Blue Nile Falls

As it plunges more than 2,000 metres (6,560 feet) in its 800-kilometre (497-mile) course from Ethiopia to the Sudanese plains, the Blue Nile is what embodies the drama and mystery of the great river of history -beginning its journey with a thundering cascade over the exceptional Blue Nile Falls, thirty kilometers (19 miles) downstream from the point where it leaves Lake Tana.

Known locally as Tis Isat _’ Smoke of Fire’ - the Blue Nile Falls are the most dramatic spectacle that the whole Nile system has to offer. Four hundred metres (1,312 feet) wide when in f1′od (which normally occurs in September and October, after the raily season) and dropping over a sheer chasm more than forty-five metres (150 feet) deep, the falls throw up a continuous spray of water droplets which drench onlookers up to a kilometer away. This misty deluge, in turn, produces rainbows that shift and shimmer across the gorge and a perennial rainforest of lush green vegetation -much to the delight of the innumerable monkeys and multi-coloured birds that inhabit the gorge.

It is only a five-minute drive from the lakeside town of Bahar Dar, across the Blue Nile Bridge, to the spot where the famous river flows out of Lake Tana. But the falls are about thirty-five kilometres (22miles) south of the town and are best approached from Tis Isat Village, a market settlement of the Amhara people who live in this area farming crops like wheat, sorghum and teff (from which injera, the national bread, is made).

On leaving the village the footpath meanders first beside fertile open fields, then drops into a deep basaltic rift spanned by an ancient, fortified stone bridge built in the seventeenth century by Portuguese adventurers and still in use. After about a thirty-minute walk, a stiff climb up a grassy hillside is then rewarded by magnificen t view of the falls, breaking the smooth edge of the rolling river into a thundering cataract of foaming white water.

The site overlooking the waterfall has been visited over the years by many notable visitors, including the late eighteenth-century Scottish traveller James Bruce, and, in more recent times, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.

Although not so spectacular, the Blue Nile Gorge near the falls- often providing views reminiscent of America’s Grand Canyon -also has breathtaking scenery. Other impressive gorges are formed by various tributaries of the Nile, such as the one near Debre Tsige, which is about sixty-nine kilometres ( 43miles) from Addis Ababa. Thirteen kilometres (eight miles) further on, a sheer cliff drops more than 1,000 metres (3,000feet) into another awesome gorge, formed by the Zega Wodel River, one of the Blue Nile tributaries.