We arrived at the Remhai hotel in Axum tired and worn from the day and each other. The hotel gave us two rooms but the girls’ room wasn’t going to work. Two single beds. So Wanda inquired about changing rooms. It turns out they put us in the old wing of small rooms. For a slightly higher price we moved to the new wing. Now both rooms were big and roomy with king-sized beds in each. Much better. We ate supper outside in the warmth of the evening and relaxed.
A note about food. Eating out at a restaurant has always been a special treat for our family. In North America we couldn’t afford to eat out as often as we saw other families do so our girls’ really enjoyed those experiences. Even here in Ethiopia, although we eat out after church every Sunday, it is still something they look forward to. But this trip may change all that. Almost every restaurant we’ve eaten at has had virtually the same menu. Yes, the menu is a problem, that sameness can be quite tedious. But the food, although acceptable yet bland, just doesn’t appeal to me after a while. The chicken is invariably tough because it’s not fattened chicken, it is ‘free range’ chicken (which means something a bit different here). The meat all tends not to be tender. The vegetables are all overcooked, boiled or whatever. That is probably good for us (kill the germs) but not appetizing. There is always pasta and usually that is OK. Salads are a toss-up (OK, pun intended), sometimes the balance of lettuce to veggies is one way (lots of lettuce, little veggies), another time the other way and the dressings also vary in quality. So to go day after day and find the same food meal after meal . . . There were some exceptions, it’s true. In the run-down hotel in Dessie the lettuce and vegetables came from their back yard and were washed and cleaned. That salad was good.
Saturday we went to a relaxed schedule and got up a bit later. We ate breakfast (almost always scrambled eggs, toasted bread, margarine and jam, juice or coffee) and went looking for the sites of Axum. We had to find the Tigray Tourism Commission Office in order to purchase our tickets for all the ‘secular’ sites for the day. Immediately a couple of young men saw us and offered to be our tour guides. We offered no promises but asked where the tourism office was and they told us. So naturally they raced behind our vehicle to the same office, eager to assist us. We got our tickets and again made no promises and went back to the large stelae field site (about 1 km away) and again they raced back to meet us there eager to ‘help.' One youth, Solomon, had offered a personalized hand carved black softstone necklace (he asked the names of the girls while Mekonnen and I were at the tourism office and Wanda wrote their names down for him) and of course sold them to the us for a nice price (for him) of 140 Birr. The other young man, Aferworki, was a licensed guide and pushed hard to get us to employ him.
But there was something about his attitude; an air of entitlement and arrogance. When I tried to barter with him he became defensive and almost hostile. We had just agreed on a price but he now acted annoyed and I asked what was the problem. He repeated, what was the problem? I said isn’t bartering normal? He didn’t seem to understand, but smirked and said everything was normal. At this point Mekonnen talked to him in Amharic and he didn’t respond well at all. So we three adults huddled and rescinded our offer and said we would go without a tour guide and Aferworki stalked off.
We had to say no to others as well as we walked in the stelae field but when we came out there was smiling Solomon. He had such a different attitude, always smiling. Yes, always inviting himself into our circle but willing to take no for an answer without being upset or defensive. For a young man of 17 he had a much better command of English than any of the others. Smart as a whip, you might say. He was a bit of a hustler, showing me some rare coinage from the Axum area (found by farmers in their fields when plowing) and an ancient looking palm sized ‘Bible’ or rare manuscript that his father had bought off of a churchman. These artifacts often show up at the local market he said and his father spots them and buys them off the locals. They then sell them to tourists (wonder how much of these valued artifacts leave Ethiopia this way). I’m not a collector and so I said no to both offers, he shrugged and put them away. No problem. He continued to smile and he offered to show us the sites as an unofficial tour guide (without the guide’s license he can’t get into the sites). So for about ¼ of the price, with much better English, he took us to what we wanted to see. He rode in our Land Cruiser, ate lunch with us and did a pretty good job of telling us about the historical sites and the city.
And we saw, as I said, the stelae fields of Axum, for which it is known. The stelae are obelisks which stand anywhere from 10 to 30 meters high (30-90 feet high) and are made of granite from a local quarry. Some are still in good shape in spite of the centuries, including one the Italians took in their short occupation time in the 30’s. They agreed to send it back around 1997 and it was returned in 2005. Now the Italians, with UNESCO, are helping to set it back up again. There is a huge scaffolding in place as they erect it and we saw the first piece in place (they had to cut it into 3 pieces to transport it, both in the 30’s and recently). The symbolism of the stelae to the Axumite kings are similar to the pyramids in Egypt to the ancient pharaohs. Powerful rulers always want to show their power and prestige and have a monument for generations to come. As the tombs were inside the pyramids, the tombs of the kings were in burial chambers below the stelae. The most impressive stelae belonged to the most powerful kings; King Ezbana and King Remhai of the ancient Axumite kingdoms in the 1100’s.
We did drive out of town to what is called ‘Donghai’ palace or also known as the palace of the Queen of Sheba. To the untrained eye it looks like a stone walled maze. The girls loved running through it exploring the ‘rooms’. A recent western media article reported that German archeologists have suggested that they may have found the palace of the Queen of Sheba in Axum so we assumed this was the one, although no evidence of archeological work was present. We also tried to visit the church where the Ethiopian Orthodox church says the Ark of the Covenant. Yes folks, they claim that they are the keepers of the true Israelite Ark of the Covenant read about in the Old Testament. Could it be true? Could be if you believe the author of The Sign and the Seal, a journalist named Graham Hancock, turned investigator into arcane mysteries of the world. But most ‘experts’ believe not. Solomon told us the priest that guards the Ark was an orphaned boy adopted by the church and raised inside the church, never again setting foot outside the church compound. He is 68 now and Solomon said he couldn’t even find his way around Axum much less know about the famous stelae in Axum (which are right across the street from the church). Well, they wanted 60 Birr per person and we would basically see nothing so we said, no thanks. So I decided just to snap a picture from about 20 meters (40 feet) away but they said, that will be 30 Birr. Forget it. So I didn’t get a photo of the ‘Ark of the Covenant’ church.
We had lunch at the Yehi Hotel, another government hotel which has the best view of the historical sites and the town of Axum. This has been our experience. The government run hotels have the prime real estate but the quality of the hotels varies widely. The Roha in Lalibela is actually quite nice while the Yehi and Goha hotels leave something to be desired. The same is true in the other government-run hotels down south as well. They have a slightly musty odor in some, the need for renovation is a constant theme. Only at the Roha did we see renovation happening. Anyways, the Yehi Hotel gave us a beautiful vista and Solomon conducted a portion of his tour there, simply pointing out sites and explaining their significance.
Finally the girls had had enough and we said good-bye to Solomon. He offered to find camels for the girls to ride (for a price of course) but after waffling back and forth we finally said no. So we went back to the Remhai hotel and rested for the evening, knowing that the next day would be one of the longest, and possibly the hardest, traveling day of the trip. We agreed to get up early and be ready to go at 6 a.m. in the vehicle. H-m-m-m, could we do it?
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