Gondor

Our flight to gondor was full, but our guide said the drive was nice with a nice roads, so rather than wait at the airport we decided to go by taxi and see the countryside.  It was 185 km to Gondor and turned out to be a great decision.  As everywhere else we had been we saw people were walking everywhere. We saw men carry huge piles of wood on there backs or plows to use in the field, kids carrying babies on their back, women carrying huge water jugs on there back. It was pretty amazing. During the drive we crossed the Nile river and saw 2 hippos wading in it. Our driver told us that it was a sacred river and we could not take a photo of it so you will just have to visualize that one.   The drive was incredible! We were so excited to see the countryside, the people going about their business as a typical day entails, the circle homes busy with activity. Come to find out the animals sleep in the home with the family or the man sleeps outside with the animals. 

It was about a 3 hour drive and paved the whole way. I rode shotgun as i was able to communicate with the driver the best.  I was lovin' every bit of it and wanted to soak it all in.  About half way through the drive I was noticing how they were plowing the fields.  The farmer has two very skinny cows attached with rope to a "plow" that consists of wood logs or sticks.  One sticking into the ground and one crossed to keep it square.  The farmer circles his whip in a lasso style to signal the cows to move while balancing the plow for depth and direction.  I asked the driver if it was possible to try to plow behind the 2 cows. Our driver became very excited and said "do you want to try" so we drove a little and found a farmer close to the road and our driver asked if we could try. I went first with a whip in one hand and the plow in the other i got the cows moving. It was cool to experience what I was seeing first hand. I think i could have gotten the hang of it with a little more practice. My dad did it next. He was a little awkward with his long legs.  The plow was set up for a much shorter man so he had to crouch down to dig in the plow.  We all thought it was pretty funny.  We must have been quite a spectacle because we gathered quite a group of people and they were all laughing at/with us. We also played one of their musical instruments. This experience turned out to be one of our highlights so far. I am so glad our flight was full. 

The Gondor Guide (aka: Groom) met us and we had a 2 hr break at the hotel which overlooked Gondor neat hotel. After lunch our guide met us for our excursion to see some castles. Gondor was the capitol after the fall of the Axumite empire around the 10th century. They reminded me of some of the castles in Scotland but not quite as elaborate.  There were 10 castles on one property basically when one took over as king he would build a new castle. We then went to a church that was built in the shape of an ark. This church had stories all over. On the ceiling there were faces with the big eyes looking at you no matter were you stood.  Max loved the staffs and the noise makers.  One interesting thing about this place was a fence surrounding the church with about 20 round pillars about 6 ft in diameter. Monks lived in these tiny places. The next place we went to was a secone home to one of the rulers. This house was built in the center of a swimming pool twice the size of a Olympic size pool.  It was filled with water by diverting part of the river.  Gondor has a university so there are lots of students. We then went to the center of town. There was a fair amount of Italian influence as they occupied it during the late 1930's. We went to the open market to try our skills at negotiating. Which turned out to be quite poor but we are fine with it. There was a naked man walking down the street and my mom and Ann made the driver turn around for another drive-by. How embarrassing for the rest of us. The market was busy lots of people.  We're starting to get adjusted to the time zones.