Exploring Ethiopia's Past And Enduring Its Present
Trip Start
Aug 05, 2006
1
26
55
Trip End
Ongoing
Axum,
Ethiopia
Sunday, February 18, 2007
It is the poor conditions in this country and Axum's location as one of Ethiopia's top tourist destinations that often produce an assortment of petty thieves and con artists. I can now recall the incident vividly in my mind. After enduring a long bus journey from Gonder to Shire and from Shire to Axum I was very tired and in a hurry to exit the minibus near my hotel. As I reached the middle of the minibus there was a pole that forced me to remove my backpack to get through. I man who I had been sitting with offered to help and I handed him my pack. As I did this someone must have unbuttoned my trouser pocket and removed my valuables.
After checking into my hotel room I began to empty my pockets and it was then that I noticed my things were missing. Then began a rather frantic search through my things followed by a rush up to the bus station. My things were not on the bus and no one had anything to say about the thief. There was nothing more I could do that night so I returned to my hotel. After doing an inventory of all my stuff I discovered that I had lost my driver's license, credit card, debit card, and 1300 Birr ($145).
The next morning I spent looking for the police station and filling out not one but two police reports. I young kid I met helped me through the process since no one at the police station spoke English well. At one point I received a brief glimmer of hope when someone at the bus station said they had seen the thief take my things and knew his name but after speaking with the police again the next morning I was informed that the thief had already skipped town and would be difficult to track down. In other words they weren't going to make too much of an effort to find him.
Now to Axum. Axum was the capital of the ancient Axumite empire which beginnings predate Christianity. The city is filled with ancient ruins and even though it is one of Ethiopia's top tourist destinations I saw no more than a half dozen Westerners there the whole time. For 50 Birr ($5.50) I was granted access to all the sites except the St.
1,000 Year Old Bible
Mary of Zion church. Exploring the Stelae field, which contains a number of giant monoliths, was very interesting as well as the many underground chambers. I also visited the St. Mary of Zion church complex. One of the small chapels there is said to contain the Ark of the Covenant, although no one is permitted to see it. Also only a few hours bus ride from Axum, located on a high tabletop hill near the Eritrea border is the unique monastery of Debre Damo. This was the first Christian monastery built in Ethiopia, 6th century AD, and can only be reached by climbing a rope up the vertical rock face. I did not have the money to charter private transport so the bus was my only alternative. After being dropped off at the road to Debre Damo it was an 11km walk up to the monastery itself. After walking about 7km back towards the town of Bizet in the afternoon I was lucky enough to be picked up by a Chinese guy would was part of a crew building a new asphalt road for the country. It appears that the Chinese are currently busy lending their expertise to many Ethiopian infrastructure projects and I was excited to finally be able to practice my Chinese a little.
