Ethiopia sixty-second day - 26/11/13 otherwise known as 18/03/2006 in Ethiopia!

Today we took a tour guide (350 Birr) and minibus (300 Birr) around the city of Aksum to see the main historical sights. First up was the Northern Stelae field where we saw three very impressive stelae (tomb stones for the kings of Ethiopia) and more smaller versions. underneath there are said to be hundreds of royal bodies and we descended a couple of dark tunnels to the tombs. The arctitecture is amazing, no cement, every stone cut uniquey to fit each other and all from the 4th century onwards.

We went on to Dungur, the queen of Sheba's Palace, where we heard tales of how she was tricked by Solomon. There are only a few ruins there now and the site needs to be excavated further, but the views are very interesting (and the legends!) with some original steps and features remaining. The graveyard (more stelae) in front of her palace, is still in tact over the road from the palace but you can't visit that yet.



We saw the famous rock (King Ezana's Inscription) which has the original Ge'ez (Amharic) script alongside Greek and Sabaean inscriptions of the same text describing military actions from 330-350 A.D. This rock sits in a little building in the middle of the countryside and hasn't moved since the farmers found it (apparently it's cursed to do so!) - the Ethiopian equivalent of the Rosetta Stone.

On next to the Queen of Sheba's Baths - she had this built for everyone to enjoy, and they still do! About 7-10  naked men were swimming and bathing as we drove up while a group of women were washing their clothes in it.


Finally we saw the tombs believed to belong to Kaleb and Gebre Meskel. They weren't buried there - as all kings in the Christian period opted for a monastery burial to guarantee their next seven generations a place in heaven! We had the most amazing smoothie for 20birr (I had banana, mango and avocado whereas the others opted for the same plus guava) This was then followed by Tibbs (Goat meat and Injera) for me and the guide while Marissa had a sandwich and Daniel had a coke.

After a day of sight-seeing, we visited the shopping street to check out Aksum's craft scene. I found two nice small paintings of St. George and the Ethiopian style angels and these go perfectly with the small bible/gospel reading which I bought earlier at the Museum on the Northern Stelae site.

Back at the hotel we opened heavy negotiations for a two day trip and finally agreed on a price and route - we will see what tomorrow brings!