Ethiopia - September/October 2010

Ethiopia September/October 2010 was the second trip to Ethiopia in 2010. This time I focused on the North with the Ethiopian highlights of Lalibela, Gonder, Aksum, Tigray, Lake Tana and the Simen (Simien) Mountains. It was nearly 5 weeks of travel and work behind the camera.

Following webpage is mainly for friends, but everybody is welcome. If you want to see a larger version of the foto, click it!

Many thanks to all the local guides, who made this trip successfull!

And of course I have to mention Stephan who managed to get along with me! He made a video and I will try to get some cuts and add it to this page.

Have fun

Addis Ababa

As usual Addis is the port of entry. We did not spend much time and stayed just one night!

Gonder, Bahir Dar and back

This was probably the part I enjoyed even more than the rest of the so called historical circuit. You can combine first rate historic sites with very pretty landscape and the Lake Tana area.

The Nile Falls (Tis Isat) have been much better than anticipated, but come during or right after the rainy season! The rolling landscape between Gonder and Lake Tana was very green and full of wildflowers, you have to correct all your prejudices regarding a dry and starving Ethiopia, you will be surprised.

Aksum and Tigray

From Gonder we took the plane to Aksum in the region of Tigray.

Aksum was as expected, but the region of Tigray would have deserved more time!

Lalibela and the Meskel cerimony

The rock hewn churches of Lalibela are spectacular, but after a couple of hours you start to get a bit bored. I would change my itinerary and spend one more night in Lalibela, to have some excursions in the surroundings and come back with new energy to the churches.

A major milestone was the Meskel cerimony of the orthodox ethiopian church, very spiritual, exotic and definitly worth while to cover!

Churches of Lalibela

Meskel cerimony in Lalibela

Trekking in the Simien (Simen) Mountains

The second half of the trip was dedicated to cover the landscape and wildlife of the highlands and lowlands of the Simen Mountains National Park in northern Ethiopia.

The Gelada Baboons where lots of fun and I never got bored to take pictures in different locations, the Walia Ibex where very hard work as they are still quite elusive animals. If you stay a couple of days in the area you will see many baboons and at least some Ibex, how close however is a different question. The Ethiopian Wolf is very rare and hard to spot, go to Bale instead! I did not focus on the birdlife, but there is plenty and we saw Lammergeier nearly daily quite close.

The landscape of the highlands is not as great as I expected. As in Bale NP large parts of the park are grazed and farmed. The escarpment is unique!. I was pleasantly surprised by the lowlands, in terms of landscape photography I preferred the lowlands!

Look and see!

The Highlands of the Simien Mountains

Wallia Ibex

The Lowlands of the Simien Mountains

Finally some travel shots

have fun!