❝AT ELEVEN DEGREES NORTH LATITUDE, A new day by boat allowed us to continue the incursions from Górgora along the coast and nearby islets of Lake Tana, and take us to the monasteries of Galila and Mandaba and the ruined complex of Maryam Gimp.
The first monastery we visited, Galila, was the furthest from Gorgora, about two hours away. It had no landing stage and a steep climb through a black rock face, as usual. Many of the monks came to greet us. They had been warned about our visit.
This small but well-proportioned monastery has lost practically all the splendor it once achieved (the walls are completely bare and the roof is still in need of replacement), but it persists. The endearing story of the founder Abba Zacharias, who arrived walking on the waters of Lake Tana and then he helped himself with a hippopotamus until, turning against him, he had to curse God to tame him and end up becoming part of the legendary history of the monastery.
Some copies, perhaps dating at most to the middle of the 19th century, hang on the wall of the main entrance, telling the story of the foundation and the first monks. Others are simply destroyed. The doors are unadorned except for some slight, primitive grooves on the jambs, four steps representing the four evangelists. Apparently, some of the manuscripts are safe in the same place, but we haven't been able to see them.
The guide and the boatman brought a collapsible metal lectern and bundles of candles for offerings, along with some other bags of food. After a brief moment of communal prayer, we headed to some huts a little further down and shared a meal there. injera with mitmita Or perhaps some other spiced concoction. I didn't try the fermented beverage they offered me, given the fizz it came with.
One of the fishermen who was casting the cast net near the monastery joined us as soon as he saw us disembark and then accompanied us with his handmade canoe made from papyrus reeds, The typical tankwa, tied with a rope to our outboard motor, until Maryam Gimp's Palace, a promontory on a peninsula about five kilometers away. We would take part of its catch of barbel back to Gorgora.
In ruins, it gives a measure of some dimension, a foretaste of Gondar's architecture, a paneled wall in Renaissance style that stands tall, like a luxurious classic Roman thermal bath.
After the walk to the old palace, not too steep, easy and smooth, some monks, accommodated in some rooms not too far from the sort of landing stage, invited us to injera and milk. They consulted with the guide on some matters of administration and health—a very ugly open wound—and exchanged information about their motives.
On the way back to Gorgora, we made our last stop to visit the Mandaba Monastery. At a bend where a sort of jetty emerged and one of the monks was modestly bathing, we moored the noisy outboard motor. The monastery is completely rebuilt, with carvings on the entrance doors and a kind of soundless frieze hanging from the tightly closed wing. The museum, dimly lit, as is usual, displayed a completely strange mix: Belgian-made rifles from at least a century ago among the bones of hippopotamus heads, white cloth caps, ostrich eggs, handwritten books, icons of Renaissance European style, perhaps from the 17th century, with little attention paid to them on the side closest to the floor, lecterns, and lampstands.
The carambola of some images makes me happy, like this one that I share below. For another occasion the details of the ceremony in which we all participated: the monks, the Chinese, some Tibetans who had come and me unexpectedly●
