ethiopia: the awesome nile gorge
our good friend sosinha, and her brother jonathan very kindly told us that on saturday they would take us 'out of town'. they neglected to mention how awesome and mindblowing the place we would be going to see was.
we climbed out of addis through forests of eucalyptus, evidently planted by emperor menelik II as part of his establishing of addis as his capital. the countryside opened up and beautiful scenery and more interesting modes of travel became more common.
as we get closer and closer, we catch glimpses of an awesome valley. the blue nile has its source in ethiopia and 1,450km later joins up with the white nile, then another 3000km before it empties out into the mediterranean sea. in the ethiopian highlands it drops down into a gorge 400km long and 1.5km deep - the same depth as the grand canyon just for the sake of comparison.
the italians built the chilling road that spirals viciously downward into the gorge, usually with nothing more than fresh air separating us from sheer drop. the sign below is not a joke.
neither is this one...
the road twists and turns as we descend into the gorge, every turn offering up awe-inspiring views, every curve of the road inducing seat gripping terror...
safely on the bottom, there is a new bridge built by the japanese. you can see below their proclamation of said fact, with the curious difference in year of completion in the amharic and english version. huh? seems they use the ethiopic calendar, which results in them being 7 or 8 years behind the gregorian calendar that we use.
after our nice lunch and association with our friends (there was another carload of brothers there), we explored a bit around the bridge, and then started back.
on the way, we stop at the portugese bridge. this is a small bridge that overlooks jema river gorge, which in turn feeds into the blue nile. there is a bridge here called the portuguese bridge, but seems its named this due to confusion (there is another bridge downriver actually built by the portuguese) as this one was built by ras darge (meneliks uncle) in the 19th century.
whoever built it, its pretty cool, though apparently its even nicer in the rainy season when the water is running and there is an impressive waterfall on the end. the walk to the bridge runs along the side of an awesome view - out into the gorge.there is a small restaurant at the top that had, as usual, top notch macchiattos before we continued back home.
note to self (and any of you who happen to be in the area) - next time i am back here, i have to come and spend the night in one of the small cottages on the escarpment.
this place is truly worth visiting. its amazing that its so little advertised, that such a huge and awe-inspiring landmark could be unknown by us. we left humbled by the grandeur and scale of the place. the pictures dont even do it justice, but perhaps the vista below gives an idea of the view we had. you can see almost in the center, the mighty nile itself, reduced to a tiny sliver in comparison to the gorge. (you may have to double-click on this one to see full size)
