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After going through the usual crass security
procedures at Addis.
"What is this?"
"A Leatherman"
"Oh," pause "you can go"
We boarded a 10 year old Fokker Turboprop. The
Aircraft coped with Addis'
altitude quite well and I settled back looking forward
to a 1.30min flight.
This was not to be. Ethiopian Airlines serve every
airport in Ethiopia.
With five planes! This means that every plane stops at
every airport.
Addis-Bahar Dar- Gondar- Lalibella and then finally
Aksum.
"Dropping the bloody milk off are we?" Muttered
Charles.
We neared our first destination Bahar Dar, descended
over some incredible
green scenery and thumped down.
"Jesus"
"What?"
"Mig 29's"
"Where?"
"Over there" I pointed at some semi hidden Hardened
Air shelters with Ultra
modern Russian fighter jets nestling inside. As we
braked to a halt outside
the terminal we passed by a flightline of 17 Mig
23 Floggers. 20 year
old low level Soviet Bombers. Men clustered round some
of the aircraft
conducting pre-flight checks.
"No wonder these bastards were left to starve, they've
got half the Soviet
Airforce catalogue here" exclaimed Charles.
"It might explain why the Eritreans got the shit
kicked out of them too!"
At Bahar Dar we re-fueled but they would not allow us
to leave the
aircraft. " I wonder why?" asked Charles
sarcastically.
On we wandered, stopping in the mountains, starting
again, stopping again,
landing taking off and being fed cake and coke by the
grinning Ethiopian
flight stewards. I read my book about the famines of
Ethiopia as we climbed
on up into the sky and through the rain clouds. The
rain clouds meant that
we could see nothing!
Five hours after leaving Addis we arrived at Aksum, a
small town
58 kilometres from the Eritrean border. The airport had
little to recommend
itself apart from one concrete building and a viscous
looking ZSU 154 Anti
Aircaft tank cunningly placed under an ancient chinese
piece of Junk.
"I swear Ethiopia is the only country in Africa where
the locals really
look after their military equipment."
"Maybe they had to pay for it" I laughed.
"We must be close to the front line"
"Well the British Embassy says that we shouldn't go
close to the order"
"Yes and the Embassy also says that we should avoid
Merkado"
"Hey, Merkado was dodgy, we could have easily
disappeared in there."
"where"
"In the metal workers section where everyone was
wearing those dodgy green
overalls, and the paths were so close that we could
barely pass"
"Ok so what?"
"Well you kept asking where the arms market was"
"I only wanted to see if they sold guns there, I
didn't want to buy one"
I smiled as I remembered our foray into what is
supposed to be Africa's
biggest market. It had indeed been an experience, and
it was indeed a
little tense, but here we were a day later and alive!
Aksum is the home of one of the first dynasties of
Ethiopia. At 7000 ft it
is cool even at midday. The town had an almost middle
eastern feel to it.
The Christian people wrapped themselves in white cloth
and looked very
muslim. Their actions and devotions were almost
Islamic. I guessed that I
was looking at the true untarnished face of
Christianity. These were the
people that gave the prophet Mohammad's family succor
when the Idol
worshiping Arabs were persecuting them. Although
Mohammad himself never
made it to Aksum, the local guide was exceptionally
proud of their
tolerance. The muslims in town might disagree. They
had been banned from
building a mosque three years ago. We traipsed up into
the hills. Had a look
at King Kalens palace. This consisised of a set of
ruined cellars and some
corrugated iron on top. "Imagine palace here" said the
guardian. We looked
over to the North. that is Eritrea said a guide. "only
58 kilometres away"
"Hmmm I guess we are the frontline" . That explained
the large numbers of
guys here in some form of uniform.
A small boy took us to a monastery placed high above
the town. At the top
I looked over the rolling hills and jagged out crops.
The sight was truly
beautiful. The sun was setting slowly over the green
and black fields. It
was hard to imagine there being a famine here, but
here it was in earnest.
Thousands died here because the communists bought too
many migs and
couldn't care about their own people. The monastery
was unremarkable apart
from when the deacon hauled out these huge leather
bound books with pages
made of parchment.
"How old is this" I asked?
Our boy guide jabbered away in Tigray for some time
and eventually replied
" we do not know exactly, but he thinks maybe 1500
years old"
"Hey Charles, we've travelled 800 Kilometres, seen the
Eritrean Border.
Looked over the whole of Tigray, wandered amongst the
tombs of the Aksumite
dysnasty and here is this guy holding out a bible that
is one and a half
centuries old!" I called out.
Charles was no where to be seen. I looked down and saw
him climbing up to
the summit.
"Not bad for one day then!" he shouted back.
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