Our Ethiopian odyssey: the complete narrative
February 21st, 2015 by Roger Darlington
During our two-week holiday in Ethiopia, I blogged most days about the travel experience of that day. I have now pulled all the postings into a single narrative.
Even if you read the various blog postings, you might want to look at the narrative because:
- the headings relate to locations rather than dates
- there are hyperlinks to related web sites
- some errors have been corrected and a few facts added
You can check out the narrative here.
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What happened when I missed my desserts
February 21st, 2015 by Roger Darlington
A day after our return from a two-week holiday in Ethiopia, I weighed myself and found that I had lost almost 3 kilos.
Partially this must be due to all the tough walking we did. Partially, however, it must be because we rarely had deserts and then it was usually a banana.
As friends and colleagues know, I do love my desserts. What sort? Check it out here.
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Our Ethiopian odyssey (14): conclusion
February 20th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Our flight back to London was an overnight one, so Dawit took us out for our first non-hotel meal. It was to a place called the “2000 Habesha Cultural Restaurant”. In fact. It was not like a restaurant at all: a large rectangular room had buffet food at one of the narrow sides and a stage on one of the long sides. The food was divided into fasting and non fasting food, the difference being that fasting food uses no animal products and is consumed by those observing the Ethiopian version of Lent.
The stage was the platform for a performing troupe which consisted of five musicians playing traditional instruments, two singers (one male and one female) and six dancers (three male and three female). The music was quite repetitive but the dancing was immensely energetic. Traditional Ethiopian dancing makes most use of the upper body with jerky movements of the shoulders especially. Naturally individual dancers came down among the audience and invited selected individuals to emulate their moves and naturally Roger had a go in the interests of international relations.
So, another holiday abroad is over. How should we assess this one?
Well, a holiday in Ethiopia is not for everyone. The country scores among the lowest on the globe in the World Development Index and in terms of GDP per capita. It was humbling to see such abject poverty and to appreciate just how privileged we are and a real pleasure to find how friendly people are and how much young people want to practice their English.
Ultimately, however, for the tourist who wants something different and is prepared for some challenges, Ethiopia is a great destination. The exotic names of places we visited were themselves magical: Addis Ababa, Axum, Lalibela … But the history was so rich and fascinating, whether it was the skeleton of Lucy, the stelae of Axum, the rock churches of Lalibela, or the castles of Gondar and the terrain was awesome whether it was the mountains of the Simien National Park or the waters of Lake Tana. In fact, four of the locations we viewed are World Heritage Sites.
Although this was only a trip of two weeks, it involved six flights and seven hotels, not to mention some long road journeys and some difficult walking. On the road, there are generally no service stations or cafes suitable for foreigners. A couple if the hotels were excellent, while the others were adequate but often lacking in the sort of services that are common in most countries, such as decent lighting, space to hang clothes, and Internet access which is not continuously absent or lost and that is not slower than we remember from dial up.
At one level, we never had to worry about food and drink because breakfast, lunch and dinner for every day were included in the tour arrangements and price, the food was aimed at a western palate, and we were constantly supplied with bottled water. At another level, we were anxious about food because hygiene levels are low and two of the group had very serious diarrhoea. Vee never has stomach problems on holiday and Roger was fine until the last day. In fact, the food was much better than we expected, if unspectacular, but the service was invariably very slow and a bit hit and miss.
The holiday was made by our tour guide Dawit. He was immensely knowledgeable and resourceful and coped very well with some difficult individuals and situations. He has a great love for his country’s history and culture and communicated this clearly and passionately.
Although, for Roger & Vee, this was probably the most challenging holiday of our lives, we loved it and were inspired by it. We feel sure that Ethiopia has a real future as a tourist destination for the discerning traveller and we were delighted that we had visited before it becomes popular.
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Our Ethiopian odyssey (13): back to Addis Ababa
February 19th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Our last day in Ethiopia – day 13 (Thursday) – started early with the alarm at 5.45 am. Vee & Roger found that, in spite of mosquito nets in our four-poster bed, we had been bitten on face, arms and hands. The group left the hotel at 7.30 am and proceeded to the airport at Bahir Dar where we took our fourth and final internal flight. This was a return to Addis Ababa which only took 40 minutes.
The last time we were in the capital it was Sunday and it was very apparent now that this was a week day because the traffic was very heavy. Nevertheless we were driven around the Mercato which is said to be the largest open-air market in Africa. It was not just much larger than the three other markets we had seen, but more substantial with most shops located in permanent structures. One area concentrates on recycled materials, while another section is supplied by stolen goods.
At this point, we returned to the hotel where we had started out holiday – the Radisson Blu – where, after lunch, we were allocated day rooms. At 3 pm, there was the final excursion of the trip but only five members – including Roger – took advantage of this. There was still more shopping to be done so we visited a textile factory & shop called Muya Ethiopia and then some other shops. Roger went to the first shop and bought a number of items but he skipped the other shops because, alone of the group, he was very keen to visit the Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum.
This museum, which was opened in 2010, commemorates the murder of opponents of the communist Derg (the word means simply ‘Committee’) mainly in 1977-78. All the exhibits in the museum – mainly photographs of political demonstrations and of victims of the atrocity – are labelled in Amaric and (poor) English and an English-speaking guide was available to provide further explanation. According to Amnesty International, up to half a million people were killed in the terror and a small room in the museum features glass cases full of skulls and bones of a selection of the victims. The guide told Roger: “This is our Holocaust”.
Dawit explained that the museum does not provide some appropriate context. Initially the military Derg – who overthrew the Emperor Haile Selassie – were popular with most people because they reformed the land tenure system and controlled food prices. But clearly this was another case in history of a revolution devouring those it was originally intended to serve.
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Our Ethiopian odyssey (12): Blue Nile Falls
February 18th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Day 12 (Wednesday) was our penultimate day in Ethiopia.
Our morning excursion was to the Blue Nile Falls. Leaving the hotel at 8.40 am, we were soon onto yet another unmade road all the way to the falls. Although the journey was only 30 km, it took over an hour because it was so bumpy and rocky. Once again, there was all that damn dust. We pitied the drivers of the flat two-wheeled carts pulled by weary donkeys and the little children standing by the roadside looking at these white strangers.
We only stopped once just outside Bahir Dar by the side of a large rubbish tip where a dead donkey was being devoured by dogs and dozens of vultures perched in a tree or wheeled overhead waiting for the dogs to give them their share of the creature. Once we left the vicinity of town, however, the landscape was greener than anything we had seen elsewhere in Ethiopia because the locals are able to use water diverted from the nearby Nile.
The Blue Nile Falls is known locally as Tis Abay Falls or ‘the water that smokes’. Once we reached the area, we made a short boat trip downstream and over to the over side accompanied by a local guide and an armed soldier. Then it was a ten minute walk to view the falls themselves. Now these falls are at their most spectacular during and after the rainy season (from about June to January) so, this being mid February, we were not expecting much of a show – but we were in for a surprise.
The local hydro-electric power station was closed because of a technical problem with one of the turbines, so much more water than usual for this time of year was pouring over the falls just now. There are two vantage points: one about the level of the top of the falls and another about two thirds down. Although the falls is only 42 metres high and it was not the rainy season, it was still an awesome sight: about a dozen streams of water coming over the rocks and one thunderous deluge thanks to the problem with the power station.
We returned to our hotel for lunch and then at 2.30 pm went out again for a mini excursion in town. Two of the group opted out of this trip to spend time in the hotel’s swimming pool, but the rest of us – including Vee & Roger – wanted to see as much as possible.
We drove past the Martyrs Memorial Monument which is dedicated to those who died fighting the Derg. Then we went up to the Bezawit Palace which was built in 1967 for the then Emperor Haile Selassie who only spent two nights there before he was overthrown. It is not open to the public and cannot be photographed. Nearby the palace is a viewpoint over the town of Bahir Dar and down in the river between us and the town we spotted a hippopotamus. The other stop was to visit the Main Market. This is large and lively and specialises in variety of grains, herbs and spices. Some of the group bought coriander, cumin and pepper. The locals were surprised to see us there but the youngsters were happy to greet us with their little English.
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Tomorrow is the last day of our holiday. We fly to Addis Baba in the morning and then to London overnight. When we reach home, I’ll post a final piece on the trip with some general observations.
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Our Ethiopian odyssey (11): Gondar and Lake Tana
February 18th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Day 10 (Monday) and it was time to leave the Simien Mountains and head back to Gondar. We set off at 8.40 am on what was going to be our last long road journey of the holiday. The first 40 minutes of our ride was a bouncy time back down the unmade road to the national park entrance at Debark. Clearly we were not the only ones to find this section rough because, on a road with virtually no other vehicles, we passed an ambulance that had crashed. Debark was in high spirits as the previous day the Prime Minister had visited the town to lay the first stone for a new university.
Our first stop was at a field which had a spring from which local people collected water for cleaning and washing but not drinking. Small women struggled to a carry 20 litre cans of water on their back. Nearby a flock of vultures was stripping the entrails from a dead donkey, identifiable only by his head. As always, we were soon surrounded by local kids crying out: “You! You! Money, money, money!”
After almost two and a half hours travelling, we halted for a bush toilet stop, for those who were desperate enough. Next we made a quick visit to a local primary school where we joined a class of seven year olds. They rehearsed for us some of their English language skills: the naming of the days of the week and the parts of the body. In turn, we were asked to sing them a song and gave them a rather hesitant rendition of “Old McDonald Had A Farm”. Before we left, we called in on the headmistress and donated pens and money.
The final stop before lunch was to a village called Wolleka. The claim to fame – or at least some kind of tourist attraction – was that this village used to be home to Felasha or Ethiopian Jews until 1985 and 1990 when all 150,000 Jews in the country were airlifted to a new life in Israel. The site was of some particular interest to the one American in a group, a Jewish woman from Boston.
Once we reached the town of Gondar, we had lunch at the “Four Sisters Restaurant”. It was the first time in three and a half hours that we had had access to a toilet. Suitably relieved and refreshed, we then had an afternoon tour of Gondar.
Located at an altitude of more than 2,300 metres, Gondar was founded in 1636 by Emperor Fasilidas as Ethiopia’s first capital and it remained the capital for 250 years. Even today, it is a sizeable town with a population of about 230,000. But we were here to dwell on the town’s history.
First, we viewed the famous castles. Fasilidas constructed the first castle and the emperors who followed in the 17th & 18th centuries then built their own castles, creating a royal compound of six castles and a variety of other buildings. Today the Fasil Ghebbi or Royal Enclosure is a UN World Heritage Site. Ethiopia is the only African nation with such castles and Gondar is known as “the castle capital of Africa” or “the Camelot of Africa”.
The oldest castle, attributed to Emperor Fasilidas, was built in 1640 (and partially restored in the mid 20th century) and the newest was constructed in the mid 18th century. We looked at all of them (except the last which was closed) plus a Turkish bath and banqueting hall. All the time, we were assailed by the sounds of no less than three different churches broadcasting services to mark the first day of Lent.
After the castles, we drove over to see the Fasilidas Bath. This is a large rectangular pool (empty most of the time) overlooked by a charming building and surrounded by low walls overrun with the roots of banyan trees. It was used by royalty for swimming but also for religious purposes. Even today, once a year the baptism of Christ is celebrated here in a major event called Timkat.
Our final visit in Gondar was to a wonderful church. Many of Gondar’s churches were destroyed by the Dervish or Mahdist invasion from Sudan in the 1880s, but one remained untouched: Debre Berhan Selassie. According to legend, this church – which was built in 1683 – was saved by the intervention of a swarm of bees. The roof is topped by a cross featuring ostrich eggs which represent God looking at each of us as an ostrich allegedly watches over its eggs. A particular feature of the church is the ceiling of paintings of some 120 angels, said to be the most famous example of ecclesiastical art in Ethiopia.
It was 4.50 pm, over eight hours since we had left the Simien Lodge, when we rolled up to our accommodation for the night: the all-new Mayleko Lodge on the outskirts of Gondar. It was at this point that an already challenging trip became truly interesting. In Axum, the town had lost all Internet connection for a while; in Lalibela, the town had lost electricity for a time; now, here at the Mayleko Lodge, we were met with the news that they had no running water. A vote was taken as to whether we should stay put or transfer to another hotel and by one vote it was decided to tough it out at Mayleko Lodge (it seemed that most were just too tired to travel further).
So, once we were located in our respective chalets, staff brought round large plastic cans of water, followed by a couple of buckets and a jug, for us to use for washing and going to the toilet (showers were out of the question). This is, of course, how most Ethiopians live (although they have to fetch the water from some distance), so perhaps this incident was Cox & Kings’ effort to bring us an authentic Ethiopian experience. That evening at the lodge, the group had a really good dinner with lots of free red wine to excuse the lack of running water.
Day 11 (Tuesday) was one lake and three churches. But to get to the lake – we left the lodge at 8.15 am – we had to take yet another unmade road south, so it was a case of more rattling and rolling over very rocky surfaces, more sharp pinging as loose rocks smashed into the underside of the minibus, and more of that ubiquitous dust. But it took us ‘only’ an hour and a half to reach the little town of Gogora on the north shore of Lake Tana.
Before boarding our boat, we visited our first church: the 17th century Church of Debre Sina Maryam. Like all the churches we were visiting today, it was a circular structure reflecting the style of many rural Ethiopian homes. As with all the churches we viewed today, Dawit took us around the central inner sanctuary or ‘maqdas’ in the order west wall-south wall-east wall-north wall (for a service, men stand on the north side and women stand on the south side), explaining the iconography of the paintings representing various scenes from both the Old Testament and the New Testament in what is known as the first Gondar style.
At 10.50 am, we boarded our craft for the day: a boat called “Nigat” which was only for our group and provided refreshments and a toilet. And so we set set off to cross Lake Tana from north to south, a distance of around 70 km. This lake is Ethiopia’s largest covering over 3,500 sq kms and its waters are the source of the Blue Nile which flows 5,223 kms north to the Mediterranean Sea having joined up with the White Nile in Sudan.
Our boat trip was such a sedate change of pace from the minibus, the waters were green-grey, there was the occasional sighting of pelicans, and the weather was glorious with a cloudless azure sky. There was plenty of time to chat, read and even sleep.
After about two and a half hours, we reached Dek Island where we viewed our second church: the 18th century Church of Narga Selassie. This is considered to be one of the most beautiful painted churches in Ethiopia. The paintings are more colourful and show more representations of contemporary life in what is called the second Gondar style.
Our cruise then took us another two hours to the Zege Peninsula on the south side of Lake Tana. Here we visited our third and last church of the day: the 19th century Church of Ura Kidane Meret. The pictures here are not just of stories from the Bible but stories from other sacred works said to narrate the early life of Jesus and Mary. So, for example, there was an illustration of the child Jesus sliding down a sunbeam rather than bannisters like an ordinary kid.
Seven hours after sending out from Gogora on the north shore of Lake Tana, we arrived at our final destination of Bahir Dar on the south shore of the lake. This is a largish town with a population of 170,000 and apparently some people have described it as the Ethiopian Riviera because of its wide streets shaded by palm streets with views across the lake.
It was here that we had the seventh and last hotel of our trip: Kuriftu Resort & Spa. This proved to be the best of the holiday. Although – like other hotels on this trip – it had occasional (brief) power cuts, it had running water plus a swimming pool and massage sessions. At the hotel restaurant, it was an al a carte menu with the widest choice of food yet and Roger even managed to have a banoffee pie for dessert. In fact, he was even more excited to have a WiFi connection for the first time in four days so that he could upload more reports of the holiday to his blog.
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Our Ethiopian odyssey (10): Simien Mountains
February 17th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Day 8 (Saturday) was always planned simply as a travelling day with no sightseeing at all but, when one is visiting more exotic countries, one has to be ready for things not always to go precisely to plan. So we left our hotel in Lalibela at 10 am and set off for the airport for our 12.15 pm flight to Gondar, but the driver had heard something about delays to flights, so we stopped at the airline office in town and checked the situation. Apparently an air display somewhere had led to the closure of local air space and so our flight would be delayed by two hours.
Dawit quickly changed his plans and decided to take us to the Lalibela Saturday market. This proved to be a wonderful experience, even more Third World than the market we saw in Mekele. The location was rough ground on the edge of town with none of the permanent shops that we saw at Mekele. In the main, it was a food market with all sorts of grains and vegetables (some like rue totally unfamiliar to us), but little meat or fruit. One distinctive item for sale was salt which was piled pyramid-like on a cloth on the ground. There were lots of donkeys, many goats and some cows.
The market was spread over a gently sloping hill that was packed with people, some of whom had walked for hours from surrounding villages to reach it. Many were just sitting, others were standing idly, many were milling around, and three soldiers stood guard. It was hot and many of the women carried large, colourful umbrellas to avoid the bright sun. As in so many places that we had been in Ethiopia, we were soon approached, and even followed, by youngsters declaring in accented English: “Hello … Welcome … How are you? … Where are you from? … What is your name? … I am a student.” If one allowed oneself to be engage for more than a couple of sentences, very soon the conversation turned to money.
After three-quarters of an hour at the market, we still had time to kill and the sun was making us thirsty, so Dawit arranged for us to drop into the “Seven Olives Hotel” where we could have a cold drink and he could organise sandwiches for lunch.
We reached Lalibela airport about 12.30 pm, about two hours later than was originally planned, only to find that our flight was further delayed. So we spent the next three and a half hours in a small, stuffy waiting area with no air conditioning eating our sandwich lunch, reading our chosen novels, and eventually having our luggage checked twice.
At last, we took off in a Bombadier Q400 on our third internal flight. It was just after 4 pm and a little over four hours late. In fact, the flight to the north-west was a mere 25 minutes but the journey would have taken a full day by road.
We landed at Gondar but immediately boarded another mini bus to take us north-east to the Simien Mountains. Now Gondar is already high but our destination was another 1,000 metres higher. It was a good road – another one built by the Chinese – but all the villages we travelled through were terribly poor. After two hours hard driving, we reached the town of Debark which is the entry point to the Simien Mountains National Park. Here, our mini bus took on one park guide and two park rangers armed with AK-47 Kalashnikovs.
It was now dark and the last hour of the journey was in pitch blackness up a completely unmade mountain road. Over three hours after we left Gondar, we reached our destination: Simien Lodge. This is located at a height of 3,260 metres or 10,700 feet which makes it the highest lodge in Africa and means that any effort often results in breathlessness. Accommodation at the lodge is in chalets and there are two solar systems: one to heat the rooms and the other to provide hot water for the showers.
At this height, it is cold at night so, for the first time on the trip, we had to wear jumpers or jackets when we went to the main building for our buffet dinner and, as we left to return to our rooms, were offered filled hot water bottles. Much more seriously for Roger, there was no WiFi service at all, so he could not post his daily accounts to his blog.
Day 9 (Sunday) was a nature day so Vee was absolutely in her element. We set off at 9 am to explore the Simien Mountains National Park and we were accompanied throughout by our park ranger and our two armed park guards.
The park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has at least a dozen peaks over 4,000 metres. It is home to three endemic large mammals: the gelada monkey of which there are an estimated 7,000, the much rarer Walia ibex of which only 600 are surviving, and the even rarer Ethiopian wolf with a population of no more than 50. The gelada monkey is known as ‘the monkey of the bleeding heart’ due to the red skin patch on the chest and neck shaped like an hour glass. These monkeys are said to have 20-30 different vocalisations.
The route took us north-east on the rocky road skirting the northern escarpment. Our park guide explained the local flora and fauna and, at one point, suggested that St John’s Wort is used by local women for “manustration cycling”. Also he helped us to spot and identify various wildlife. On four separate occasions during the day, we came across very large famiies of gelada monkeys who do not mind tourists – as opposed to locals – coming up close. We saw lots of new mothers with their babies hanging underneath or clinging on top and observed some much larger males behaving aggressively to members of their family.
On three occasions during the day, we were invited to go on walks taking around 30-45 minutes. Not everyone in the group went on every one of these walks, but Vee & Roger did, even though at one point he fell headlong to the rocky floor (he blamed the altitude). Before each walk, Dawit would explain what was involved and concluded with the words “but it is manageable”. In truth, none of these walks was that easy but, in every case, the views were breathtaking, including on the last walk when we got to see the high Jinbar Waterfall (a drop of 500 metres) impressive even though in this dry season it was only really a trickle.
In between the second and third walks, we stopped for a sandwich lunch and, as we ate, we were circled by noisy kites and ravens who, if given the chance, would swoop down to catch food thrown in the air or left on the ground. During the day, as well as monkeys and birds, we spotted klipspringers and bushbucks. In the end, though, it was the scenery that was most spectacular. Before this trip, we would never have imagined that Ethiopia could display such spectacular mountain scenery.
We returned to our lodge at 4.30 pm, having been out for seven and a half hours and having obtained yet another perspective on this fascinating country.
After a couple of hours to relax, we were all invited to the lodge’s main building to view a recording of a television programme by an Australian biologist Chadder Hunter who has been studying the gelada monkeys for seven years. Then Roger had the opportunity to speak to the owner of the lodge, the British Nick Crane, and the manager of the lodge, Ethiopian Seifu Desalegn.
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Our Ethiopian odyssey (9): another day in Lalibela
February 13th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Day 7 (Friday) proved to be the most strenuous so far and hopefully we will not have another day as challenging. The programme was a morning trip to a church on a local mountain top, so we were up at 6.15 am and off at 7.30 am. Our guide Dawit had given us three options: walk up and down, take a mule up and down, or take a mini bus up and down. Four of us, including Roger, went for the walking option; three of us, including Vee, went for the mule option; and the other two went for the mini bus.
Roger (aged 66) was the youngest in his group, since he was with a woman of 72, a man of 76, and a woman of 82, but he struggled the most because he does so little walking while the others were experienced ramblers. The climb was very, very steep and very, very rocky and, walking into the sun, one had real difficulty seeing where to put one’s feet. The pace was impressive, the heat rising and the flies annoying but, for Roger, the killer was the altitude. He has never had good lung capacity and he found this climb far, far harder than he had imagined. Every time there was a short rest stop, he was panting like a dog.
Meanwhile Vee was on her mule and she was convinced that the animal had a death wish as it kept wandering far too close to the precipitous drops. She had the slowest mule of the pack so the owner had to keep giving the animal a whack.
About two-thirds of the way up the mountain, the walkers and the riders met at a flat area. By this time, Roger was ready to give up, but Dawit explained that it was another 20 minutes walk – almost as strenuous as what had gone before – to the bus ‘stop’, so he struggled on and the walkers left him at the so-called stop. By this time, he was gasping for breath and feeling nauseous and faint, so he lay full-length on the ground, rested his head on his shoulder bag, and put his hat over his face as protection from the sun. Gradually his breathing and heart returned to something approaching normal.
Twenty minutes later, the mini bus turned up and shortly afterwards the walkers, the riders and those on the bus were united at another flat area further still up the mountain. Now everyone had to make the rest of the journey on foot. Nine of us set off, but very soon one dropped out for mobility reasons and then another dropped out because of vertigo. The problem was that the narrow path had a sheer rock face on one side and a sheer drop on the other. – it was like the final scenes from the film “The Last Of The Mohicans”. Vee had an attentive young Ethiopian helper but he soon started to appeal for funding for his education. The last stretch of the climb was about as tough as anything earlier but, about three hours after setting off from the hotel, we reached the top of the mountain.
We were now at a height of 3,150 metres which is 10,335 feet. As a comparison, the highest mountain in Britain is Ben Nevis which is only 1,344 metres or 4,435 feet. Now this journey was all about the travelling rather than the destination, so the magnificent views of the valley below were at least as splendid as the church we had come to visit: Ashetan Maryam. The church was carved out of sandstone rock but is plain in design. However, the priest showed us some of his “treasures”: crosses, paintings and very old books. It would have been lovely to have a coffee and a cake but nowhere on the mountain were there any facilities whatsoever.
For the return journey, the intrepid seven had no choice but to retrace their steps for the first section until we reached the mini bus. At this point, everyone but everyone decided enough was enough and took the bus back to the hotel. Not that this was a joy ride: it was 40 minutes of bone-rattling down a stony, unmade track.
Vee decided to give the afternoon schedule a miss and instead chilled in the hotel. The rest of us set off after lunch to see the remaining Lalibela churches in the south-east cluster which we visited in this order:
Bet Gebriel-Rafael – As the name suggests, this is a double church. Since uniquely of the Lalibela churches, the alignment of this one is north-south rather than east- west, it is believed that this might have been a palace before it became a church.
Bet Mercurios – This used to be the second largest of the Lalibela churches but half of it collapsed.
Bet Emanuel – This is regarded as one of the most beautiful churches in Lalibela and it is even more detailed than St George in the north-west cluster.
Bet Abba Libanos – This church is named after one of the Nine Saints who came from Syria to Ethiopia in the 6th century, promoting Christianity beyond the ruling classes to the people as a whole.
As yesterday, we moved from church to church through rocky connecting passage ways and this time we even used a pitch-black tunnel at one point. Again as yesterday, we had to remove our shoes every time we went into a church, so we again used the service of a “shoe manager”.
The afternoon finished with a special treat: a visit to a Lalibela home. It was the house of a middle-class resident who works for Kibran Tours and is a colleague of Dawit. We were all treated to coffee made from freshly-roasted beans and Roger had fun playing with our host’s very bright eight year old daughter Maryam. We returned to,our hotel after an excursion of another four hours, tired but content.
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Our Ethiopian odyssey (8): rock churches of Lalibela
February 12th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Day 6 (Thursday) saw the departure from Axum of nine of the group. The woman who was the first to be ill had chosen to fly home, while the second woman to be unwell had decided to press on with the trip.
We left the hotel at 9 am and were soon at the airport where our luggage was checked twice for our second internal flight. This involved two new experiences for Vee & Roger at least: we flew In a Bombandier Q400 twin-turboprop aircraft (a first) and we left early (another first). The flight to Lalibela was only 30 minutes and the mini bus journey to our hotel in the town took as long and drove us further uphill. We were now in Amhara province and the town – which is even smaller than Axum with a population of just 40,000 – is situated at a height of 2,600 metres.
Our hotel was something of a surprise. The Maribela Hotel only opened a year or so ago and is situated overlooking a low mountain range. The rooms were clean and spacious but all sorts of finishing touches were still necessary. We had lunch straightaway so that we could leave for our afternoon excursion at 2.30 pm.
As the Kingdom of Axum fragmented, in the 12th century this highland territory was created as the ‘new Jerusalem’ by King Lalibela, who reigned from 1180-1220, allegedly with ‘the help of angels’. The location was originally called Roha but renamed after the king (his name means ‘the bees’ and his mother gave him the name when she found a swarm of bees around his crib which she regarded as a fortuitous sign).
The area is divided by a gorge that would once have had a river running through it, a representation of the River Jordan in the original Holy Land. On the north-west side is a recreation of the physical, terrestrial Holy Land with its churches; on the south-east side, we have the celestial, spiritual Holy Land with its own churches.
It is estimated that the churches took some 40,000 workers around 24 years to construct and, for the kingdom to have kept such a large work force engaged in economically unproductive labour for so long, means that it must have been very wealthy.
There are 11 rock-hewn churches which have been in continuous use by Orthodox priests since 12th and 13th centuries when the town was the capital of the important Zagwe Dynasty. Ten were made or at lest remodelled by King Lalibela and an eleventh (St George) was created by his widow as a memorial to the king after his death in about 1220.
Each building is unique in size, shape and execution and the purpose of each church is still unclear to historians. All are below grown level and they are ringed by courtyards and trenches that interconnect.
The churches – all called Bet (House or Place ) something – are located in two clusters. This afternoon, we visited the north west cluster which comprises seven churches. In order, we viewed:
Bet Medhane Alem (House of Jesus) – This is the biggest church in Lalibela, indeed the largest rock-hewn church in the world: 33 metres by 23 metres and 10 metres high. Also it is the home of the famous 900-year old Lalibela Cross – said to be made of solid gold and given to the king by God himself – which is only displayed in public once at year at a special ceremony.
Bet Meskel (House of the Cross) – This is the smallest of the Lalibela churches but it is quite special in that the Ethiopians claim to have half of the True Cross (although not here in Lalibela).
Bet Maryam (House of Mary) – This was the first of the Lalibela churches to be built and it was said to be the King’s favourite.
Bet Danaghel (House of the Virgins) – This church, which was never finished, commemorates a massacre of young women some eight centuries before it was built.
Bet Mikael (House of Michael) – This church is one of only two in Lalibela with cruciform pillars.
Bet Golgitha (House of Golgotha) – No women are allowed in this particular church. It is said that King Lalibela himself is buried here but nobody can see the tomb which is alledgedly in the Selassie Chapel. The church is noted for its cruciform pillars and some of the best early examples of Ethiopian Christian art.
Bet Giyorgis (House of George) – This was the last of the Lalibela churches to be built and it is in the best condition. Also it is the best known internationally, featuring in many photographs and television programmes. The roof is level with the ground around it and one can walk all the way around before taking the tunnel down to the church entrance far below
Although access to the cluster of churches is through a modern entrance, climbing down rocks to visit each church and across more rocks to move from church to church is not straightforward as the rocks are very uneven and sometimes steep. One of our group – a guy of almost 86 – found that he needed both of his sticks and some human support as well as staying outside some chambers.
For all of us, there was the matter of taking off shoes and putting them back on every time we went into a new church and we were assigned a local “shoe manager” for this endeavour. Viewing these churches for around two and a half hours, one is simply astounded at the effort and skill that must have been involved in taking this volcanic ash rock and hewing out such large and grand structures that have survived so well for around seven centuries.
In the evening, our hotel meal was enlivened by a performance of traditional music and dancing by a troupe of five. Especially distinctive was a kind of one-string violin known as ‘masengo’.
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Our Ethiopian odyssey (7): Axum
February 11th, 2015 by Roger Darlington
Day 5 (Wednesday) was a non-travelling day with all our time spent in Axum and environs, so it was much less challenging than the previous day – but now two of our group were too unwell to come out.
The Kingdom of Axum arose in the 4th century BC, grew rapidly to be a power that vied with that of the Greece of Alexander and the Eastern Roman Empire, reached a peak in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, and then in mysterious circumstances declined in the 7th century AD and fragmented as other regional centres – like Lalibela – rose as regional powers. So the Kingdom of Axum had nearly 800 years of glory and was the seat of an empire that extended across the Red Sea to Arabia, traded with India and China, and had its own alphabet and notational system. Today it is a dusty town of just 70,000.
We left the hotel at 8.30 am which might have been to miss the other tourists (but there were hardly any) or to miss the hottest part of the day (but it heated up rapidly) or just to give us time to see as much as possible.
We started with the nearby field of locally-sourced granite stelae. Nobody is sure if the precise date and actual purpose of the stelae but they appear to be pre-Christian and their orientation facing south suggests a worship of the sun. They were broughtb to the attention of the wider world by the German archaeologist Enno Littman in 1906.
The largest stela known as the Great Stela, measuring more than 33 metres tall, lies in gigantic pieces. It is believed to weigh an astonishing 520 tons and it was never actually erected. Two other large stelae are still standing next to the fallen one. The first, standing at 21 metres, is called King Ezana’s Stela and has been in place since its erection (although it now has support from a sling) and therefore has been a traditional feature of the site. The other, reaching 25 metres, is called the Rome Stela and is a new element of the site, since the Italians returned it in 2007 (they found it in three pieces during the occupation and took it to Rome for reconstruction and erection there).
Altogether there are around 100 smaller stelae, most fallen but a good number still standing. As well as these imposing stelae, we visited a couple of tombs and an archaeological museum, before being served in an outside corner with a small cup of black, freshly-roasted coffee.
Opposite the field of stelae is the Church of St Mary of Zion. The oldest church in Africa was the first St Mary of Zion Church originally built around the 4th century. Emperor Fasilidas replaced it with a newer church in the mid 17th century and a much much newer church was built in 1965.
We were all able to visit the modern church but only the men were allowed to look inside the 17th century church. In between the two is a modern chapel which allegedly houses the famous and sacred Ark of the Covenant. None of us were able to enter this chapel, let alone see the Ark, because absolutely nobody is permitted to see this ancient artefact except the very old monk and his designated younger successor who serve as the chapel’s custodians. In fact, some of us have viewed the movie “Raiders Of The Lost Ark” in which a final scene suggests that actually the Ark is hidden in a secret huge American government warehouse.
Also in this complex of buildings is a small museum housing crowns, vestments and other possessions of various emperors and distinguished personages.
It was time for lunch which was taken at the nearby Yeha Hotel in Axum. We sat outside on a large veranda and enjoyed fish (fried and tasty) and fruit (a yellow-skinned orange).
After lunch, we drove past what the locals know as Mai Shum and others call the Bath of the Queen of Sheba. It is like a very small reservoir where people wash domestic items and of course it has nothing to do with the Queen but it is used once each year for a special ceremony to to mark the baptism of Christ. A little further and protected in a small stone hut is something called King Ezana’s Stone or Inscription. It was discovered by three farmers in 1981 and it is a stone block carrying a message from the 3rd century king in three languages (Greek, Geez and Sabean). Back in the mini bus, Dawit gave Roger an English translation of the lengthy inscription and he had to read it aloud over the vehicle’s microphone.
We continued up the rockiest and roughest track in Christendom to our next destination: the Tombs of King Kaleb and his son Gebre Meskel. The first has three chambers and the second five, but grave robbers stripped out the contents long ago. As we drove up the track and as we returned down it, several young children ran alongside us in bare feet, somehow managing both to keep up with us and to avoid cutting themselves. They wanted to impress us – and they certainly did.
Next stop – just outside town – was the Palace of the Queen of Sheba which can be viewed from a raised platform as well as at ground level. Like the bath, the palace actually has nothing to do with the Queen except an appealing name. In fact, the elaborate structure, which was only discovered in 1967, is believed to be the accommodation for a 7th century Axumite official.
We had one more visit, partly because Dawit wanted to show us where the stone for the stelae came from and partly we suspect because he wanted to give us a bit more exercise up a rocky slope. The location was a quarry outside the town – one of five – where the granite (nepheline syenite) was found and somehow transported in huge blocks into the town. It was about 4.30 pm when we returned to our hotel after eight hours of fascinating study of different elements of Axumite life.
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