Early Saturday morning we drove back to Bahir Dar from Gondar and spent the day there going to see Blue Nile Falls and the source of the Blue Nile and taking a boat ride on Lake Tana out to 2 islands and a peninsula to see  some Monasteries and we even saw a hippo on the way back!  We spent the night in Bahir Dar and drove home the next day.  WHAT A WEEK!!! We feel SO blessed to have seen these AMAZING sights in Northern Ethiopia! Our mission president wants the couples to see the country and gave us permission to go before the Tanners' mission is over.

The Blue Nile River
It joins the White Nile from Uganda in Sudan to form the
Nile River that flows through Egypt

The boat we took to cross over to Blue Nile Falls

If you look closely in the middle you will see a crocodile on the bank!

Another crocodile on another river bank!

Elder and Sister Tanner and Elder and Sister Wold
on the Blue Nile River

Blue Nile Falls

Blue Nile Falls from another angle.... (It actually
looked a little more like the "Brown Nile" to us.)

This is a COOL bridge near the falls so the people
can cross to other villages.  It was built by the Swiss. 

A view from that bridge near
the falls ~ a LONG way down!!

This is our boat driver on Lake Tana.  We had just visited the
Monastery on the island behind us.

These two cute kids followed us all
the way from the road in town to
the banks of the Blue Nile.  The little
girl made this pot with a lid out of clay
and was trying to sell it.  

The islands were green with lush
vegetation that we walked through
to go to the monasteries.

These girls passed us carrying their bundles

These are "chat" fields.  They sell chat
everywhere along the roadside in Addis
and Debre Zeyit.  People chew it and
get "high" on it.  (Funny that our mission
president's last name is Chatfield!!) 

These three women were on the path from the
monastery on the peninsula, making beer, alcoholic
drinks and coffee to sell.  They were disappointed that
we wouldn't drink any of it! : /

These are coffee bean plants.  We see them all over.

Inside the Debre Maryam Monastery Church

A Nun at the Monastery holding a book written
in the 1600s

The oldest monk on the island

The Ura Kidane Mihret Monastery on the Zege Peninsula

This is a hippo in Lake Tana! We saw it stick its head up
three times but just BARELY caught it the last time!

I took three more photos on the road from Bahir
Dar on the way home just to show the variety
of scenery we saw.

Elder Tanner speaks Amharic very well and always
talked to kids along the way and did magic tricks
for them! They LOVED it!  (The Tanners lived here
with an NGO for 6 months in 2009 and came back
on an 18 month mission so they have been here
for nearly 2 years.) 

Here is the mouth of the Blue Nile where it
comes from Lake Tana.

Sunset on Lake Tana as we returned back to our hotel.

More scenery on the road from Bahir Dar to Addis

(At times we felt like we were driving through southern Utah!)

This is Lake Tana in Bahir Dar just across from our hotel!
It is the largest lake in Ethiopia ~ 95 kilometers long and 
65 kilometers wide. It would take 8-9 hours to go the 
whole length of the lake. (This photo WAS up at the top
of this post but it ended up down here at the bottom!?!?)

We saw this baboon by the side of the road,
so I threw him a banana and he hopped up on the post to eat it!