GONDAR, ETHIOPIA (PART TWO)
This is Part II of the pics, basically most everything other than Fasil Ghebbi in Gondar--go here for Part I.

Debre Birhan Selassie is a church in Gondar that was built in the late 1700s and has a lot of art inside. First, the entrance to the compound...



The church itself...



Turret on the outer wall of the compound...



Instructions at the entrance (including no menstruating women along and noone who had sex the previous night!)...and note misspellings...



Inside...







The ceiling...



Leaving the compound...



In contrast, here's Abedeba Iyesus Church, a more typical (non-historical) church in Gondar...



Fasilides Bath (also known as Fasilides Swimming Pool) is a couple miles away from the Fasilides Castle/Fasil Ghebbes. It is filled up once per year during the Timkat festival (obviously that's not when I went).





View from the back...



Passages inside...



The roots of a Ficus (possibly Ficus tinctoria) cover one of the walls...



Outdoor fence with turret...



Close-up of the turret...



A horse tomb within the grounds...



A little bit west of Gondar is Kuskuam, a complex that is the former residence of Empress Mintiwab from the 1700s. That included this palace...







A turret...



Some ruins...



There were a lot of vultures here in the trees...





A short distance from Gondar, along the highway to the north, is a Jewish village, Falasha. There used to be a large Jewish population here, but the population of Ethiopian Jews is now down to possibly as few as a few hundred as almost all have migrated to Israel. Falasha mostly have craft shops.







A few more pics from Gondar...including something you see a lot of in Ethiopia, the drying of grains and hot peppers along the side of the street...



Here's a small shop in Gondar that still used the weight scales!



Nuxia congesta (sometimes known as brittlewood) is very common in Ethiopia, including in and around Gondar. It was in bloom...





Finally, dusk in the city center of Gondar...





Go here for Part I of Gondar.

All of the above pictures on this page were taken in March 2016 by Brandt Maxwell.

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