that they trace back to the Queen of Sheba who they say gave birth to King Solomon's son and brought him back from Israel and established a Jewish kingdom in Ethiopia. Many other African "nations" are based on European borders that are meaningless to the peoples that live there. They claim that Christianity came here from Egypt in the first century. Probably it was really several hundred years later, but still way earlier…
More

Ethiopian Emperors

Because of the mosquitos the other night, we started taking malaria pills earlier than we had hoped. The rest of our stay here is at altitudes over 6000 feet, too high for mosquitos. We had hoped to delay until we got to Uganda, but now we need to take them every day until a week after we get home. We spent the day today in Gondar, the third capital of Ethiopia. The first two, Axum and Lalibela are our next two cities. Somewhere along the line, a king established his capital here at Gondar and built a castle in 1638. Gondar is in a valley surrounded by mountains, so evidently…
More

Addis Ababa

After 14 hours of flying and 7 hours waiting in Frankfurt (where we rented a small, in-terminal hotel room for 3 hours to sleep), we got to Addis Ababa at 10pm just in time to get in a huge line at immigration. 90 minutes later, we got to the front of the line only to be told that our eVisas were not authorized. It took another hour following guys around to keep our passports in sight when they finally straightened it all out and we were admitted. During this process, we saw another American woman's passport sitting on a desk - no woman in sight, so who knows what happened…
More

Legends

After breakfast, our Axum guide, Mesgana, meet us in the hotel lobby. We walked from our hotel, the same route we had taken the night before on a futile search for an ATM. Today was the basket market, with a bunch of vendors sitting under a huge sycamore tree displaying their wares. Baskets in all sizes, woven in straw with wool blended in to make colorful decorations. We left the market and started climbing a long hill. Passing in the other direction were farmers taking their products to the market in the town below. Cows, goats, donkeys carrying bags of produce, the occasional chicken. Many/most of the people, men and…
More

Not Like Other Africans

Ethiopia is unique among African nations in that it has never been colonized by Europeans. The Italians occupied twice and the British invaded, but no one successfully established a colony. Ethiopia has a very strong national identity that they trace back to the Queen of Sheba who they say gave birth to King Solomon's son and brought him back from Israel and established a Jewish kingdom in Ethiopia. Many other African "nations" are based on European borders that are meaningless to the peoples that live there. They claim that Christianity came here from Egypt in the first century. Probably it was really several hundred years later, but still way earlier…
More

Ethiopian Emperors

Because of the mosquitos the other night, we started taking malaria pills earlier than we had hoped. The rest of our stay here is at altitudes over 6000 feet, too high for mosquitos. We had hoped to delay until we got to Uganda, but now we need to take them every day until a week after we get home. We spent the day today in Gondar, the third capital of Ethiopia. The first two, Axum and Lalibela are our next two cities. Somewhere along the line, a king established his capital here at Gondar and built a castle in 1638. Gondar is in a valley surrounded by mountains, so evidently…
More

Addis Ababa

After 14 hours of flying and 7 hours waiting in Frankfurt (where we rented a small, in-terminal hotel room for 3 hours to sleep), we got to Addis Ababa at 10pm just in time to get in a huge line at immigration. 90 minutes later, we got to the front of the line only to be told that our eVisas were not authorized. It took another hour following guys around to keep our passports in sight when they finally straightened it all out and we were admitted. During this process, we saw another American woman's passport sitting on a desk - no woman in sight, so who knows what happened…
More