Word for the Travel Wise (02/16/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Coming this July to the Los Angeles Coliseum is the one of the largest Ethiopian sports and cultural events held annually, EthioLA3. The event takes place July 2-8, 2006 and puts a new spin on visiting the city for regular old tourist attractions like Disneyland, Hollywood, Venice Beach and Beverly Hills. This is the perfect opportunity to embrace Ethiopian culture with mixers being held as early as March to kick off July festivities and days worth of soccer matches. If anything go for the food and visit the website for additional details.

Today’s word is an Amharic word used in Ethiopia:

Qurse – (pronounced qoo-r-s) breakfast

Amharic is the second most Semitic language in the world after Arbaic. It is the official working lingo of Ethiopia and spoken in such places as Egypt, Israel, and Sweden by a number of emigrants. The writing system called abugida is based from the now extinct Ge’ez language. In addition to Amharic other widely spoken languages in the country include Tigrinya, Somali, and Arabic to name a few.  Wikipedia has good background information on the lang if you’re at all interested, but for those ready to dig in here’s a couple of places to learn online.

Ethiopian Restaurant dot com was kind enough to include some basic Amharic to use while in a restaurant from which I pulled our word for the day. This a great starter to days of the week, numbers, asking for your bill and other small useful phrases. Listen online to KFAI radio for Amharic broadcast out of Minnesota. Check their schedule for program times and listen daily as a self-learning tool. African Language has Amharic software for purchase and Amazon has a number of books for purchase including the Amharic LP phrasebook.

Africa Travel: Ethiopia

by Adrienne Wilson on

Last year Addis Ababa hosted a month long celebration in honor of the late Bob Marley who was a huge follower of the Rastafarian religion and would have been celebrating his 60th birthday. I’m sure the country saw a number of fans and followers of the musician due to the festivities, but Ethiopia is about a lot more than a Rasta man’s religion. This year the country celebrates their first time at the Winter Olympics in Italy with Robel Teklemariam paving the way for future cross-country skiers in Ethiopia. Should you choose to root for the athlete or participate in some outdoor activity of your own consider the region of the Tigrai (Tigray) in Northern Ethiopia.

If ecotourism and Africa is your thing you won’t want to pass this one by. This area is said to have one of the best off-road rock climbing challenges in addition to good mountain biking trails. In efforts to improve Ethiopia’s images of war and famine the Tigray Rock Climbing Team opened the rock climbing routes for potential ecotourists. For more information on this kind of activity and pictures, check out the website. I’m not a rock climber myself, but this sure does like an interesting alternative to experiencing the land of Ethiopia. Another good source for information on the Tigrai region and the people that build the community can be found at this Tigrai.org site. Excellent! I promise.

One for the Road: The Chains of Heaven

by Dave (Blogsmith Old) on

The latest travel book by Philip Marsden was released this week. The Chains of Heaven: An Ethiopian Romance, is an account of Marsden’s second journey to Ethiopia, over twenty years after his first. The book chronicles his travels through remote landscapes and his interactions with the varied people he encounters, including monks, hermits, farmers and other travelers. Read reviews out this week in the UK by Rory Maclean for the Times and Will Cohu for the Telegraph.

Going Tribal

by Dave (Blogsmith Old) on

Going Tribal

is a series on Discovery that was originally produced by the BBC and aired in the UK as “Tribal”. Each episode follows former British Royal Marine Bruce Parry as he spends approximately one month becoming immersed in the culture, language and rituals of a native community. This Telegraph article gives a detailed account of what Parry experienced, as well as additional background about the intrepid expeditioner and what led him to this role as friend of the tribal families.

There were six episodes in the BBC series and if Discovery follows suit, then tomorrow night’s programs (10 pm EST) may be the last one, taking Parry to Venezuela, where he’ll train as a shaman with the Sanema tribe. Prior episodes have had Parry horseback with the Darhads in Mongolia, visit cannibals in West Paupa, practice donga with the Suri in Ethiopia, eat “rat cake” in the Himalayas and hunt in the rainforests of Gabon.

To those who might criticize Parry for even wanting to bother these remote tribes, he explained, “We tried to be very culturally sensitive with everyone. We thought about it all very carefully. My personal aim was to show each community as normal human societies with the same loves and hopes that we have.”

Ethiopia’s Omo Valley

by Adrienne Wilson on

Omo Valley located in Ethiopia is rich with palaeo-anthropological remains, several daunting blue-grey ridges of volcanic basalt and granite tower the Omo River which sees white-water rafters between September to October. This picture of the valley grabbed my attention as I never quite imagined any of Ethiopia’s landscape to look anything like this. I always envision dry and tough terrain, but the Omo shows quite the opposite with much history to go along. It is said that hominid remains found in the Omo Valley probably date as far back as four million years. The area is pretty much free of human habitation today, but home to colobus monkey, blue-breasted kingfishers, white-cheeked turacos in the surrounding forest of tamarinds and figs.

For those interested in visiting the Omo, Tourism Ethiopia has a suggested 11 day photo safari itinerary found here. There are several other ways to plan your adventure into the area, but I thought this one looked like a good starter.