HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Seeing the Blue Nile Falls in all her glory
BUMMER OF THE DAY: The hike to the falls that turned out to be worth it
WORD OF THE DAY: Tis Abay-Smoking water in Amharic and indeed it was today
DISTANCE TRAVELLED: 60km
We were off to the Blue Nile Falls today and it’s something I had wanted to see on my last trip but the timing wasn’t that great as it was the dry season. Minalu mentioned he was out there about 8 weeks ago and the flow wasn’t that great so not to get my hopes up too high. In saying that it has been raining a lot the last few weeks so I am hopeful that we will see something pretty amazing.
We have established that there is Wi-Fi at the hotel and if you are the first 2 rooms closest to the stairs then yes you would have it in your room, as we were further down the hallway we had to settle with the connection at the restaurant over breakfast. I’m not so much a Wi-Fi monster on this trip as I am not writing any blogs to upload and I am normally checking for messages from Zeme, and I have him here- but like any habit it is just in my day to check my Facebook and to check my blog. Most hotels include breakfast and it is quite a substantial fare with a choice of usually 4-8 things and includes tea or coffee as well. I am pretty predicable and am a scrambled eggs gal and Zeme usually has some Ethiopian fare.
We left the hotel at 9.30am for the 30km drive along a wide dirt road to the small village of Tis Isat where we were required to pay and take a guide with us for the walk. I asked Zeme if it was a difficult walk and he said no it isn’t too hard and it is fairly flat but I still packed my sneakers with me and just wore my flip flops for the drive out there. As people may or may not know I am not a hiker, I enjoy walking, but hiking, hills and stairs are just not my scene and is the reason why I didn’t do the Inca Trail when we were in Peru. I was more than happy to catch the train up and back to the ruins and not feel bad about the fact that I didn’t do the track. Like any drive in Ethiopia it is always scenic and there is always something to be looking at as we were driving. We passed again more small villages and homes just dotted along the road and there must have been a lot of rain out here as there was a lot of mud surrounding their homes. We had to cross 2 passages of water that had flooded the road, the second was quite big, it wasn’t an issue for us in the 4WD but you could see that a normal car wouldn’t be able to drive out here. Besides having to hold on in places, the road was quite rough and bouncy in spots it was green and lush out here and the sky had some dark clouds sweeping over that didn’t seem to look like rain but made for some great photos.
It took us around 50 minutes to drive the 30km and we made the village just before 10.30am. Zeme had to go into the tourist office to pay and collect our guide for the morning and after seeing the surrounds of our drive in I used this time to put on my sneakers with 5 sets of eyes watching my every move through the car windows. I was asked if I wanted any water or postcards while I was waiting and the English that 3 of the girls used was nearly flawless. When Z came back we bought 3 bottles of water (one for the guide) and we drove the 5 minutes to get to the start of the walk. After passing through the small muddy village we passed beside open and fertile fields and then dropped into a deep rift for the start of the walk. As we were driving you could imagine my shock when our guide was showing us where we would be walking and when his finger was pointing to the sky and on the mountain, showing me 2 dots on the ridge, explaining that’s where we needed to get to, I looked at Zeme and he had a small smile on his face. He knows better than anyone I am not a hiker, but I really think this will be worth it so I was happy to suck up what needed to be done to get there. The other thing Zeme said was it was an hour in and an hour back when really it was 30 minutes each way. He wanted to paint a worse picture scenario so when we got there it was a surprise it wasn’t as long…… thanks baby.
The Blue Nile Falls is a waterfall on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia. It is known as Tis Abay in Amharic, meaning "smoking water". It is situated on the upper course of the river, about 30 km downstream from the town of Bahir Dar and Lake Tana. The falls are considered one of Ethiopia's best known tourist attractions. So we started the walk and after passing some people wanting to sell us soft drinks and water we had to climb down a rough rocky path that was slippery in parts due to the tree coverage and the sun not drying the rocks out and the steps were all uneven and had no real pattern to them, so with the help of Zeme in some of the trickier parts we made it down to the Portuguese bridge that we were to cross, over the actual Blue Nile River itself, and then start the ascent up the other side. It was the first stone bridge constructed in Ethiopia, built at the command of Emperor Susenyos in 1626 and also is the very first bridge to cross the Nile River. The water was moving at a great rate and this area will flood every 5 years or so and the river as it was at the moment was around 15m high!! It is not clear water as they have had such a big rainy season the water was muddy as it flows and floods over the river banks collecting all the dirt and mud in its way. It was still impressive and our guide said that we have come on a good day as the dam was open and there was a good flow from the rain at the falls. The climb up the other side was a mission. The rocks this side were also uneven, porous looking and some of the steps were bigger than what my usual step was, so again with the help of Zeme we worked our way-slowly-up the massive mountain. The sun was high in the sky and it was quite a sweaty job. Zeme took my bag from me and our guide took my water bottle from me, so I must have been getting pretty red in the face. I have a motto that Omar and Nic came up with when they did the Inca Trail and I adopted and it was the Spirit of the Turtle. Slow and easy wins the race and there wasn’t a time issue, we had nowhere to rush off to, so I took my time and after passing through some small housing where young girls were trying to sell scarfs and drinks, I couldn’t even breath let alone have a look at their stuff, I just said not thanks without making eye contact and concentrated on my breaths till we made the top. It was a great view from here over-looking the valley below and to see where we had come from was pretty impressive as well. You could not see the falls from here yet, but you could hear the thunder of them as we then made our way around the side of the mountain which was flat and easy to walk and then as we turned the bend we got our first look at the falls and the first thing I said was WOW. They were magnificent and the first thing I thought was that they were more impressive than Angel Falls which are the highest falls in the world in Venezuela. It was worth the stiff climb to get that marvelous view of the Blue Nile Falls.
The Blue Nile falls into a canyon to form one of the most spectacular waterfalls in Africa, the second biggest falls in Africa after Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. The falls are estimated to be between 37 and 45 meters high, and drops over a clear chasm of about 45 meters deep steep, throwing continuous water spray, drenching the onlookers standing by. This same river, which holds part of its heart in Ethiopia (over 800km in length), is the longest river in Africa. While the White Nile is the longer of the two streams that join in Khartoum to create the Nile proper, it is the Blue Nile that contributes about 85 percent of the water that powers Egypt, and most of the precious silt that nourishes its banks. The falls consists of four streams that originally varied from a trickle in the dry season to over 400 meters wide in the rainy season. Regulation of Lake Tana now reduces the variation somewhat, and since 2003 a hydro-electric station has taken much of the flow out of the falls except during the rainy season. The Blue Nile Falls isolate the ecology of Lake Tana from the ecology of the rest of the Nile, and this isolation has played a role in the evolution of the endemic fauna of the lake. The Blue Nile forms one of the two major tributaries of River Nile along with the White Nile. The Blue Nile which starts its journey from the south of Lake Tana crosses Ethiopia and flows southwest towards Sudan. It then enters a canyon, which is 400 km long, situated within 30 km from its origin in Lake Tana. It is at this juncture that the power of the Blue Nile, which transforms into the roaring Blue Nile Falls.
We made our way along a flat dirt path and just enjoyed each view that we got the more we walked around the path. There were 3 falls today with millions of liters of brown water gushing down creating a fine cloud of mist to just add to the magical effect of this place. I could see people on the other side of the falls and when I asked about it the New Blue Nile River suspended bridge was completed in 2009 by Bridges to Prosperity and serves over 250,000 Ethiopians. It is the only pedestrian cable bridge over the Blue Nile in Ethiopia. We could cross it to get to the other side and see another view point of the falls and I was all in. It looked a long way away, but then I figured I had come this far I may as well see it all while I was here. So after a few photo opportunities, sharing the track with locals and some cattle that had the nerve to walk right in front of our photos we moved on. We had also picked up 2 kids that were trying to sell bamboo flutes that they had made and they stuck to us like glue the whole time till we left-and I am sad to say with a no sale, but it wasn’t from the lack of the trying and the older kid really knew how to belt out a tune on it. I am not scared of heights and crossing the suspension bridge was cool, it must have been over 200m long spanning the gorge and then when we got to the other side there were more children wanting to sell us cow hide handbags. Ummm no thanks and I rekon I was asked about 10 million times for the 15 minutes or so that that were on this side of the falls. It was muddier here with the spray of the falls and I needed the help of both Zeme and the guide as it was super slippery and I really didn’t want to go over in front of all the locals. There weren’t too many tourists here; we did pass a large group of French people as we crossed the suspension bridge otherwise not a lot of farangee movement here. If I can get here anyone can get here! Looking at the falls I could see what seemed like shoes floating at the base of the falls and when I asked the guide he said that’s exactly what they are, shoes from the villages as the river passes and I swear there would have been over 300 shoes down there just getting pounded by the thundering falls. It looked so weird and out of place. We were closer to the falls here and the misty deluge created a beautiful rainbow and looking back to the other side where we had just come from you could see the rainforest with lush green vegetation and which is a delightful refuge to the different varieties of monkeys and the multi-colored birds that that occupy the area. We did see a few birds on our hike up and a monkey that was about 200m away.
The first person to make his way to the source, perhaps in search of the Ark of Covenant, was the Scot James Bruce. James Bruce, in his search for the source of the Nile, came upon the falls in 1770 and described it perfectly as:
“The river ... fell in one sheet of water, without any interval, above half an English mile in breadth, with a force and a noise that was truly terrible, and which stunned and made me, for a time, perfectly dizzy. A thick fume, or haze, covered the fall all around, and hung over the course of the stream both above and below, marking its track, though the water was not seen. ... It was a most magnificent sight, that ages, added to the greatest length of human life, would not deface or eradicate from my memory.”
A new $63 million, 450-megawatt power-generating station (built by Chinese and Serbian contractors) called Tis Abay II is diverting the water just before the fall and re-depositing it a few hundred yards downstream. Now about 75% of this same water is rolling down a giant canal to the west of the river, into a massive concrete spillway. Tourists should expect to see only a quarter of the fall normally and this is why we were lucky today, as the dam gates were open due to the volume of water. Even our guide was impressed and was taking photos on his phone. The site overlooking the waterfall has had many notable visitors over the years, including the late eighteenth-century traveler James Bruce, and, in more recent times, Queen Elizabeth II of Britain, now I would like to know how they got here to the falls, I am assuming that she didn’t take the same track that we came up on.
So we started our way back to the car going down one side of the mountain, crossing the bridge and then back up the other side and as mentioned before the paths are all used by the locals and there were two young girls walking behind us as we started the ascent back to the car and they were carrying a large tin dish on their heads full of maize and I had to stop to let them pass as I was holding them up, well that is a little awkward, I’m struggling to get up the steps myself and they are balancing goods on their heads with some goats at the feet following them. Spirit of the Turtle, Spirit of the Turtle………. and we made our way back 40 minutes later.
As we were leaving to drop our guide back to the village a motorcycle all kitted up for a long overland journey passed us on the road and he gave a little wave. He looked like he was doing his own ‘Long Way Round’ on his motorcycle and he had German number plates on his bike. I am not sure I would be that brave to ride on my own through African countries and even Zee said it seems quite dangerous. We dropped our guide and with a tip and the payment we headed back to Bahir Dar. About 20 minutes into the drive we saw our German motorbike friend again stopped on the side of the road in front of one of the large puddles that we had crossed over getting to the falls, so I told Zeme to slow down to make sure everything was okay and German boy said that when he came through the puddle to get to the falls he nearly got swamped and dropped the bike-he didn’t know how deep the puddle was and if he dropped the bike he would need help getting it out, so we said to follow us through and he asked us to wait on the other side in case he got stuck. So we went first through the most shallow way we could see and then he followed a few minutes later and made it through with no problems. He thanked us and then we drove for the further 30 minutes back to town. He over took us at the end and with a toot he was back on his way again.
We were back to the hotel at 2pm and decided to just eat at the hotel restaurant, internetted and then had the luxury of kicking back in the afternoon. Zeme had to change one of the tyres as there was a slight slash in one of them and then came back bearing some beers where we continued to drink and chat the afternoon away. What a great way to finish off an active morning and I think I pulled up okay. I had a small pain in my knee but I didn’t feel sore and I am really happy about that. A quite night with a movie and we were packed up in bed by 10.30pm.
So that was our wonderful day at The Blue Nile Falls-we had a lot of people tell us just how lucky we were today to see them at full flow, it doesn’t happen too often with the implementation of the dam and I think it will be one of those once in a life time experiences, I got to see where The Nile River starts AND in full flow and I was lucky to have seen it all with Zeme. It was a long way to see them from Addis but totally worth the trip. I would hate to come all that way and just see a trickle like we did with Angel Falls and they were a lot more expensive and harder to get to.
Thank-you Blue Nile Falls you really put on a show for us today.
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