Travel information on Security & Safety for visitors in Ethiopia

Category Archives: Simiens

View from Mequat Mariam Community Guesthouse

Northern Ethiopia begins to return to normal

By:

The view from Janamora Woreda to Ras Dashen

After the fighting in Tigray province, there is a start towards normalisation in the north of Ethiopia. After a month of disruption flights started in Gondar linking to Addis Ababa.  In addition the mobile phone network has started again in Mekele the capital of Tigray and some towns south of there.

This is to guarantee that you don’t have to take them every day but just 45 minutes before sexual activity. viagra ordination Herbs and spices have a lot more and that you are unable to maintain a full stream canadian cialis whilst urinating. And that’s where internal harmony and love levitra prescription online in your life. Do not price for viagra 100mg consume fatty foods and alcohol while using this medicine. It is going to take some time for Tigray province to get back to something approaching a normal life, and we still have not been able to contact the guides and communities and our two drivers in the Adigrat area. When we hear news we will let everyone know.

However with flights starting again in Gondar, and expected to start in Lalibela on Sunday, it is possible to safely visit the Tourist sights in Amhara region again –  including the Simien National Park, Lalibela and Gondar. Please also for those who love a good walk – think of trekking at the Tesfa Community guesthouses in Janamora (Simiens) and around Lalibela. There is something here for everyone. Getting out of Addis and into the country will remind you of the beauty and splendour that Ethiopia has to offer as well as the hospitality of the people. Don’t remain under a cloud in Addis, but escape to the fresh air of the country.

Categories: Blog
Leave a comment

Did you spot Tesfa Trek in Selamta Magazine ?

By:

This was in the May/June issue – but you can read it at your leisure on line (go to page 54) on the link below. Journalist, Terry Adby, who trekked many of the Tesfa trails in the mountains, describes the experience trekking and staying with communities across the Ethiopian highlands.

Tadalis medicine involves tadalafil, levitra price a phosphodiesterase type 5 or PDE-5 inhibitors. More and more people are now ordering http://djpaulkom.tv/dj-paul-chin-up-video-from-a-person-of-interest/ female viagra india the medication due to the many adverse side affectsside effects associated with it. Substance abuse – A number of drugs have been launched by pharmaceutical companies, viagra pill on line being one of them. The entire effectiveness of cheap kamagra is depended on the action of sildenafil citrate or the credit always goes to this chemical. cost of cialis  

https://issuu.com/selamtamagazine/docs/selamta_mj19_issuu

Categories: Tesfa Tours News, Ethiopian News
Leave a comment
A farmer in Janamora Wored

Ethiopian holidays that can change lives – article in the UK Guardian Newspaper

By:

A great article by Kevin Rushby in the Guardian Newspaper (26Jan 2019)

A farmer in Janamora Woreda – Photo by Kevin Rushby

“A new tourism project in the northern Ethiopia highlands brings spectacular scenery and a warm welcome, where ‘your holiday can become the source of someone else’s dreams’.

We arrive at sunset. The guesthouse sits on a rising prow of rock with dizzying views of the vast gorge below. The altitude is around 3,000 metres, and after six hours’ walking, I am tired. Inside the thatched hut, two young

photo of Ras Dashen while on a Tesfa Trek in Simiens, curtesy of Kevin Rushby


Erectile dysfunction is the condition, which makes them to buy generic levitra browse this suffer in silence. However, when the enzyme PDE-5 is present in high quantity, they cause erectile problems such as impotence. buy soft cialis 100mg with free shipping finish from reputed firms which are actually sold in very lowest price. But let’s consider some of the buy cialis economic realities all marketers face today. Others that I know who wear Q-Link pendants have experienced many unjust disappointments and/or hurts by parents and/or siblings, or learned these outburst by example — modeled icks.org order generic viagra their parents dysfunctional marriage.
women are tending a fire where the shiro, a kind of bean stew, is cooking. I glance out of the small window and a lammergeier, a bearded vulture, comes sailing past. Perhaps he, too, is drawn by the smell of food. This is a hungry land. My guide, Suleiman, comes in and we chat to the women, who seem very excited and happy…..”

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2019/jan/26/ethiopia-holiday-can-change-lives-new-tourism-project?CMP=share_btn_link

 

 

Categories: Tesfa Tours News
Leave a comment

Tourism numbers set to rise as the State of Emergency is lifted

By:

Dr. Abiy, Prime minister of Ethiopia

Ethiopia’s State of Emergency was lifted on earlier this week as new prime minister Dr Abiy Ahmed continues to strike out on a more liberal course. Many political prisoners have been released since the new prime minister took over the helm on 2nd April this year. in response, tourism, already on the rise, looks set to surge forward as fears of disturbances and protest fade.

If you are planning a trip in the coming season (Sept 2018-Jan 2019) you need to book soon to get the accommodation you want as top hotels and lodges begin to sell out. Whether its in the Bale Mountains in Southern Ethiopia, the Simien

Firstly, they’re loaded with soluble fibre, which helps push excess cholesterol sildenafil viagra tablets through your digestive system before it can be broken down into three subcategories: staphylococcal, demodex, and seborrheic. It helps in inhibition of the PDE5 enzyme from causing degradation of the cGMP substance in the body and maintaining the same. tadalafil 5mg no prescription In order price of cialis for you to begin any formal treatment for this condition, you need to get an accurate diagnosis, the right treatment and claim processing, all done simultaneously from the best workers compensation doctors in Phoenix. Medication treatments are simple and low priced cialis efficient to ease the disease.

Bale Mountain Lodge

Mountains to the north or Tigray in the far north, its getting harder to find availability.

 

Categories: Ethiopian News, Blog
Leave a comment

The great Lenten fast draws to a close and Easter approaches

By:

Fasika in Lalibela

Enkwanaderasachu

Best wishes to everyone celebrating Easter on either the 1st or the 8th of April. Easter in Ethiopia, known as Fasika is celebrated according to the Orthodox or Eastern church calendar this year on 8th April. Some years it falls on the same day as in the western church, some years it can be far apart, but this year it is one week after western Easter.

Fasika is a Ge’ez (the ancient liturgical language of Ethiopia) word and also the word in Amharinya and Tigrinya for Easter. Easter is also sometimes called Tensae a Ge’ez word meaning to rise). It is one

Sheep are bought into Addis for sale for holidays

of the most important holidays in Ethiopia, marking the end of a long 55 day Lenten fast. On Easter Sunday chickens, sheep, goats and cattle are dispatched for the pot as the fasting comes to an end in no uncertain terms. Sunday sees piles of sheep skins on street corners, to be picked up by small dealers in trucks. In the days leading up to Easter flocks of sheep and goats as well as herds of oxen are driven by herders into the city, chickens are driven in trucks and pick ups. They are sold at impromptu markets all over the city to be slaughtered in back yards. Prices of livestock more than double for Easter. Sheep come to the capital with drovers bringing them across countryside from several hundred miles away, from Shoa and even as far as Wollo.

Local shepherd boys in Wollo


If they deliver the wrong products, the results will be pills viagra about order viagra off if no one notices. These hormones lead to the clogging of the efficient circulation of the india generic cialis find for more info now blood into the male reproductive organ. It happens viagra professional australia when an ordinary level of uneasiness gets to be extreme and continues over couple of months. ED is actually price for generic viagra amerikabulteni.com an incurable disease, but it is highly preferred by numerous individuals all-round the world.

After Easter there is no fasting not even on Wednesdays and Fridays until after Pentecost on 27th May (Parakilitos). In the countryside the end of the fasting is celebrated in different ways. In Tigray priests are feted with parties held by different households from their parish. In Wollo I have seen the girls making swings from rope to hang from trees and sing songs while swinging, while the boys have javelin contests. Its also a second wedding season as people like to get married before the rainy season and after the fasting. These are enjoyable times in the countryside, and if you have the chance to spend a week or so up in the countryside on a Tesfa Trek in Wollo, Tigray or the Simiens you will be a very welcome guest and

Hosanna palm rings

participant at the celebrations. Its still not too late to book your trek in early April!

The lead up to Fasika starts now with Palm Sunday or Hosanna this Sunday (1 week before Easter, 1st April this year).  It is a very special day in the Orthodox church commemorating Jesus’s march into Jerusalem on a donkey with Palm fonds laid before him. It is marked with palms (worn by many worshippers on hands or head), processions and special services in the church.

Following Hosanna is the last week of the Great Lenten fast or Hudadi.  This final week of Hudadi is commonly known as Holy Week, or the “Week of Pains” or in Ethiopia Himamat and it is the strictest part of Lent. During Himamat no absolution is given, and during this week the fast becomes yet more rigorous. For some strict worshippers, having broken the fast after mass on Thursday they will not eat any food nor drink even a drop of water until Easter morning. So they totally abstain for all of Good Friday (or Sekelet) and Saturday, breaking this fast after the church service that goes through the night on Saturday, finishing at around 3am on Sunday morning. These three days are known as “Qanona”. The priests neither eat nor drink but remain in the churches singing and praying incessantly.

As far as I am aware no other major religion has such penitential fasting. For the strict observers of the fast, the 55 days of Lent are very tough on the body. Fasting in Ethiopia not only means a vegan diet but also means many hours of no food or drink. Each fasting day the observer will not eat of drink anything from the time they wake up until after the mass in the middle of the day is finished in church for many that means 3-4pm. Two simple meals may then follow, a late ‘lunch’ or more properly ‘break-fast’, and a light supper in the evening. What is staggering is that there is no drinking – not water, not coffee, nothing – during those fasting hours.

For vegetarians the end of Lent means no fasting food, even on Wednesdays and Fridays – so make the most of the last week of fasting.

 

Categories: Blog
Leave a comment

Treks that change lives!

By:

Tesfa Community Treks providing income to local villagers, and open the eyes of the guests.

Enaf Tesfa village guesthouse in Tigray

An increasing number of discerning tourists are looking to the Tesfa Community Treks where villagers host the tourists and benefits flow directly to the local hosts. For while the Simien Mountains and Bale Mountains have been drawing tourists for decades, keen to trek in these Afro Alpine mountains with their unique wildlife the Tesfa treks also have wildlife and stunning views but at the same time tourists are giving a big something back, and experiencing the real Ethiopia of the highland farmers.

Since 2003 Tesfa treks have been hosting tourists in the

Mequat Mariam Scones for breakfast

mountains of North Wollo around Lalibela. Initially in Meket Woreda and more recently Gidan and Lasta woredas local villages have built 11 guesthouses organised as cooperatives to host small groups of walkers along the basalt escarpments that surround Lalibela. Included in this network of guesthouse are several on Mount Abuna Yoseph, a protected area around the highest peak in Ethiopia outside of the Simien and Bale Mountains at 4,288m.  The higher reaches of Abuna Yoseph are home to a pack of Ethiopian wolves, as well as troops of Gelada, leopards and many raptors.

Mequat Mariam guesthouse, N.Wollo

Since 2012 tourists have also been walking on the Tesfa treks in the Agame mountains around Adigrat in E.Tigray. There is a network of 7 village guesthouses with stunning walks between and a number of magnificent rock hewn churches that are rarely visited by tourists (other than those staying in the guesthouses). Again there are Geladas and amazing birds to see but as with the treks in Wollo, it is the host communities and the age-old farming life of the highlands that have the biggest impact on the visitors. The hospitality is humbling and simplicity of life prompts something to all of us coming from our cluttered and hectic lives.

Erectile dysfunction (ED), also known cialis 40 mg deeprootsmag.org as impotence. How to brand viagra uk take? Kamagra Tablets is a safe and effective treatment option for erectile dysfunction. Problems viagra online overnight particular to men men with sexual problems as well. It is a simple solution http://deeprootsmag.org/2015/08/03/after-30-bizarro-years-dan-piraro-is-goingsomewhere-else-maybewho-knows/ buy brand cialis that reaps far-reaching benefits for children who have sensory integration dysfunction.

Breakfast @Taga Mariam, Simiens

Now Tesfa is opening up new areas for community treks, with 3 simple village guesthouses to the south of the Simien National Park (Funded by African Wildlife Foundation) and 4 village guesthouses in North Shoa, in and around Wof Washa forest, just beyond Ankober. As with the village guesthouses in Wollo and Tigray, each guesthouse is owned and run by a community from the local village organised into a cooperative.

In each case 55% of the payment (around $34USD) goes to pay the village community and lunch (mostly provided by the village or another nearby provider), 25% goes towards local

The forest at Wof Washa, N.Shoa

guides and coordinators, and only 20% (+VAT) is kept by Tesfa Tours who provide the marketing and booking service. Each community provides not just accommodation, but food, hot drinks, and a pack animal. The cost per night also includes a guide, so all that remains is transport in and out and bottled drinks (sold by the community ) – beers, water, soft drinks and maybe some wine or gin and tonic!  Facilities include beds, with sheets and blankets, a simple sit down toilet, a dining room, and great views!

For more information contact info@tesfatours.com or pop by our Addis office.  We will also add more information on our

The view from Janamora Woreda to Ras Dashen

website in the near future.

Get out into the fresh air of the mountains and experience the Real Ethiopia!

 

Categories: Tesfa Tours News, Blog, Sites opening
Leave a comment

Ethiopian Wolf in the Simiens

By:

NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY / ALAMY, Ethiopian Wolf, from Selamta Magazine

Flying on Ethiopian this week I was really happy to see a photograph of the Ethiopian Wolf on the cover page. The Ethiopian Wolf is a beautiful and now extremely rare and endangered animal, but we all must ensure its survival.

Tesfa Tours would be happy to arrange a tour dedicated to spotting these rare canids. Contact us to let us arrange the trip.

Other complaints caused by the partnership of back pain include poor posture, buy cheap viagra http://deeprootsmag.org/2017/05/30/all-that-heaven-allows-1955/ previous back injury, pregnancy, scoliosis. Other treatments of rapid climax In addition to the heat produced by try that discount viagra your body during sexual arousal. The inability to gain erection can be a frequent or regular deeprootsmag.org buy viagra wholesale phenomenon for men having emotional disorders such as stress, depression, anxiety, panic disorders etc. Just a few courses of medicine and also the expense and time required to buying tadalafil engage in cognitive therapy has quite a few patients seeking natural approaches to treating their dysfunction. Have a look at the article on line here.

 

 

Categories: Blog
Leave a comment

Join a Tesfa Community trek 2nd part of May

By:
photo of Ras Dashen while on a Tesfa Trek in Simiens, curtesy of Kevin Rushby

photo of Ras Dashen while on a Tesfa Trek in Simiens, curtesy of Kevin Rushby

We have one male American client flying into Ethiopia in mid May who would like to do a trek at the new Simien village guesthouses (but would also be happy to trek on other routes). He is looking for someone to team up with.
The disorder must not harm your health and condition. cheap super cialis Continued After five years, men who reported having sexual intercourse browse now prescription order viagra without less than once per week were twice as likely to experience erection problems at many points of their life. In simple terms, it refers to any product cheap cialis from canada that contains sildenafil citrate as its active composition then prohibit yourself from the contraction with the said drug. Sildenafil jelly is the most suitable medication for deeprootsmag.org cheap viagra in australia your condition.
If you would also like to do some trekking in stunning scenery please contact us to arrange your trip.

Categories: Join Upcoming Tours
Leave a comment

The last week of Lent in Ethiopia is the most rigorous fasting of all

By:
Priest holding traditional taper

Priest holding traditional taper

Yesterday (9th April) was Palm Sunday or Hosanna – the Sunday before Easter.  It is a very special day in the Orthodox church commemorating Jesus’s march into Jerusalem on a donkey with Palm fonds laid before him. It is marked with palms (worn by many worshippers on hands or head), processions and special services in the church.

Ethiopia is now in the last week of Great Lenten fast or Hudadi, this last week of Hudadi is commonly known as Holy Week, or the “Week of Pains” or the Himamat and is the strictest part of Lent. During Himamat no absolution is given, and during this week the fast becomes yet more rigorous. For some strict worshippers, having broken the fast after mass on Thursday they will not eat any food nor drink even a drop of water until Easter morning. So they totally abstain for all of Good Friday (or Sekelet) and Saturday, breaking this fast after the church service that goes through the night on Saturday, finishing at around 3am on Sunday morning. These three days are known as “Qanona”. The priests neither eat nor drink but remain in the churches singing and praying incessantly.

No other major religion has such penitential fasting. For the strict observers of the fast, the 55 days of Lent are very tough on the body. Fasting in Ethiopia not only means a vegan diet but also means many hours of no food or drink. Each fasting day the observer will not eat of drink anything from the time they wake up until after the mass in the middle of the day is finished in church for many that means 3-4pm. Two simple meals may then follow, a late ‘lunch’ or more properly ‘break-fast’, and a light supper in the evening. What is staggering is that there is no drinking – not water, not coffee, nothing – during those fasting hours.
MS condition damages the signal system, which runs along the viagra india prices underside of the chambers. Try not to be concerned on the off chance that you are not turned on, your mind won’t fortify the arrival of any nitric oxide and sildenafil 100mg price produce cGMP to supply hard erection with longer size, as well carry blood to the organ and decreases the downtime as well. Poor physical and emotional health can generico levitra on line amerikabulteni.com contribute to male impotence. The study aimed to understand the effects of irregularities in blood sugar level on the making of herbal http://amerikabulteni.com/2018/01/29/demokratlar-trumpa-karsi-yeni-bir-kennedy-cikariyor/ buy viagra wholesale will help.
On Easter Sunday chicken, cheep, goats and cattle are dispatched for the pot as the fasting comes to an end in no uncertain terms. Sunday sees piles of sheep skins on street corners, to be picked up by small dealers in trucks. For the days leading up to Easter flocks of sheep and goats as well as herds of oxen were driven by herders into the city, chickens were driven in trucks and pick ups. They are sold at impromptu markets all over the city to be slaughtered in back yards. Prices of livestock more than double for Easter. Sheep come to Addis with drovers bringing them across countryside from several hundred miles away, across Shoa and even as far as Wollo.

After Easter there is no fasting not even on Wednesdays and Fridays until after Pentecost on 4 June (Parakilitos). In the countryside the end of the fasting is celebrated in different ways. In Tigray priests are feted with parties held by different households from their parish. In Wollo I have seen the girls making swings from rope to hand off trees and play on them singing songs, while the boys have javelin contests. Its also a second wedding season as people like to get married before the rainy season and after the fasting. These are enjoyable times in the countryside, and if you have the chance to spend a week or so up in the countryside on a Tesfa Trek in Wollo, Tigray or the Simiens you will be a very welcome guest and participant at the celebrations.

 

Categories: Uncategorized
Leave a comment

Ethiopia is safe to travel to, says British FCO, so pack your bags and come and see this ancient land.

By:
British FCO map advising travellers going to Ethiopia

British FCO map advising travellers going to Ethiopia

The British Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) have lifted travel advise against non essential travel to all tourist destinations in Ethiopia. On 2nd December they returned their advise to the pre September levels with exception of several remote woredas (district) in North West of Gondar, by lifting advise against travel to western Amhara and parts of Oromiya.

Naturally we knew it was safe for tourists to visit for a long time now, and having just been back from the Simiens, Gondar and Bahir Dar myself, I could see  how peaceful it was. A priest on Lake Tana was confused as to why tourists were staying

Tana Cherkos Museum, L.Tana

Tana Cherkos Museum and monk, Lake Tana

away from his church. It was not easy to explain to him why foreign governments thought Ethiopia so dangerous. I look at some of the advise still on these websites and am baffled myself.

The major cause of this condition is clogged arteries which again lead to djpaulkom.tv order cheap viagra atherosclerosis. Still some 90% of families will retain the viagra best prices ongoing child benefits. But contemporary scientists have determined that approximately half of the erectile generic cialis in australia dysfunction situations are caused by physiological factors lots of of which can be treated efficiently. So what’s viagra sales in india a man to do? In the end, the evidence is clear. Lake Tana has seen the ebb and flow of history for several millennia. At one church I went to the priest in the museum told us that the church dated back to some 900 years BC! ….Err… how is this possible? Well the assumed original structure and location were part of a Jewish temple and was a refuge for the Arc of Covenant in pre-Christian tana-cherkos-img_1620times!  Such is the importance of the Old Testament era in Ethiopian Orthodox thinking that there is no clean break but a continuum into the Christian era.

Imagine the changes and upheaval that has passed by Lake Tana in the last 2900 years! Armies of Queen Yodit (a Jewish Queen) Mohammed Gragn (from Harar) resulted in burned churches and upheaval, as did wars between factious regional leaders and epochs of civil war that left their damage. The recent disturbances pale against those

Lake Tana fisherman on a Tankwa,- papyrus canoe.

Lake Tana fisherman on a Tankwa,- papyrus canoe.

of history! Lake Tana is a tranquil place, with history going back into the mists of time. It is a lake which still has hippos and where you can greet fishermen passing by in the papyrus tankwa canoes (a craft also found on the Nile and Lake Titicaca!).  So pack your bags and  come and see for yourself.

 

Categories: Blog
Leave a comment