World Ethiopia Lalibela

Break From the Law

Visit to Market in Bati & Drive to Woldia Jan 5, 2009

Another day packed with activities!

We left our hotel in Kombolcha and had breakfast at the restaurant Hika on its terrace overlooking the piazza. Hika served a great breakfast, with terrific coffees and pastries. I had the "Ethiopian Special" from the menu - eggs in a spicy meat sauce. In addition, I had 2 of the best donuts which I had eaten in a long time. The restaurant served up a great cappuccino. Delicious!

Kombolcha still had its decorations in place from its turn of the millennium celebrations. Ethiopia remains one of the few countries in the world which has not adopted the Gregorian calendar, instead continuing to adhere to the Julian calendar, which has its 13 months instead of 12. As such, it is currently only 2002 in Ethiopia under their calendar. I had never thought such a place could still exist, but surprisingly it does. As such, Ethiopia only celebrated the turning of the millennium fairly recently. Quite a strange phenomenon! The Ethiopians also apparently have a different method of telling time, but I have not mastered the intricacies of that as of yet.

After breakfast, we began our drive to Lalibela, but made a detour off the main road in late this morning to drive first to the town of Bati. Today is Monday, and as such, it was market day there. Bati is known primarily for its Monday market which, after Addis Ababa's Merkato, is Ethiopia's largest market. Each week the Bati market is frequented by up to 10,000 Afar, Amhara and Oromo - 3 of Ethiopia's larger ethnic groups - as well as a significant number of traders from neighboring Djibouti.

Simply put, while I had been to markets in a number of countries before, I had never visited a market comparable to the market in Bati. With large numbers of colorfully dressed persons decked out in traditional clothing, it was a fascinating place to simply wander around in and people watch. Afar tribesmen, rifles strapped to their backs, wandered about. Numerous camels, both transporting goods and being taken to the camel market for their own sale, seemed to be everywhere at the market. Vendors sold a plethora of items, including everything from western clothing to khat to clay pots and pans to spices.

A local guide showed me and Karl, one of the other tourists on the trip, around Bati's regular market in the a.m. When we walked past the khat vendors, we purchased a small amount of khat leaves to try it out. Khat is a mild stimulant widely used throughout the Horn of Africa and a few parts of the Arabian Peninsula. As khat's taste reminded me of garden shrubbery, I spit the leaves out after several minutes, deciding I would stick to caffeine when I needed a slight pickup. The locals reaction to our purchase of khat was amusing, as when they saw the small bag, they would smile, rub their hands together to demonstrate their wish to have some khat. We would then give them a small sample to taste. We also visited the grain mill at the market, where several employees showed us how they went about milling the grain.

I purchased from some Afar tribesmen a clay coffee pot widely used in Ethiopia to make coffee over the fire. This is likely not dissimilar to the pots they have been using in this part of the world for hundreds of years, if not longer.

We had a tasty lunch of injera with a dish known as ki wat. After lunch, the restaurant prepared coffee in the method known in Ethiopia as a coffee ceremony. After an elaborate ceremony whereby coffee is heated over hot coals while balls of incense are simultaneously burned with the coffee, the waitresses served us coffee. The Ethiopians believe coffee to have originated in Ethiopia, and it is allegedly served nearly everywhere. While coffee is typically served in an expresso-sized version, cappuccino and macchiato beverages have also been available at the places we've stopped in thus far.

After the coffee ceremony and lunch, we walked to a different part of Bati and visited the animal market in the afternoon. Here I found myself particularly intrigued by the camels, whose Afar herders - rifles strapped to their backs - kept a watchful eye over them. A great place to simply observe the goings-on!

The Bati market is not on Ethiopia's tourist circuit. Other than a handful of Japanese tourists visiting the market, we were the only faranji, as foreigners in Ethiopia's national language Amharic are called. As the market at Bati is geared exclusively to the locals, there was little of the pressure from vendors that I have come to expect from the more famous tourist markets. As such, we walked about freely, able to observe without any of the accompanying hassles.

In mid-afternoon, we left Bati and continued back to the main road and continued to our picturesque drive to Woldia, a town some 120 kilometers northwest of Lalibela. We arrived at our hotel after nightfall, but soon found that the water pressure had ceased to function throughout the town. As such, I had to settle for washing myself with buckets of water that had been placed in the bathroom in lieu of a shower. No matter! A small price to pay for what had been a fascinating day of travel.

Next stop: Lalibela!