Sun 26 Jan 2014 (18 Tir 2006) Wander Gonder

Sun 26 Jan 2014 (18 Tir 2006) Wander Gonder We get up relatively slowly. Down to breakfast. Carol orders "porridge." Remember Goldilocks and the Three Bears? She receives a portion big enough, glutinous enough, buttery enough, for at least 6 bears. We ask for a little honey to go with it. Even so, we can barely finish a third. Mike eats some porridge and two slices of pizza (from last night). The pizza is possibly even worse than it was last night. 4 pieces to go. At breakfast Carol starts developing a terrific headache, which, opines Mike, might be due to a mild form of altitude sickness. She stays in the room, while Mike goes out to buy tickets for the Gonder-Shire bus the next morning. 120 birr ($6.30 US) apiece for close to 11 hours of bus riding. These tickets are sold from 8 - 11 AM the day before, and presumably sell out. This bus will get us part way to Axum to a point where we can catch a local bus the last few kms. We get to the Royal Enclosure about 10:30 AM. The story of the generations of the royal family includes a descent from Solomon. Fasilidas, who ruled from 1632 - 1667, founded Gonder in 1636. He built a royal castle and built a wall around it. Successive generations ruled from this Royal Enclosure, adding new structures. His grandson, Isayu I (r 1682 - 1706) built the second palace. Afterwards, successive rulers did not last long, and there was the added influence of Catholic thought, which only added to the tension. Emperor Dawit III was poisoned in 1721, and succeeded by his ruthless brother Bekafa (after whom our hotel was named?). Bekafa's son, Iyasu II, ascended to the throne under the regency of his mother, Menteweb, the last of the palace builders. She was an extraordinary woman in her own right. After 1755 the monarchy decreased in importance and no further building happened in the Royal Enclosure. Enough of history: the Royal Enclosure is a World Heritage Site. Parts of it were bombed during World War II, as the Brits tried to dislodge the Italians. Parts of it were rebuilt by UNESCO using original construction methods. A tour of the Royal Enclosure is a tour of what is left of these various buildings. The only exception is the lion enclosures. Apparently, until 1990, a number of Abyssinian lions, a black-maned breed, were kept there for the pleasure of Emperor Haile Selassie. The fee of 100 birr ($5.25 US) each gets you in. When you enter, there is a beautiful garden with tall trees. The first building is the Palace of Fasilidas, an imposing three-story structure of reddish-brownish stone. We sit for a while and admire the scene. Carol see in the architecture echoes of Carcassone and Lisbon, and maybe some places in Turkey. The third floor is closed, but the 1st and 2nd are open. There is a coffered ceiling and beautiful wood doorways with brick keystone arches. Carol, still a little wobbly, was content to remain on the steps of Fasiladas Palace, while Mike visited the next building. The Palace of Iyasu II was bombed and open to the sky. It was originally at least a two-story building, but now only the ground floor is accessible. Together, we visit the library (Yohannes' Palace), the empty lions' dens, much ruins of other outbuilding, and finally Menteweb's Palace, which now functions as the administrative offices. Next to Menteweb's Palace was the school she founded. Menteweb, whose name translates as "How beautiful thou art," built a vocational school for women, where classes included "facial tattooing and chicken cutting." (Facial tattooing refers to the Orthodx symbols you see tattooed on women to this day.) We exited to the north nearer to the Piassa. We caught a Bajaj to the famous monastery, Debre Birhane Selassie. This is uphill 1 1/2 km east of the Piassa. When we get there, we have an opportunity to walk around the church and in the grounds. It is the oldest surviving church in the area. It would have been destroyed by marauding Sudanese in the 1880s, as the other churches were, except that a swarm of bees kept them away. Since the priest with key will not be back for at least 3/4 hour, we get to walk around. We also get to contemplate a sign out front that prohibits Flash light, Chewing gum, and Wearing Shoes or Cape. Also you should not enter if you had sex the day before. This beautiful portico surrounds the entire church. The priest arrives earlier than promised, and we are inside. There are paintings everywhere, top to bottom, on all four walls. Trinities, crucifixions, virgin and child. The most famous of all is the ceiling with rows and rows of cherub faces, each with its own personality. We are guided by both the priest and deacon, who are incredibly helpful and enthusiastic. Saints and sinners, including a depiction of hell with the prophet Muhamed being led by the devil into hell. The colors are deep and vivid. We decide to walk back because it is mostly downhill. We walk through a residential neighborhood, then into the administrative center of Gonder. We see a cafe that looks reasonable. We order an avocado juice for Mike, a foul for Carol, and nafish for Mike. Carol had a tea because she was avocado-ed out. Nafish is a meat, vegetable, and cultured milk dish. Foul is cooked fava beans, with some onion and pepper and served with a roll. It was delicious, but Mike wondered about the advisability of eating a composed dish containing dairy. We noticed that the prices on the English language menu were a little bit higher and sometimes much higher than the same item on the Amharic menu. The bill was 55 birr, but should have 50. So, though we protested, we paid the 55 and left no tip. We pointed it out to the waiter and staff, but they were firm. Two foreigners eating outside had noticed the same phenomenon. It was now close to 3 PM. We went back to the hotel, dictated several pages of blog notes, but did not post. We have found that you can either collect experiences or post a blog, but not both on the same day. We had been receiving Ehtiopian TV on our screen, mostly dull recordings of what was happening at the African Union, which seems to convene 24/7/3656. We went downstairs and asked for BBC. Lo and behold, all they had to do was change the programming, and that channel appeared on our TV. Mike was thinking that since Gonder was over 8000 ft and Axum over 9000 ft, that staying in Shire (5300 ft) might help Carol recover from whatever had caused the headaches. So we made contingency plans to only go as far as Shire. We went to sleep with the TV on, hoping that the combination of BBC and nightclub beats would cancel each other out. Since our bus would leave at 5:30 AM, we set the alarm for 4 AM.