MAY 2—Morning came early; very early. Everyone made it to breakfast at 5, and in the air on the way from Addis Ababa to Bahir Dahr shortly after 7. An hour later we stepped into a warmer climate and a buzz of weaverbirds building nests in an acacia tree. Bahir Dahr is on the shores of Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile River.
The Ethiopians call the river Abaya. It flows from the southern end of the lake for several miles. Then it spills over a spectacular waterfall and becomes a raging, untamable river that’s carved a deep gorge through the highlands. It doesn’t gentle until it reaches the Sudan border.
Two buses transported our group of 31 through a bustling city filled with tuk-tuks, buses, donkeys and people. On our drive to see the falls led down a rocky gravel road. We stopped on the way to watch a woman bake injera (the “bread” used to eat the Ethiopian national food). Crowds of children came to pose, smile and beg. People are poor.
We walked from our bus to the banks of the Blue Nile, were ferried across on small launch, and then walked a leisurely half hour (with plenty of children along the way) to overlook the waterfalls. A hydroelectric dam on the river has reduced the breadth of the falls. Previously, at the height of the rainy season, they stretched nearly 400 yards across. Our view was more modest but magnificent nonetheless.
The water gushing over these falls is the lifeblood of Egypt. Some 85 per cent of the water in the Nile originates in the highlands of Ethiopia. And it isn’t just the water that’s valuable. The soil carried in the runoff from Ethiopian fields yields a fertile deposit in Egypt.
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