I had this lovely e mail this week from previous Guests at Chanters Lodge:

“Hi Richard !

We hope you are well.

We wish you and your family a great 2010 hoping to meet you again some day.
As you know, we are regular readers of your blog. Congratulations for the great extension works you have undergone in your lodge !

Here are some pictures taken during our last trip to beautiful Ethiopia and specially some of the lovely Blue Nile Falls, nothing to compare of course with your mighty Victoria Falls !

With our warmest regards.

Hélène and Jean-Michel Strobino”

They sent that lovely photo too!

The Blue Nile Falls are a waterfall on the Blue Nile river in Ethiopia. They are known as Tis Issat in Amharic, when translated, means “smoking water” They are situated on the upper course of the river, about 30 kilometers downstream from the town of Bahir Dar and Lake Tana. The falls are considered one of Ethiopia’s best known tourist attractions.

The falls are estimated to be between 37 and 45 meters high, consisting of four streams that originally varied from a trickle in the dry season to over 400 meters wide in the rainy season. Regulation of Lake Tana now reduces the variation somewhat, and since 2003 a hydro-electric station has taken much of the flow out of the falls except during the rainy season. The Blue Nile Falls have isolated the ecology of Lake Tana from the ecology of the rest of the Nile, and this isolation has played a role in the evolution of the endemic fauna of the lake.

A short distance downstream from the falls sits the first stone bridge constructed in Ethiopia, built at the command of Emperor Susenyos in 1626. According to Manoel de Almeida, stone for making lime had been found nearby along the tributary Alata, and a craftsman who had come from India with Alfonso Mendez, the Catholic Patriarch of Ethiopia supervised the construction.