Ethiopia Revisited: Gonder's Castles

Once we were at the capital in Ethiopia (Addis Ababa), we stayed for a day or two then headed off to explore some of the famous land marks the country is known for. First up was a city named Gonder, famous for it's ancient castles.

Lindsey is a great travel partner! 

The flight to Gonder was in a small-ish plane over mountains, so we felt a lot of turbulence. We landed after about 30 minutes travel through the air and caught a taxi to our hotel. Turns out that the taxi drivers want the most money they can get for their fuel, so we had to wait until we had a full taxi. Also noteworthy, this taxi was probably older than me and there was zero leg room in the backseat, even for someone who's 5' 4".

Luckily though, we were the first drop off at the Florida International Hotel. I felt right at home! ;)

We checked in to our room, then we hopped in a tuk-tuk to explore Gonder.

We didn't exactly speak the same language, so there were a couple awkward moments and wrong turns.  We did enjoy that strawberry air freshener, though.

We were only there for a day, so we got right to the sightseeing. A nice Polish man wanted to go in with us for a tour guide, so we heard the history of the castles. It really made me aware of how much African history I know little about.

The castle complex including different buildings built many years apart. The group of them is called Fasil Ghebbi.

We also visited a famous baptizing place....

This is the Fasiladas Bath Timket. Once a year they fill this giant pool up with water and it gets blessed. Once blessed, it's a free for all and everyone jumps in for a dip in the water.

When we were there, there wasn't really any water.

This is what it looks like when they celebrate. (photo from Wikipedia)

And a famous church....

This is Debre Berhan Selassie Church. We did remove our shoes to enter. There was a type of porch that wrapped around the whole building. Women were kneeling/laying/praying along the right side. There was a man in the back as well. The walls inside the church were covered with paintings of Biblical stories. There are many paintings and photographs of the ceiling of this church.

This ceiling is pretty famous- those are angels. 

We made a stop at a market...

And of course we had Ethiopian for lunch...

We had dinner with a view of Gonder...

Then it was back to the Florida International Hotel for a quick night's sleep before we were up early to head off to Lalibela to visit the churches.