Bahir Dar, Blue Nile Falls & Lake Tana

After a night at Debre Markos in the Shebel Hotel, we packed up and headed on to Bahir Dar, on the shores of Lake Tana, Ethiopia's largest lake and the source of the Blue Nile. After hanging out and resting in the Ghion Hotel - a garden paradise right on the lake - we drove the next morning to the Blue Nile falls...

That night we went out for Ethiopian food at Amanuel restaurant - veggies and fish since it was fasting time during Lent - and then to a traditional dance club right next door. Art & Mom especially liked the dancing and singing, but our girls were tired and we had to turn in early.
The following day we undertook an all-day boat-trip on Lake Tana, with an eye toward visiting some of the famous monasteries on the lake. Unfortunately, many of them refuse to admit women on their islands, let alone inside their churches, though some did...

Catching up

There's no way I'll be able to catch everything up at once - too much happens in a month.

I mentioned the bar-coded pouch system a few posts back... everything went great, and I even received a kudos telegram and a Franklin Award (with a monetary award as well) for my efforts with it. What made it especially nice was that the telegram and award news arrived during employee evaluation season.

Clara turned eight last month..

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She received (among other things) a makeup set

and, from Grandmama, a lovely blue bathrobe

When Mom and her gentleman-friend Art were here, we managed to get away to Lake Langano for a few days. Here we visited the hot spring across the lake:

A week later, we - all six of us, as the girls had spring break from school - embarked on a 2000 km road trip of the "northern historic route".

We left on Friday afternoon directly from the Embassy - I had to finish tipping a fiber connection before leaving - and drove north-west to Debre Markos, about 300 km from Addis Ababa. Along the way, we traversed rolling hills on perfect pavement until we approached the Blue Nile Gorge. It took about two hours to traverse the 40 km down to the "second Portuguese Bridge" - where Art almost had his camera confiscated for taking pictures - and back up the other side past a construction zone.