On the Road Again: Gonder

We left Axum on Saturday the 16th, bound for Shire (She-rye, among other pronunciations) to crash for the night before on to Gonder, our real destination . The ride was absolutely beautiful- mountain views like you wouldn't believe, decently paved roads, and a couple of goats baa-ing loudly for much of the hour and a half trek.

 

A window shot on the way.

The next morning, we found our way to the bus station, got on the right bus, and settled in for twelve hours of sweaty, coughy, sneezey, pukey, stuffy, smelly, unpaved, mountainous, broken bus delight. If those adjectives don't make you want to hop on a trans-Atlantic flight so you can experience the wonder yourself, nothing will.

Upon arrival, we found a decently priced hotel with hot showers thanks to the assistance of one of the many young men who hang out at the bus station, grabbed some grub and crashed for the night, ready to see the sights in the morning.

Gonder was founded in 1635 and served as the capital of Ethiopia for 250 years. The most popular tourist attraction is the royal enclosure, a park in the middle of the city with six castles built by various rulers. We didn't shuck out the hundred or so birr for a guide to explain what it was we were seeing, so I only have a vague idea of what I was looking at, but the trade-off of a couple hours meandering by myself without anyone staring or asking for money or talking in my ear the whole time was worth the ignorance of names and dates that I wouldn't remember anyways. 

 I had so much fun with all the gorgeous doorways and the amazing views from them.

 When don't you need another gratuitous landscape? This is looking out over some of the ruins and the city.

One of the larger, more intact castles of the enclosure. 

Unfortunately, I picked up some sort of bug on the bus the day before and my American immune system took more than a few hours to knock it out, so after the Royal Enclosure, we bought our plane tickets to Addis for the next morning (instead of another twelve plus hour bus ride), and I spent the rest of the day back at the hotel, contemplating seppuku as a viable option to relieve the pain. Clearly not thinking ahead, I'd left my handy-dandy set of samurai swords back in the US, silly me. By the time our taxi showed up the next morning, I was almost entirely capable of regular movement, and definitely by the time we made it back to Addis.