Blue Nile Falls
Interesting facts
- Below the falls the Blue Nile enters a canyon about 400 km long, nicknamed the Grand Canyon of the Nile after a British team first descended it in 1968.
- The first European description of the falls appeared in 1565, in the memoirs of the Portuguese João Bermudes, the self-styled Patriarch of Ethiopia.
- In the rainy season from June to September, the river that pours over these falls supplies roughly 80 to 86 percent of the water of the Nile itself.
- Cut off by the falls, Lake Tana upstream holds 27 fish species, 20 of them found nowhere else, including 15 large barbs that grow up to a metre long.
- Those Lake Tana barbs form one of only two known species flocks of carp-family fish in the world; the other, in the Philippines, has been decimated.
- The falls are made up of four separate streams, which in the dry season can shrink almost to a trickle.
- During the summer monsoon the river carries so much eroded highland soil that its water turns dark brown, almost black.
Why it is worth it
Shortly after leaving Lake Tana, the Blue Nile tumbles over a 42-metre rock ledge in several broad streams, throwing up a cloud of spray that gives the falls their Amharic name, Tis Abay — "great smoke". In the wet season the curtain of water can stretch for more than 400 metres; in the dry months it shrinks to a few separate ribbons. The Blue Nile Falls are among the best-known natural sights of Ethiopia.
The falls lie on the upper course of the river, about 30 km downstream of Bahir Dar, in the Amhara Region of the Ethiopian Highlands. The flow is now partly regulated: a weir controls the outlet of Lake Tana, and since 2003 a hydroelectric station has diverted much of the water outside the rainy season, which is when the falls appear at their fullest. The cascade also matters to biology — it acts as a barrier that has kept the fish of Lake Tana isolated from the rest of the Nile system, which helped the lake to evolve its own endemic species.
A short way downstream stands the first stone bridge built in Ethiopia, ordered by Emperor Susenyos in 1626. According to the Portuguese Jesuit Manuel de Almeida, limestone for making mortar was found nearby along the Alata, a tributary of the Blue Nile, and the work was overseen by a craftsman who had come from India with Afonso Mendes, the Catholic Patriarch of Ethiopia at the time.
Bahir Dar, the capital of the Amhara Region, stands on the shore of Lake Tana close to where the Blue Nile leaves it; under Italian rule it became the administrative centre for the lake's southern territories. Lake Tana is the largest lake in Ethiopia, about 84 km long, and its islands and peninsulas hold old Orthodox monasteries — among them Ura Kidane Mehret, Kebran Gabriel and Daga Estifanos, where several medieval emperors are buried.
Getting there
The falls lie next to the village of Tis Abay (Tis Isat), about 1 km away, and roughly 30 km south-east of Bahir Dar. The nearest airport is Bahir Dar Airport (BJR), about 32 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Blue Nile Falls is a waterfall on the Blue Nile river in South Gondar, Amhara Region, Ethiopia. It is known as Tis Abay in Amharic, meaning 'great smoke'. It is situated on the upper course of the river, about 30 kilometres downstream from the town of Bahir Dar and Lake Tana. The falls are one of Ethiopia's best-known tourist attractions.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
11.49050, 37.58780per Wikidata