Beautiful people and a midnight scare

If our trip had a low point, Bahir Dahr was it. However, it did provide us with some good laughs and a look at a very different part of the country. Located in the northwest corner of Ethoipia, Bahir Dahr is as close to dessert that we got. Winds from the Sahara Dessert blow through and create dust thick enough to prohibit planes from landing for weeks at a time. This was also the hottest place we were.

The town is quite large and rather European, although the first thing we saw when we stepped off the plane was a huge advertisement for the Obama Restaurant. We checked into our government-run hotel, clearly built in the 60's and found we had another gorgeous view. This is overlooking a small, small bay on Lake Tana - the largest lake in Ethiopia.

These flowers were beautiful and smelled tremendous! Since the weather is so mild here even annual flowers thrive for years. We saw geraniums the size of bushes.
People, including us, come to Bahir Darh mainly for two reasons: 1. to see the MAJESTIC Blue Nile Falls and 2. to visit the island monasteries on Lake Tana. We first headed out on Lake Tana to visit one of the monasteries. We were both extremely tired by this point in our travels and took a nap on the boat. I probably should be able to write a lot more about this day, but it is all a bit of a blur.
We got off the boat and walked up to a very old monastery with some beautiful paintings in it.
You see papyrus boats all over the place on Lake Tana.
In the afternoon we took our drive out to Blue Nile Falls. As we were on our way we found out that 75% of the waterflow has been diverted to a hydro-electric dam that powers a huge portion of Ethiopia. So, with only 25% of the water flowing over the falls, and it being rather dry, the majestic falls were a bit less majestic; still pretty though.

That night we took a brief walk along the lakeshore, admiring all the beautiful people. It is generally agreed that Ethiopians are the best looking people on the planet and I think the people in this region are the most beautiful of the beautiful.

We also had intentions of climbing a tree in Joseph's friend, Doc's, honor. However, the tree we wanted to climb was covered in ants.

We returned for dinner at our hotel, which ended up being leftovers from lunch, which we also ate at the hotel. We watched as they prepared for a wedding reception and realized that the chef was otherwise engaged.

At 8:30 we went to bed, because we were tired. We fell asleep to traditional Ethiopian music (much more soothing than the club music), but bolted awake at an explosion of fireworks at 10:00 p.m. We closed the window (which made our room more hot) and I put in my earplugs. I slept soundly until around 1 a.m., when I woke up to a strange smell and felt something misting over me. I glanced over at Joseph's bed and it appeared that he was sleeping soundly through this.

I sat up a bit and to my horror saw a half-naked man spraying my bed with something. About a million thoughts ran through my mind. Things like: maybe the hotel send people around to spray guests with bugspray in the night because they don't have mosquito nets - followed, by AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!! - followed by, he looks vaguely familiar - followed by, AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! - followed by gasps as he suddenly came closer to me. I saw his lips moving but couldn't hear anything, as I had my earplugs in. He really was getting TOO close. Every time he moved I pulled into a tighter ball and gasped terrified gasps (I was much to scared to scream). Suddenly he leaned down and I punched him in the chest with both hands and was about to kick him with both legs (which I had drawn up to my chest) when I realized that this man was my own dear husband. He had opened the window and was simply trying to prevent his wife from getting malaria. I took my earplugs out and laughed and cried and felt rather proud that I had hit him (just in case). For the next week any mention of this event sent us both into hysterics :-)

The next morning we were off to Lalibela. As we waited at the airport we saw a tractor pull a fighter jet by the window. hmmm.

We saw our plane land. Then promptly saw a fire engine pull up to it. hmmmm.

I guess they fixed whatever was wrong because the plane got us safely to Lalibela.