Tag Archives: Churches

Ethiopia Part VII: Bahir Dar – The Ethiopian Riviera

13 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by in Africa, Ethiopia

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Hiking the Blue Nile Falls in Bahir Dar

After the cold, high altitude hills of Lalibela, I was glad to find myself in the palm-fringed tourist destination of Bahir Dar, beautifully located alongside the shores of Lake Tana, the largest lake in Ethiopia.

As I mentioned in my prior post, Mike and I had considered beginning our Northern circuit in this city, but we opted to fly to Gonder instead because of the long distance we would have had to cover by road between the two places.  As it turned out, going to Bahir Dar as our last stop before Addis turned it into a truly pleasant last stop on the clockwise circuit we had covered.

Our flight was only 35 minutes long and very convenient, especially considering it cost less than road transport would have.  We hopped into a van offering free rides to the Palm Palace Hotel – since the “free” van to the hotel we had chosen on the plane had already left by the time we’d gotten our bags, and somehow paying for a cab to a destination that offers free transport just didn’t make sense.

We were bombarded, as usual, with a small crowd of screaming dudes who all claimed to represent the best hotels Bahir Dar had to offer and it was an all too familiar sales pitch that immediately irked me.  One particularly aggressive guy who would not leave us alone kept yelling and yelling that we should go with him, and only shut up when I point blank cursed him out to his face.  He cursed back at me and gave me the middle finger as we drove away in his competitors’ vehicle.  It somehow gave me a strange sense of satisfaction.

I know, I was getting to the end of my psychological rope in Ethiopia and I was starting to feel ready to leave.

Palm Fringed streets of Bahir Dar

The Palm Palace seemed nice enough of a hotel, and I immediately tried to take a nap as I had been unable to sleep the night before.  I was growing increasingly frustrated as well, waiting on a text message that just wouldn’t come that would inform me whether or not a friend of mine in Accra was going to be available to see me – so I could spend my last few days in Africa somewhere that I really enjoyed instead of here.

Mike and I headed out that afternoon to explore and found a rather pretty walking path which lead around the southern edge of the lake.  We ended up grabbing an early dinner at a place called Desset – which had really attractive lakeside seating on benches overlooking the water.  In need of some comfort food – I ordered Spaghetti Bolognese which I scoffed with cold beer.  Mike was not feeling too well and that combined with my admitted grumpiness resulted in us having another sibling tiff such as we’d had in Lalibela.  I absolutely adore Mike and I think he is a fantastic person and amazing traveling companion – these things inevitably happen sometimes when you’ve been traveling with the same individual for six straight weeks – especially in a country where I was literally dependent on Mike to go anywhere because of how much hassle I would get if I went anywhere alone as a female (a state I didn’t, unfortunately, have much control over).

Wanting to be alone, I took my leave and headed back to the hotel on foot.  I told myself that since it wasn’t quite dusk yet, that I should be fine taking the same pathway along the water as we had taken to dinner.  About 20 minutes into my walk, I got grabbed by the arm and waist by a random man who opened with some version of “Hey baby…where you heading so fast?  Slow down and talk to me.”  I tried to wriggle free as a slew of verbal profanity came out of my mouth.  He resisted and then said “Come on baby.  I just want to bite your ass.”

Somehow, even amidst the fear and desperation to get out of his grasp, I remember thinking how absurd his suggestion was, and how much he must have been convinced that it would serve to seduce rather than repulse me.  He couldn’t have been more wrong and eventually he let go as I spun around and kicked him in the shin and screamed at the top of my lungs.

This was in daylight with about 30 or so people walking along or milling in the park.  Nobody flinched or moved to help or intervene.  My pulse was racing and I moved away, not looking back at a faster pace than before, cursing my stupidity at leaving Mike and walking alone.

Our lovely, if noisy and mosquito infested room at the Palm Palace Hotel

I got back to my hotel physically unscathed but had a really good cry to let it all out.  Unable to go anywhere else and not really feeling like it anyway – I ended up watching a movie on Mike’s laptop and drinking whisky that I’d bought in Lalibela.  Since it was a Friday night (Feb 23) – the sounds from various clubs in the streets below our room made it very hard to sleep.  Without a fan, we had left the windows open only to have to close them as we were getting eaten alive by mosquitoes.  At around 2am, I went downstairs and got a standing fan which helped a little.

In addition, we were awoken at 0500 to what sounded like the call to prayer, but after it hadn’t let up for over an hour – we realized it was an Orthodox church ceremony which are often broadcast from speakers set up all around the church.  In this case, it was coming from St George’s church which was literally a block away from our hotel.  The ceremony was a cacophony of wailing and singing, much the same in style as what we’d endured in Lalibela.  It went on for three hours and both Mike and I resolved that this was going to be our only night at this property.

St. George’s Church in Bahir Dar – with masses loudly broadcast to one and all unfortunate enough to be sleeping nearby

We wandered off in the opposite direction around the lake to check out a few other hotels that were on the eastern part of town.  None of them were too appealing but we did manage to locate and negotiate a decent rate for a private van to take us to visit the Blue Nile Falls which were about an hour’s drive south out of the city.  We decided to put all of our luggage into the van so that we could be dropped off at a new hotel on the way back.  Alternatively, there was a small chance my friend in Accra was going to get confirmation of his return to Ghana, in which case, I would head straight to the airport on an Air miles ticket and get out of Ethiopia.

The whole trip to the Blue Nile I was on pins and needles, trying to tell myself that no matter what transpired, it was all going to work out for the best.  Not having any 3G and being entirely reliant on totally unreliable Wifi was also taking a toll.  Not being able to make arrangements for any type of travel and having communication with anyone not physically with you be logistically challenging is a frustration I will not soon forget.  We take instant, fast, internet service for granted.  You don’t realize the extent to which it permeates every aspect of our daily lives until you find yourself in Ethiopia without it.

Crossing a bridge on the loop hike to the Blue Nile Falls

We elected to be dropped off on the trail towards Portuguese Bridge and then ended up walking the entire circular circuit which drops you back at the river where you can take a boat across the water.  Luckily we had taken our driver’s phone number and so could call him to arrange our pick up.  Getting out in nature and getting a nice workout on this trail was exactly what I needed.  After dealing with hundreds of requests to “show us the way” we steadfastly made our way along the trail entirely guided by the app maps.me (which is a revelatory help, incidentally, for any traveler who is offline and needs GPS) and managed to self-navigate for the entire trail.

We managed to get quite close to the falls themselves that we’d been told would be a mere sprinkle in comparison to its full rainy season glory.  For me, they weren’t disappointing in the least and we happily navigated the muddy ground to stand in the invigorating spray that formed a beautiful rainbow where the sun hit.

Getting up close and personal with the Blue Nile Falls

The only disappointing aspect of the hike was that little kids were trying to sell us wooden flutes along the way, and one particular girl decided to hit me with hers when I kindly declined purchasing one from her.  That had never happened to me before and I was quite shocked.

Overall, the falls didn’t disappoint and we arrived back to the van muddy, sweaty but smiling.  Driving back I couldn’t help feeling the stress of the minutes ticking by and considering whether or not I would make the last flight to Addis this evening if a text arrived indicating that my friend in Accra was available for a visit.  As it turned out, that text didn’t arrive and so Mike and I decided to check into the Jacoranda hotel and I immediately ordered a double gin and tonic.  This was the last chance I had to fly out and for the trip to be worth the four-hour flight since I would be returning to fly to London on March 1st.  We elected to eat dinner at our hotel, which we were delighted with – it had a lovely fire pit out front and was really modern and excellent value for money.

It helped restore my disappointed spirits.

The food was also great – I ordered a delicious chicken in mushroom sauce with mashed potatoes and spinach.  I felt re-energized, and after a shower, Mike and I headed out to the Checheho Cultural restaurant which was absolutely wonderful and featured a large and rather crowded audience drinking beers and watching/participating in a traditional dance performance.  This was still the strangely intriguing but somewhat perplexing “shoulder” dancing that we had seen in other parts of Northern Ethiopia, but since there were at least some women on stage, it was somewhat less weird.  Here is a link to some video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1xBbg_vNRI The crowd really got into it and it was a very pleasant way to spend the evening.

The following day we decided to rent a boat across the lake to visit some of the monasteries and churches that were considered the main tourist attractions of Bahir Dar.  We elected to take the “medium speed” boat which still afforded a nice 90-minute lake journey in the blazing sun.  We were told that the boat trip would cost us 1500 Birr (about $50) and would include visits to Azwa Maryam, Ura Kidane, Kibran, and the Blue Nile Outlet.  The first two monasteries were interesting and unique in that their design was circular – something we’d not come across in religious architecture here thus far.  Inside each building were hundreds of paintings of religious and biblical scenes which included the famous depiction of the torture of St. George.

Our boat on Lake Tana

The setting of these churches, close to the beaches of the pretty peninsula also added to their appeal, which was slightly marred by the row upon row of trinket-selling stalls which lined the paths from the boat dock to the churches.

On our way back from Ura Kidane, Mike and I opted to take a coffee before pressing on with our afternoon’s itinerary.  Upon getting our coffee, our boat captain indicated that it was perhaps time to “get back”?  We were confused as we believed the tour to be only half way done and asked him why we weren’t going to Kibran or the Blue Nile?  His face got sullen and he started saying how much farther that was to drive his boat, that it was late, etc. etc. to which we responded – yeah, ok, but we are not paying you the 1500 Birr we promised you for only ½ the tour.

The outside of Ura Kidane

Ura Kidane

This made our tour guide mad and he immediately contacted the agent we had used to arrange the trip.  He put the agent on the phone and the agent explained in broken English how “everything was fine now” because he had “talked with the boat owner and told him he MUST take us to Kibran and then to Blue Nile Outlet…and that there was no problem.”  We tried, several times, to explain that yes, there was a problem in that our driver shouldn’t need “convincing” to give us the services that we had already negotiated and that we were fine with going back now since he obviously didn’t want to elongate his afternoon and was in a foul mood.  The agent and our boat driver immediately started cursing one another and began a screaming match – all while we tried to sip our coffee in this idyllic lakeside forest-fringed location.  The tranquility was gone, and our fun quotient along with it.  The cell phone was thrust into our faces several more times which was making us ever more exasperated.  In the end, we insisted on being taken straight back to town, and we paid 1200 Birr on arrival and walked away, shaking our heads.

The artwork inside the monasteries…I was convinced this depicts a man pooping…but couldn’t get a confirmation either way!

In need of a cold Habesha, we checked out the floating barge “bar” at Mango Park and became instant celebrities to the locals hanging out on this hot Sunday afternoon.  Families were out and some folks were swimming in the lake.  It was a pleasant place to recover from our tourism-by-yelling experience of the afternoon.

We took a long stroll back to the Jacaranda Hotel and opted to order dinner in again since we’d had such a wonderful meal the night before.  Cue my hilarious Chicken Leg story that I wrote about in my first Ethiopian Blog post here.  After a few beers, I opted for an early night of writing and reading.

Sipping beer on the jetty

Mango park with the bar “jetty” in the distance

On our last morning in Bahir Dar – we decided to rent bicycles and head out to the famous viewpoint next to the Palace of Emperor Haile Selassie.  We had booked a shuttle to the airport for 2pm, our flight being at 4pm.  I would be spending 2 nights and 3 days in Addis before boarding my Ethiopian Airlines flight to London.  It was hard to believe that my time in Africa was coming to an end…though I wasn’t that disappointed to be leaving Ethiopia, I must admit.

We had only ridden bikes one other time on this trip and that was in Burkina Fasso during our visit to the Royal Court of Tiabele.  I do wish bikes were more readily available to tourists to rent – they offer such a unique way to see a city and get around – with a far superior vantage point than a bus or a car.

Island on Lake Tana

Initially we headed out on bikes that had been arranged for us by the same agent we’d used to arrange the boat.  However, it became obvious pretty quickly that these bikes would need to be traded in – Mike’s brakes barely worked and my bike frame was made for someone over 6 ft tall.  So, we found our way to the rental store and tried out other bikes.  I managed to give myself a frightful injury akin to a guy getting slammed in the nuts when I tried out a bike whose gears jammed and had me falling with my full body weight onto the “male framed” central bike spoke right between my legs.  Despite my pain and hurt pride, we found two more suitable bikes and headed off out of town on our mini adventure.

Luckily, the rest of the morning went smoothly except for some nasty school boys who decided it would be fun to try and hit me as I rode past them.  Never have I met a country of more violent children before!  Having survived this onslaught – we weren’t disappointed after our efforts to climb several steep hills gave us the reward of a sweeping view over the city and Lake Tana.  As an added bonus, there was a wedding party getting official photos there – so it was fun to witness that.

Mike, at the viewpoint over the city

After a sweaty ride back, I was happy I’d packed a change of clothes and that the hotel was kind enough to let me shower before we headed to the airport.  Despite it being largely unplanned, I had enjoyed our time in Bahir Dar – mostly!

Ethiopia Part VI: Lalibela and its Churches built by Angels

29 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by in Africa, Ethiopia

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At St George’s Church – the most famous Lalibela site

Our rest day in Mekele was pretty epic for me.  I luxuriated in our semi-suite, taking the longest of hot showers, sleeping in, writing from our couch, getting a massage and a haircut!  It was a glorious day of what I like to refer to as re-humanization, and I didn’t even feel bad about not having left the hotel once during the day.  Mike went out for a wander around the city and did manage to convince me to head out that evening promising me he’d found a really good pizza joint.  He was not wrong.

Lalibela and its plethora of UNESCO world heritage sites were our next destination of choice and we initially thought we were going to be able to fly there until we realized that any flight from Mekele to Lalibela stopped over in Addis for the night first.  So, we reluctantly booked a shared car with ETT Travel for $30 each for the 9-hour drive over very hilly and sometime rough roads and terrain.  In the am when we left, we discovered that our co-passengers had re-booked for the following day and we ended up getting a car to ourselves.  I happily laid out in the back seat and spent much of the drive nose deep in my kindle.  Knowing how to spend long hours in vehicles without getting antsy was getting to be a vital talent on this trip.

We made a stop for lunch at a very non-descript hotel along the way and I tried, unsuccessfully to connect to Wi-Fi and get some messages from friends.  I swore I would never complain about the speed of Wi-Fi in the States ever again!  This lunch also afforded me yet another example of pure, willful arrogance on the part of an Ethiopian.  Our waitress, when giving us the Wi-Fi password told us that it was all lower case hotal”whateverthenameofthehotelwas”.  When I inquired, due to the strange spelling, whether she meant “hotel” rather than “hotal?” – she confidently asserted it was the latter.  Upon unsuccessfully connecting using “hotal”, but successfully connecting with “hotel” – I let her know, for the benefit of future guests who asked, that it was, indeed, “hotel” and not “hotal” that worked as the correct password.  I was trying to be helpful.  Instead, she got super argumentative and insisted that it was “hotal” – essentially calling my poor, unbiased, unthinking iPhone a liar.

I give up.  Ethiopians cannot, under any circumstances, stand corrected about anything – chicken bone or Wi-Fi password – it matters not.

Men chanting and singing during a church ceremony in Lalibela

By the time the car had started climbing up and up to the altitude of Lalibela (8,202 feet), the heavens had opened and a downpour turned the roads to a muddy torrent.  It gave the winding roads an ever more otherworldly feel since we had so rarely encountered rain on this voyage of discovery.  Once arrived, we had the car drop us at the generically named hotel Lalibela where we were happy to find a very reasonably priced ($20) room available and not so happy to feel the brisk chill in the air.

Deciding to walk into town to find dinner, we soon discovered that Lalibela itself is extremely steep and we certainly walked off our tired car-bound butts as we found ourselves making our way through the southern church complex to our chosen restaurant.

Against my better judgment, I decided I was going to try and order steak one more time, convincing myself, momentarily, that if I just explained in enough detail how not to overcook the meat, that maybe, just maybe I wouldn’t be forced to chew on shoe leather for dinner.

I was mistaken.  And paid for it.

Witnessing an infant baptism ceremony

Mike and I got into a sibling-like quarrel over dinner and he left early taking a tuk tuk back to the room without me.  I found myself in quite the foulest of moods after my disappointing meal, and the realization that I was already over-churched by this country and I wasn’t all that excited about what awaited me the next day.  I kept reminding myself that the guidebooks all claimed that Lalibela was the one place in the country that was “unmissable”.

We would see.

I took the 3rd tuk tuk I found back to the hotel, having just turned and walked away from the first two who tried to quote me a rate that was 3 times the going rate for a 10 minute journey – despite their post-quote protestations that since I’d found them out, they’d be more than happy to take me for the fair price I wanted.  How would they ever learn not to cheat the Faranji if they didn’t lose business as a consequence?

Mike and I didn’t settle our squabble till the morning, but doing so over fried eggs and decent coffee certainly helped.  We set off to the Northern complex of churches and spent the first frustrating 20 minutes trying to find a good English speaking guide.

Walkways between the churches of the northern cluster with our guide

Several claimed to speak English but couldn’t coherently answer any questions.  Some just wanted way too much money.  Finally, we settled on a guy called Mike, ignoring the fact that we only had an hour left before they closed for lunch and he wandered off for fifteen minutes saying he needed five minutes to bid goodbye to his previous group.

I took a deep breath.  It was becoming clear to me that my impatience and tolerance for the hassles of independent travel were growing.  I had one week to go before I’d be on a plane to London.  I tried to keep that in mind and stay present.

When Mike got back he immediately launched into a verbal description of the churches here in Lalibela which were built between the 7th and 13th centuries, and how each complex had been carved out of essentially one large rock.  King Lalibela’s intention with building these churches was to recreate Jerusalem.   Thinking that was, indeed, quite an impressive engineering feat, I wasn’t prepared for his straight faced explanation that the churches, therefore, had been built by the angels and not people.

Amazing architecture – must have been built by Angels

I guffawed into automatic laughter – only to see Mike reprimanding me with his ever-uber-polite face as he nodded in agreement with our guides’ utterly preposterous nonsense.  His look silenced me as I uneasily squished the slew of mockery that wanted to burst out of me and be unleashed on the head of this guide whom I was paying to teach me historically sound facts – not fill my brain with hair-brained ridiculous notions steeped in myth and blind faith.

Sigh.

Steep winding staircases

It didn’t end there.  In roaming around the first set of churches I had to listen to our guide explain:

  1. How I wasn’t going to be allowed entry into the Church of Golgotha because Jesus had told Mary Magdalene not to touch him after he was resurrected, supposedly because she might have been menstruating. Cue my epic eye-roll.
  2. Why science is wrong. Yes- you read that right.  He wanted to have a discussion about how science had lead people astray and that faith in Jesus and the Orthodox church was the only path to enlightenment.
  3. Why a pool of putrid green bacteria-laden filthy water had miraculous properties that cured infertility if the woman agreed to being lowered into it, naked. Of course I wanted to know WHO and HOW she was lowered naked…but I was again, shushed by you-know-who.  (Mike – if you’re reading this, know that I love you.)
  4. How there must be something fundamentally wrong with me if I had chosen not to have babies and how I absolutely should still try to find a husband who could give me some as that was the purpose of a woman.

The green “fertility-cure” pool

I tried to focus on the architecture of these quite magnificent ancient buildings instead, also trying not to think about the all-too-familiar filthy carpet that hadn’t been changed in several decades that we were forced to walk upon shoe-less.

Toward the end of our morning tour, we were told that we would be “lucky enough” to witness a live church ceremony taking place as part of the festivities of Lent.  We entered a church that was jam-packed with old and young tiny turbaned men all draped in massive lengths of white cotton happily clanging away on their little crosses with bells on them as they took it in turns to sing (I use this term very loosely as it connotes with it the sense that there might be melody or musicality of some sort accompanying said “singing”.  In actuality, the sound this group made was reminiscent of a group of urology patients who were simultaneously and unceremoniously having their catheters removed against their will and without the assistance of anesthesia or pain meds.)

St. Georges from the side

The cacophony these discordant laments produced was extremely uncomfortable for me to listen to.  Now, I came across a variety of tourists over the course of our two-day stay in Lalibela who remarked that they enjoyed these dirge-like choruses (Dirge, not to be confused with Derg which was the name given to the ruling communist party in Ethiopia from 1975 for 13 years which resulted in the “Red Terror” and the genocide of over 750,000 citizens.  Mike kept warning me not to say “Dirge” out loud as I might offend people, until I pointed out that the words Derg and Dirge only sound alike and don’t mean the same.)  I can’t say I was one of them.  I had to get away as quickly as possible.

Additionally, I had to get away when I learned how women are not allowed to participate in the actual church ceremonies.

Ugh.

I include a video here so that you can judge for yourselves.  And, as a nice comparative, I also include a tiny excerpt from the choral singing of the York Minster that I visited a few weeks later in the UK – you can be the judge of which style of worship is more musical.

As a comparison, here is a short excerpt from a choir singing during mass at York’s Minster.

Mike and I made our way back to our hotel via St. George’s church – the most famous of the Lalibela landmarks.  I had this notion that perhaps, in the last few moments before closing for lunch, we might find it devoid of crowds and therefore more photo worthy.

I was right – and we happily spent a solid 20 minutes taking an array of pictures of the very thing that adorns countless travel magazines and brochures beckoning folks to experience Ethiopia.

After much needed fruit smoothies and a quick rest, we returned to the Southern circuit of churches, stopping momentarily to take in the museum at the site’s entrance.  There were no signs or explanations, unfortunately, in English – so we spent most of the time there trying to make sense of the numerous pictorial depictions of torture (we were later informed these paintings all signified the 7 deaths by torture and subsequent miraculous return to life of St. George) that involved all manner of horrific ways that humans can produce pain and death in another human.

The afternoon’s complex of churches was actually very interesting – and made further enjoyable by the fact that they are all connected via subterranean dark tunnels that the guide assured us were symbols of the “passages of hell.”  I wondered if, perhaps they just made it easier to get from one underground church to another without needing to climb up and around, but I had learned to keep my mouth shut by this point.

Entering one of the passageways between churches

It is quite difficult for me to comprehend the massive commitment of time, labor and resources that must have gone in to create this many churches and to have made so many, underground, so close to one another and carved out of solid pieces of rock.  It is quite a wonder and a marvel to see.

I hope that the tone of my post doesn’t fail to express how impressive the site itself is.  It certainly earns its reputation as the 8th wonder of the world.  It was beautiful and certainly a historian or archaeologist’s dream to visit.  I simply found I was unable to connect to the place on an emotional level.  I think you need to be a person of faith for that.  And I’m not.

That evening, Mike and I ventured out to the “best restaurant in Ethiopia” and found a restaurant that had an incredible view, and a pretty decent menu.  A storm was brewing and we enjoyed watching the thunderclouds gather and listened to the rumbles as we ate.

Views as the thunderclouds gathered at Mountain View Restaurant

As we walked back up a set of hills in order to find a tuk tuk back to our accommodation, we were passed by a group of kids around 5 or 6 years of age who asked us where we were from.  Upon hearing our response, they all chanted “We Hate Trump!”

We feel you, I thought.  Even here, in the remote holy city of Lalibela, tiny humans knew all about the International disgrace that our President has brought upon our nation.  For that I continue to lament.

On arrival, we got into a discussion with the guy at the front desk about our travel options for getting to our next stop – Bahir Dar.  It turned out that we would pay about $50 USD each for the 6-7 hour drive.  However, he pointed out that there were two flights per week that only cost $40 USD, and it just so happened that there was a flight that next morning.  After a brief chat about the pros and cons of leaving Lalibela sooner than originally planned (we were considering another 2-3 day trek amongst the surrounding villages) Mike and I decided to book 2 seats on the flight leaving the next morning.

Boarding our little plane for the short 40 minute flight from Lalibela to Bahir Dar

I was happy that we were going to essentially end our Northern Historical tour of Ethiopia in a city that we had reluctantly excluded from the start of our journey because of the driving distance from Bahir Dar to Gonder, our first stop.  Adding this city to the end of our clockwise journey solved that problem and eliminated the need to make that connection overland since we’d simply be flying back to Addis in a few days in any case.

My next post will be from this lakeside, palm-fringed tourist destination.

Ethiopia Part IV: Tigray – where Churches are the Cherry not the Cake

08 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by in Africa, Ethiopia

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Views over Tigray

We had only driven out of Axum for about 90 minutes – I was laying spread out across one of the bench seats, taking advantage of our massive luxurious van for just the two of us – when Mike told me to get up and look out of the window.  This is what I saw.

Scenery right out of Axum

The geography in this area of Ethiopia is astounding.  A huge pink and orange rock escarpment with towering sandstone cliffs and mountains that are reminiscent of Utah, Arizona’s Monument Valley, North Western Australia and Namibia to mention a few similar places.  This is all just wonderful – BUT!  They sold me this trip to see CHURCHES??????!!!!

It blows my mind that the tour company who markets this particular route only focuses on the historic churches that we would get to see.  No mention is made of the views, or the trekking opportunities.  All that was said was that a few of the churches on day two required a little bit of clambering to get to.  This was a huge understatement, both in scope and in practical terms.

Mike ascending the vertical wall at Debre Damo

I had agreed to make our first stop the monastery of Debre Damo – which only allowed for male visitors.  In fact, the monks only allowed male cows, chickens, donkeys and any other livestock they needed for their purposes to be provided for their day to day needs.  I’m guessing female cows would be just too much of a powerful temptation for them, living all alone at the top of a monolithic mountain?

The fun part of visiting this monastery is that it involved a near vertical 15 m rock climb where the priest assists the person climbing via a rope around the waist.  Mike is a little afraid of heights, so I was super proud of him for wanting to give this a go.  Plus, I wanted everything documented on camera in case something funny or super embarrassing happened to him on the way up or down.

Fortunately for me, I got both.

Enjoy this wonderful video footage of Mike being aided down the rock, and toward the end, not even being allowed to place his feet to steady himself: https://youtu.be/xWNVzRtlYG8

After a nice lunch, our next stop was located at the end of another stunning drive through the magnificent countryside, and according to the guidebook, one of the most scenic roads in the country.  There was a complex of 3 churches called the Teka Tesray cluster, but we’d been advised to just visit the most beautiful – Medhane Alem.  As we approached the trailhead (because, yes, you have to hike to each of these churches as they’ve been built literally into the rock/mountain) we were swarmed by a bunch of kids wanting to make some quick birr to show us the way.  We chose one competent looking enough chap and we made our way through the late afternoon sun up the steep sandstone cliffs to the church – which was about 30 minutes away.

Beautiful Medhane Alem

What made this particular location a little unique was that we were surrounded by a beautiful variety of cacti, eucalyptus trees, and green, rolling hills.  It reminded me of a fragrant late afternoon in Tuscany – except without the olive trees.  We entered the gated entrance with its standard issue crowd of elderly shawled folk who seemed to “live” at the church and beg for money.  We were told to remove our shoes and make our way through the dirty and rocky garden area leading to the white rock-hewn church – and I just couldn’t understand why they didn’t just let us remove our shoes at the doorway – thereby ensuring we didn’t bring the dirt and dust inside the church with us.  I asked this of our guide and was informed that the rocky path was already “holy land” which appeared to be more important than whether or not it was clean.

Artwork inside Medhane Alem

The inside of this 6th century church was very cool and carved out in one giant piece, consisting of 4 inter connected rooms containing mosaics, remnants of religious artwork depicting the angels and the apostles, and of course, the holy of holies that contained a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, in line with Ethiopian Orthodox teachings.

As usual, the outside and surrounding scenery was more fascinating to me than the inside of the church, where it was hard for me to not be preoccupied with how old the carpet was and how many thousands of dirty feet had walked here since it was last replaced.

Having said that, the feat of work this represented and the age of the church itself was pretty staggering.  I think when you’re dealing with architecture this ancient, it is really hard for a layman to determine the actual talent that may or may not be involved in its creation, based purely on its age.

As with many of these very very old churches – the guides often claimed that the only explanation for their creation at a time when technology was so limited was that they were made with the assistance of the angels.  These explanations are given entirely with a straight face, I might add.

Making our way back to the van as the sun was setting was rather magical and I managed to get some nice sunset shots.  Why is it we never tire of a beautiful sunset?

Pretty sunset as we descend from Medhane Alem

That night we stayed in a small town called Hawzen.  It took visiting four hotels before Mike and I found one with an available room that had hot water in the bathroom – the Habesha Hotel.  We soon headed out in search of a restaurant our driver had recommended, and when we did finally find it – it turned out it was only serving fasting food.  It’s funny to me how excited the restaurant staff are to tell us that their menu doesn’t contain any dairy, meat or animal fat of any kind – but it’s clearly because they don’t realize that hearing such news is an instant disappointment for me.

I settled on ordering some vegetable soup and beer.  And eating some rice off of Mike’s plate, of course.

Our second day in Tigray was definitely the highlight.  This is in spite of the horrendous hassle we had to overcome in locating a scout for each of the two churches we hiked to – you can read about the first instant in my former post here.  Despite this, it was easily my favorite day of the entire trip – perhaps since the scenery, degree of difficulty, and the steep ledges we had to scramble over to reach these churches built on top of mountains was altogether unexpected.

Stunning landscapes and beauty of Ethiopia

Our first visit was to a church called Abuna Yemal, which, funnily enough – was featured in a BBC article about the priest having what was claimed the “most difficult commute in the world.”  The route was a tough scramble, possibly a technical enough route that a harness and rope would be called for were it in the States – but I certainly enjoyed the adrenaline rush that came from trying to find foot and hand holds (and doing so in the midst of yelling at the bunch of super annoying men, dressed in SUITS I might add, to shut the hell up as they threw out constant muttered directives of how and where I should climb, assuming I was a complete idiot who’d never scrambled before.)

Me, ascending sans rope to the Rock Hewn church of Abuna Yemal

I was, however, filled with more than adrenaline when one of these douche bags (who expect tips even though you never asked for help, in fact, when you had actively told them to go away multiple times) actually down climbed right over the top of me and stood on my hand.  I screamed at him, in a terrified rage, for committing the ultimate rock climbing faux pas – though I’m not sure he really gave a shit.

It did end up being totally worth it – and the views from the teeny tiny ledge that led to the church were stupendous.  Hopefully you can get some idea from these pictures.

Sitting on a ledge near the church

Again, the church was a nice cherry to find at the top of this climb, but the journey was reward enough in itself.

This first church was about 3 hours return, and it was well past lunchtime by the time we got back to the van.  I cursed not having known about the number of hours we’d be hiking today, and I cursed our guides/drivers for not telling us to pack a lunch with us to help fuel us for the afternoon’s venture out to Maryam Kokor – which was going to take us another 3 arduous hours to climb and return from.  Luckily, Mike had some chocolate in his pack and Sneetchi gave us some bananas…so we managed fairly well despite our outputs.  It’s just that this was clearly not the first time this company had brought tourists to these places – so why can’t they advise this ahead of time?  SMH.

Not so happy priest at Abuna Yemal with ancient text inscribed on goat skin

The approach to Maryam Kokor was very different, as was our lovely and QUIET scout whom our driver had been kind enough to arrange for us to have after the nightmare we’d experienced at Abuna Yemal.  There were sections of tunnel-like through paths of rocks with giant sandstone walls rising up either side of us.  Then there were sections where we had to clamber on hands and feet on well-trodden and eroded “steps” up the pink cliffs.

Views were out of this world and I include some pictures here.

There were two small churches to visit at the top of the mountain, and the first had separate entrances for men and women.  It looked rather like Medhane Alem inside, though the artwork was far better preserved.  The second much smaller church had just one room with a mural going in a circle across all four walls – but we had to navigate a narrow ledge where the wind threatened to pick us up and throw us up and over the edge where we’d fall several thousand feet to the valley below.  I include some pictures and videos of this exhilarating hike here.

Hanging out on ledges

I felt extremely satisfied and physically spent by the time we made it back to the van.  Here is a link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EGFHA4FemY  Not just that – I was rather hungry, but we opted to grab avocado smoothies and make our way to Mekele since it was already 4:30pm in the afternoon – and we would be leaving for our 4 day/3-night trip to the Danakil Depression the very next day – and probably at early o’clock.

Maryam Kokor

We visited our tour agency on arrival in Mekele to pay for our trip – but alas, the credit card machine wasn’t working (shocking, I know.)  So Sneetchi dropped us at a nice hotel (which was a little expensive, but well worth the little bit of luxury we felt we deserved) where we got a SEMI-SUITE, which was essentially a room with an adjoining living area.  More importantly, the restaurant served burgers and fries which we joyfully washed down with large beers and toasted our incredible two day adventure visiting historical churches…I mean, trekking through some of the best scenery I’ve experienced yet on the Dark Continent.