Lake Tana is one of the major lakes in Africa and plays host to nearly 37 islands, 20 of which house centuries-old monasteries that are home to monks, collections of art, religious iconography, and spiritual history. (SIDE NOTE: Apparently Haile Selassie, the famous Ethiopian emperor toyed with the idea of making Bahir Dar, the town sitting on the banks of Lake Tana, the capital of Ethiopia).
We visited three monasteries in total, with our operator/tour guide taking us from island to island by boat. Once your boat docked on the island, you had a hike (varying in distance, intensity and smoothness from island to island) ahead of you.
By the way, I discovered this weekend that hiking on rocky and muddy terrain is never advisable when wearing dress shoes (yes I wore my dress shoes to go hiking this weekend). In the future, I will purchase and wear appropriate footwear when climbing over rocks and muddy slopes. Seems self-explanatory, but it seems that I missed the memo on what type of shoes to wear.
The first monastery, Ura Kidane Meret, was located on the Zege Peninsula and was one of the largest (and definitely one of the most famous) monasteries on Lake Tana. This monastery had beautiful artwork and we witnessed a group of monks chanting and playing instruments. It was a sight to behold! Our tour guide at this monastery was Mengistu, who lived with his family, on Zege Peninsula. Mengistu was super nice and helped me walk on the rocks in my dress shoes, catching me a few times before I did a face-plant. We bought a lovely painting from him – a replica of one of the images in the monastery. His father is the artist that paints these replicas. Mengistu and his sister sell the pieces to support their family.
The second monastery we visited was only open for men. There was a large sign that read ‘No Entrance for Lady’. As such, Mary waited for us on the boat, as we did a quick run-through of the monastery. Once we arrived there, our boat operator informed us that it was closed for renovations (as the ceiling was on the verge of collapsing). As such, we only saw the museum (which in reality is a small one room building that houses beautiful and priceless pieces of Ethiopian art, artifacts, crosses, crowns and books in deplorable conditions. The tour guide poked all the items with a stick and the room was quite damp. It was so sad to see that these national treasures would likely be lost). We also saw a large stone bell. This is essentially a long, rectangular piece of rock hanging from a frame. They hit the rock with a another rock and it sounds like a large metal bell. This “rock bell” is used to call the monks to prayer.
We finally visited Debre Maryam (I believe this is the name of the final monastery we saw – but I will double check) which was rebuilt in the 19th century after being destroyed by fire. The monastery looks much newer than the other ones and this is considered the monastery for women, as there is a community of women that live on the island and run the monastery. It appears that there are still monks worshipping here and men and women are both allowed to visit this island.
So after visiting the monasteries, the boat took us to the Outlet of the Blue Nile River where lake Tana turns into the Blue Nile which flows onwards eventually into the Mediterranean Sea. It was exciting to see the source of this major river and while on the boat, I saw a “mom” hippopotamus and her baby. My friend Adelle absolutely adores hippos and I tried to take a picture for her, but to no avail – they were just too fast and dipped into the water and out of sight. Sorry Adelle – I will let you know of any future hippo sightings!
Another wonderful way to enjoy Lake Tana is to have a drink on the patio of Tana Hotel, overlooking the lake. This locale provides the perfect view of the daily sunset and the visual imagery with the trees juxtaposed against the sky is quite amazing.
