28/2/08

Salaam

Well, we are currently sitting sipping macchiatos surrounded by Jacarandas and Olive trees in the Seven Olives Hotel in the famous village of Lalibela on the Historial Circuit in Northern Ethiopia… And Man… today I did one of the most sacreligious things EVER!!!

Now firstly, I’ll have to paint a picture of how religious it is up here since the northern part of Ethiopia is COMPLETELY different to the tribal south and there is a well defined pilgrimage trail based around the wealth of cultural and religious treasures that trace the area’s history through the ages spanning back to biblical times.

In fact, Ethiopia is probably the only country in Africa with such an abundance of religious history as it lies at the crossroads of the Coptic Church, Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

In researching our trip here, we were absolutely stunned to find how much popular history actually originates from this area, especially since before we came, the only things that we knew about Ethiopia were the famine and that they have great long distance runners.

Firstly, Lucy, our oldest known ancestor at 3.5 millions years of age was discovered just north of here in the Danakil area, so that in itself is really cool.

But even cooler is that this area is known throughout biblical times as being the home of the Abyssinians and Axumite peoples.

In fact, the Ark Of The Covenant which contains the 10 Commandments is meant to be stored in a small church in Axum a town just north of here, after it was moved here from Jerusalem in about 700BC. Continue reading →

26/2/08

Ashamaa to all you crazy cats and jumpy bulls

Well, we are now back in Addis Ababa after our FANTASTIC journey through the South Omo Valley, and all we can say is that this trip has been one of the most AMAZINGLY cultural experiences that we have ever had… on par with even the Festival Au Desert in Timbuktu that we did last year.

We ended up travelling for 8 days through dust storms and the desolate parched country side dodging cows, goats and kids… But it was worth it since we managed to see 9 different tribes, and completely by luck, we actually got to see the famous BULL JUMPING CEREMONY Of The Hamer Tribe!!!

Man… we were attending the local market of the Hamer tribe in a small village called Dimeke when our driver Mickey heard that there would be a Bull Jumping Ceremony that afternoon.

Well we were completely over the moon as it is one of the most exotic, vibrant and BRUTAL ceremonies that you can attend, and most tourists hope and pray that they will come across one whilst down here. In fact it is only held at certain times per year and only on weekends at that, so we were pretty damn lucky to have come across one.

Basically the Bull Jumping Ceremony is the initiation rite of a teenage boy of the Hamer tribe, and it has been the subject of many documentaries as part of the ceremony involves the brutal whipping of the female relatives of the boy with the aim to get as many scars on the women’s back as possible!!! Continue reading →

22/2/08

Tenayistillign to all you friends, family and other furry animals

Well we are currently in a small village called Jinka in the South Omo Valley in southern Ethiopia and HOLY SMOKES we’ve totally gone TRIBAL since, so far Ethiopia has blown us away with how interesting it is!

Man… Ethiopia is literally a HUGE country with the third highest population in Africa and by far, the most diverse mix of religions and ethnic groups in the whole of Africa…

…But the Southern part… which is called the South Omo Valley, since it lies in the lowlands bordering Kenya… is considered to possibly be the most AMAZING bit of Africa you can ever travel to since it is like travelling back in time to a primitive Africa untouched by the modern world!!!

Down here, there are dozens of different tribes who still live off the land in primitive huts, practice body mutilation, raid villages and go to war with each other… and they have rituals that are totally violent and barbaric to our Western sensibilities… So travelling down here is like travelling through a living museum!

However, the South Omo Valley here is so arid, desolate and rough, that there was no way we could do this trip by ourselves. So to get down here we were lucky enough to hook up with Sharikay an American girl who has been overlanding by 4×4 in Africa for the last 2 years, and together we managed to hire a 4×4 with a driver in Addis Ababa… so we are now 3 days into an 8 day expedition that should take us 2000km around Southern Ethiopia. Continue reading →

15/2/08

Hey there dudes and dudettes

Well… as you know, last year we cut our BIGARSED adventure short due to my Grandmother falling ill, but being the diehard travellers that we are, we made a promise that we would definitely get back to Africa…

So here we are on an Emirates flight breathing in a plane load of everyone’s morning breath somewhere over the Middle East on our way to starting Ced & Avril’s Bigarsed Adventure RESURRECTED!!! YAY!!!

Our original plan was to take up where we left off and go to Kenya and Tanzania to do some safaris, but since Kenya has now descended into anarchy, we’ll be flying into Ethiopia instead and spending most of our time there.

Now originally, we had planned just to do a stop over in Ethiopia, but after researching it a bit… Man… Ethiopia sounds WAY COOLER since there is some amazing archaeology and anthropology down there which sounds just fascinating.

OK that’s a bit of a lie… well certainly there is some COOL s’hit there but the real reason we are going is because being the attention seeking nerds that we are, nothing has improved our COOL factor more than telling people that we are going to Ethiopia for our holidays! Continue reading →