Day 34 May 15 Gondar
The Road to Gondar
The drive from Bahir Dar to Gondar was to travel through Ethiopian village life. The drive was sprinkled with towns and villages along the wide sealed highway interspersed with farmland and wide-open spaces leading up to mountains.
Without frustration, or temper being apparent drivers negotiated; village life, donkeys on their own trek, road hazards, and other vehicles. A unique system of road signals appears universal – hazard lights when driving to signal to vehicles behind that there is a hazard on the road – a large pothole, livestock or other blocks.
All the way along the journey were little donkeys carrying all kinds of loads on their backs or in little trailers behind them. Hewn trees dragging behind them, the ubiquitous plastic ‘gerry cans’ strung together and piled high across their back, often with young donkeys in training following.
Endless small villages of straw and dung or log houses with logs not much more than saplings strung together. Some with traditional thatched rooves while others sporting shiny corrugated iron.
Life along the roadside was filled with children playing, coming and going to school, looking after younger ones, doing chores. Women with children tied on their backs with colourful cloth, or elegantly carrying loads balanced on their heads.
An oblong length of cloth became a fascination for me – the different uses, the different styles and drapes –men wearing it straight over the head and shoulders like a cloak, draped around the top part of the body like a jacket, slung around the neck straight down the front, tied around heads in a high turban or a square to balance a load or wound around casually with a tail down one side. Women tying children to their backs, draping it around heads and shoulders, folding it into a support for loads being carried on heads. Tied around the waist like an apron over the full-length garment. And on and on. The familiar cloth is a length of cotton, often cream or white with colourful stripes through each end.
And finally Gonda – the first stop was a traditional lunch where a fellow tourist provided the entertainment/embarrassment. This person spent quite some time imperiously ordering two staff members to pose for a photograph!
