Gondar

For some reason when I used to picture Ethiopia I always imagined dry, desert-like landscapes and wild-looking African tribal people. The photos of bare-breasted Ethiopian women that are shown at my grandma Calder's birthday party every November probably haven't helped my impression of the country either. Unfortunately I won't see any of the wild tribal people (or the bare-breasted women, for that matter) on this trip to Ethiopia, but what I have seen so far is something completely different than I expected.

Northern Ethiopia, or at least what I have seen of it, is very mountainous and green and has more of a medieval Christian feel to it than the wild African tribesman feel that visitors are more likely to find in the Southern part of the country. The cross-shaped churches and Orthodox priests at Lalibela contribute to the old-school Christian vibe, but probably no other place in the region fits that more accurately than the city of Gondar.

During the 17th century the Ethiopian Emperor Fasiladas made Gondar his capital and with the success of his empire came the construction of lavish palaces. The “Royal Enclosure” contains the ruins of the palaces and is surrounded by a very European looking stone wall. The entire place looks like something out of the movie Robin Hood (Disney's version or the one with Kevin Costner, take your pick), and has appropriately earned Gondar the nickname “Africa's Camelot”.

After arriving from Lalibela this morning and dropping my stuff off at a local guesthouse, I headed straight for the Royal Enclosure to take a look around. I walked several hundred yards around the perimeter of the wall until I finally came to the entrance, and when I went inside the place was more of a small medieval city than just one or two castles as I was expecting. Fasiladas pulled out all the stops for his capital city, and inside the wall he built his own personal palace, accompanied by an auditorium, a pool, stables, and even a Turkish bath. After Fasiladas' reign future emperors built their own palaces, resulting in an entire complex of medieval structures.Gondar's medieval artwork is just as impressive as it's architecture, and there's no better place to see that than at the Debre Berhan Selassie Church. I was surprised by how small the church is, but the murals inside more than made up for that. One wall of the church is covered with paintings depicting the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the opposite wall has depictions of famous Ethiopian saints. Probably the most impressive artwork in the church is the mural-covered ceiling, which features the faces of over 100 angels peering down on the visitors below.Whoever painted the place had a few creative ideas that aren't entirely politically correct. My Lonely Planet book mentioned that that on one wall there is a painting of the Prophet Mohammed riding a camel that is being led by a devil, and sure enough, I found it near the entrance, high on the wall for everyone to see. Another entertaining sight was the depiction of a fierce black devil surrounded by raging red flames. Somehow I don't think that would be appropriate in modern-day churches.I had just enough time to visit one more place in Gondar before I had to call it a day, and Fasiladas' Bath seemed like a pretty good choice. I paid 10 birr for a horse-cart ride across town, and then spent a half-hour wandering around the grounds of what looked like an enormous stone swimming pool. Historians aren't entirely sure what the facility was used for, but some speculate that the small palace in the center of the pool was used as a second home by the Emperor. I can't say that I know a whole lot about Fasiladas, but without any doubt he led one seriously lavish Camelot-African lifestyle.