Gondar, Ethiopia

Our hotel (Lodge du Chateau) served the best breakfast. Freshly baked baguettes with warmed honey, fresh Ethiopian coffee, and then a choice of eggs, french toast or pancakes. It's served on the 2nd floor terrace overlooking the valley. Mmm good. It's right beside the wifi so we had three bars and excellent speed (this may seem trivial but it's a big deal when traveling).

After our leisurely breakfast we walked to the Royal Enclosure, a UNESCO world heritage site filled with castles and other medieval-like ruins. It's a nice little activity for a morning. The ticket is valid for the day and our hotel is right beside the ruins so we planned to come back in late afternoon for pics with the sun in the other direction.

You can get a guide for about 100 Birr but there's really no need - we just wandered about with the Lonely Planet.

We then hopped in a bajaj (the three-wheeled transport, also called tuktuks in other places) for 50 Birr (about $2.50) for the 10 minute drive through town to Fasiladas' Bath. They were starting to fill it with water for Timkat. Timkat celebrates the Epiphany and is the largest annual celebration in Ethiopia. The baths were in a nice calm setting surrounded by large trees with birds chirping away.

We took a bajaj back to the piazza, joining another passenger for only 10 Birr.

We still had our hankering for pizza and the hotel recommended the Quara hotel so we walked over. The pizza was pretty good - thin crust and tasty. Had a coffee after. I felt very European sipping my coffee on the terrace.

We looked at some souvenirs but the quality was a bit cheap so we didn't get anything. They had some cool-looking cowhide stuffed footstools that we liked, maybe we'll find them in Addis.

Back at the hotel we rearranged our packs for the Simien trek (we were leaving some of our stuff at the hotel).

We had booked the trek through Ethiopian Tour and Travel (ETT) and the agent was supposed to meet us at our hotel at 4pm. He was an hour late, which didn't bode well. I had had good experiences dealing with the ETT booking office but the Gondar agent was pretty poor.

We then went back to the Royal Enclosure for the different sun angle pics.

Dinner was back at the Master Chef. We both had the grilled fish, which was pretty much what we had the day before but extra fish instead of beef. Also had a couple Walias. We asked for dessert but haven't found desserts in any restaurants here in Gondar.