About 30 kilometers downstream from the lake Tana, the Blue Nile’s source, are the Blue Nile Falls in Ethiopia known as Tis Issat (Smoke of Fire) or Tis Abay (Smoke of the Nile). The water level was at its greatest and the falls were at their most stunning when we went in September 2017, at the end of the rainy season. Bahir Dar, the capital of the Amhara region and a city on Lake Tana, is a good starting point for a day journey to the falls.
The day before Ethiopian New Year, which is celebrated on September 11 and has its own calendar with 13 months, we went to the falls on Saturday, a market day. The principal market town and commercial hub of the area is Bahir Dar. We had to go through back roads that are not sealed because several of the city’s main roadways were closed due to the new year’s market.
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