Round the World - Do you have beer we are coming to visit?

[michnus]

Bahir Darr on the shores of Lake Tana is a picturesque little town and tourism is slowly shaping it into an oasis for travellers. The market was worth seeing and there were lots of local art on display for dirt-cheap.

The small shops are packed with everything from eggs to fresh bread rolls and espresso coffee machines that date back to the Italian invasion, or so they look, buy at own peril.

Petrol was still one of our biggest headaches, and if you do get fuel, it was dirty. All the old stories of Gadafi and the USA were to blame for the shortage. We would pull into a petrol station and start harassing the petrol attendant for petrol that they pretend not to have.

With an unconcerned malevolence attitude, they would deny having fuel, they do have, they just did not want to sell it to us, and they want us to buy it from their friends on the ‘black market’. Luckily, we filled up all the empty cans and everything else empty we could lay our hands on, in Addis. We had enough to get us back to Addis

The landscape in Ethiopia are really stunning and not at all the images I had of drought, famine and dying people.

This is biking road heaven! Winding dirt roads snake through the landscape.

 

[michnus]

Fakit! Yes I agree fakit!

Lalibela, the town of stone churches carved into massive bedrock hills awaited us. The ride there was through the most amazing jaw-drop Mountains. The road climbs from 1000m odd to over 4500m altitude.

It is difficult to comprehend the astronomical size of the countryside it plays havoc with your mind, vertigo sets in staring down into to the valley floor.

Taking in the galactic size panoramas are soul stirring stuff. Mountains flow over into more mountains in the background, ocean size wide dry rivers snake through the mountains as far as the eye can see.

The gargantuan effort from enduring revellers and their absolute belief in their faith hundreds of years ago to persist and dug out churches from solid rock is beyond comprehension. There is an eerie divine feeling when walking around the churches with revellers praying and meditating, it is a mysterious ghostly aura drifting in the air.

Carved out of rock around 700 years ago. What de hell they used for tools and how they got it level only they know. Conspiracy theorist can go the Alien route on how it was done. But that this is impressive is no doubt.

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[michnus]

The best Honey wine we consumed at Torpedo Tej bar in copious amounts and at our own peril. This yellow honey watery drink was a dangerous concoction of toxic waste. There are different strength brews to choose from but best to try them all.

It was fermented in big blew 40L drums with sugar and some other dodgy special secret ingredients. The sour ferment smell hit your nostrils with a vigorous vengeance, it is difficult at first to get use to the taste and smell, but the wonderful thing is the more you consume of this brew the more palatable it becomes. Well, a huge headache is part of this drink.

When in Lalibela this is the bar sign to look for:

This is what your face will look like when you first state the brew:

This is the line up from weak honey wine to the moer-this-is-toxic waste 100%unleaded stuff.  

You get to sit on these seat so you can hold on and not bliksem over from the alcohol:

Then this is what you look like when the wheels come off:

Make you do stupid stuff. :lol8:

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[michnus]

let me just make this clear, a shower is man standing on a platform pouring water over you from a drum.

Moenie agter die bossie loop kakkie die ou mense gaan daarin trap!!

 

[ButchH]

Gooi  :deal: stunning more please  :thumleft:

 

[Fred4stroke]

Lekker julle!

Kannie wag vir nog nie!!!

 

[onmybike]

sub so i can read later

 

[michnus]

The seventeen odd churches are all close by and easily visited in two days if that excites you. The worst were the hideous monstrosities that UNESCO constructed over the churches to protect them.

Whoever the architect was must have been on some acid trip, the structures look like alien spaceships in this town, it does not flow and fit into the existing feel of Lalibela.
I see an old woman in yellow attire making slow forward and backward movements in deep prayer, she is getting on in years and she has torn so many pages off the calendar that her recent history is a blur. Her heart is pristine, peaceful offering wideness of sight and soul.

We spend a week strolling around Lalibela, socialising with the locals and having dinner with an extrovert loud Gameranger working for the Brown Ethiopia wolf foundation.

Much time was spent listening to a mix fusion of local and Reggae music with lots of coffee and beers at colourful eateries that is dotted alongside the cobblestone roads.

Market day every Saturday.
It is a busy noisy place, hot as hell and smell of animal piss and old sweat.

Better be fast or you will be a leg short

Everybody selling the same stuff at the same price.

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[michnus]

For a conservative religious nation like Ethiopia and especially Lalibela this is **** :lol8:

 

[michnus]

Restaurant toilets. Pit toilets build on a platform so they can use the decomposed later as fertilizer.

The entire place is build on rock and they can not dig graves to lay the dead to rest. Therefore most graves are builded up small structures like this. Placed all over the place.

You will pay for electricity does not matter what you call a home.

 

[StuartC]

What an awsome adventure,,, jealous !!!!!

 

[ButchH]

What an awsome adventure,,, jealous !!!!!

Same  :deal:

 

[michnus]

Conspiracy theorist will be all flustered when seeing this. Did nazi start 700 years ago? How did Hitler got this sign?  8) :biggrin:

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[J-dog]

It's an ancient symbol meaning zen or something, hijacked by hitler  :thumleft:

 

[michnus]

The inside of the rock churches are stunning precision carvings. Impossible to imagine this was carved all from a single rock more than 500 years ago with really primitive tools. Church elders sit around the entire day praying and do whatever else they do. 

 

[michnus]

Some of the churches are shaded and protected by enormous ugly structures that does not lend any aesthetics  to the surroundings.

 

[cloudgazer]

One of my dreams to visit Lalibela.

Why do rock churches need to be protected from the sun?

 

[the_BOBNOB]

One of my dreams to visit Lalibela.

Why do rock churches need to be protected from the sun?

preservation from acid rain, etc etc etc

 

[michnus]

One of my dreams to visit Lalibela.

Why do rock churches need to be protected from the sun?

preservation from acid rain, etc etc etc

Got no idea, not as if they get massive amounts of rain. Protection from the elements say Unesco :lol8:

 

[michnus]

Some are open and not protected by these hideous structures.

Discussing very important local issues issues with locals on the shortage of beer establishments in Lalibela.  :biggrin: