foil fish in lake Tana

The foil fish was delicious and tasted fresh from the lake. Even better than the one I had at Captain Nemo in Bishkek. We're sitting in the Lake Shore Resort restaurant next to the body of water that fed the Blue Nile. On our table, there was a 3L dashen draft beer. in the trees shade, with soft wind blowing and clouds slowly moving allowing intermittent sunshine, we partook our last lunch in Bahir Dar overlooking Lake Tana. I never get enough of eating outdoors, next to a lake, in perfect weather. Simply love it so.

I woke up and descended to breakfast too early again and it wasnt ready. The restaurant staff was too worried about making the bowl of fruit salad look perfect, and giving each guest a fruit juice, rather than bringing coffee, bread and hot food to the hungry guests. I've asked for bread and got a simple roll. But they did have smoked salmon. Later I found out they had hot croissants. Ah well ...

We hopped on the motor boat docked just outside the hotel entrance and sailed out on the lake. It's really a bit too early to be out on the lake and the air was still cold. There wasnt much in terms of buildings on the lake shores, signs of still developing city. We saw a fisherman working his net on a tankwa, a boat made of papyrus. otherwise the lake was calm, deserted and empty. This lake was reputed to have hippos but to my greatest disappointment, we didnt see any. We stopped at the Zege peninsula and visited 2 churches. the Ura Kidane Mehret had very beautiful paintings of deep royal blue and yellow, really the most colorful I've seen. The 4 doors to the tablets sanctuary were guarded by the 3 big archangels (Raffe was there too!). Scenes of heaven and hell, biblical and apocryphal stories were everywhere and most complete. I've enjoyed this church immensely. The road leading to it was filled with stalls of souvenirs and local artists displaying their colorful paintings and the plants and fruits they needed to create the paint they used. The second church the Azuwa Maryam had pretty much the exact same decor and paintings as the first church. By now, St George slaying the dragon has become very very old.

After the foil fish lunch, we visited the Kurifto Resort, a hotel in traditional Ethiopian style, with stone huts for guests, a beautiful terrace overlooking the lake and a very inviting swimming pool, the only hotel pool I've seen in Ethiopia. Next we wandered briefly through the market, the dust, the chaos, the people again. I finally bought some scarfs. We slowly walked back to the Avanti Blue Nile and this time the security at the gates remembered us so there was no fuzz.

Dinner this evening was a small snafu. Sheraton brought in workers to prepare for the conference and management didnt notify them that they had guests at the hotel. Our usual table was blocked and they didnt know where to put us. After bouncing from table to table, the restaurant manager finally arrived to straighten out the situation. The buffet was again grand and delicious. We stayed up pretty late drinking and chatting by the lake. It's really our last night on this trip.

Lake Tana photos: