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Well.. sorry its been so long since a serious update… Ethiopia was tough because the internet access there was slim to none. Then we came to Tanzania and we were constantly busy. Right now I am sitting in the transit lounge in the Nairobi Airport and have been sitting here just about 10 hours.

This morning we unfortunately missed our flight out of Kilimanjaro airport and thus missed our connection flight to Zambia. We were supposed to be in Lusaka, Zambia at 10AM and now we will get there at 11PM. It will be a miracle if we still have time to get to Victoria Falls tomorrow — but we will have to wait and see.

Ethiopia was an amazing and unique place. We spent our first few days in Addis Ababa with a friend, Aaaron, who works as a regional director for Samartin’s Purse. He’s living with a couple of guys that work at a private Christian school that is attended primarily by missionaries kids and kids from well-off Ethiopian families.

Injera, the staple Ethiopian food, is amazing. It’s made from teff, a grain that we won’t see in the States and its like a spongy ciapatti kind of. Very hard to explain. Anyway — you take this spongy ciapatti thing and dip it into one of like thirty different sauces. Some of the sauces have meat, others don’t. Most have a bit of spicy kick to them as well.

 

 

 

 

Here’s a shot of a typical injera dish. Our guide was kind of enough to take us into his home and his mother gave us a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony which is given to guests on rare occasions. She also made us injera and we got to sit in the home with their family and spend time with them. It was pretty cool.

 

 

 

 

Lalibela is the home of the buried churches where King Lalibela literally carved 11 churches out of rock. Story goes that he was told by God to build these churches and that he would do tons of work on them during the day but then at night angels would do twice as much work. A bit far-stretched, yes, but they are quite extraordinary.

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The churches at Lalibela were amazing and beautiful but the canyons and mountains on which they rest are not to be overlooked. They presented us with some amazing panoramic opportunities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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For those of you that may be wondering why this post is entitled “We’re in Heaven!” its because we stayed in a hotel named HEAVEN! Ethiopia in general and Lalibela especially have strong roots in the Jewish community and many believe that King Lalibela began building the churches to create a so-called ‘New Jerusalem.’ As a result, some of the hotel names included Jerusalem, Heaven, Bethlehem and more.

 

 

 

 

After we went to Lalibela just one day, we flew onto Bahirdar to see the headwaters of the Nile, the Blue Nile Falls. This place was beautiful and I got one of my favorite shots from the trip there (below.) There were some kids playing down at the bottom of the falls in the water which really helped to give some scale.

 

We had to cross the water at one point and Dad had some of the people carry him across. I had my water shoes on though so I opted to cross myself…so I can now claim that I have waded through the waters of the nile! Yahoo.

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