Schlagwort-Archive: churches

Ethiopia, World Trip 2018-19

Lalibela – Ethiopia’s famous churches

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On public transport, it takes 2 days to get from Mekele to Lalibela. Something we would not look forward to after our recent bus ride from Gondar to Shire/Aksum. Luckily though…we got a private jeep for ourselves to do it in one day instead of two! Haha. One of the main reasons why we booked the Danakil tour with Ethio Travel and Tours was that they included a free transfer to Lalibela – and were the cheapest overall, especially when considering the huge comfort factor of a private transfer! The ride did take most of the day, but it was relaxed and we were able to stop for photos any time we wanted.

We stayed a couple of nights in Lalibela, taking it slower than usual. On our first day, we got a bit organised in the morning and walked around town. In the afternoon, we went to see the Northern cluster of churches, which was really nice. There was a mass going on and we could watch the locals singing and praying.

Later, we went to St. George’s church, the most famous one of Lalibela. If you Google Lalibela, high chance is that this picture will come up:

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The churches don’t all look like this, only this one. It’s by far the most pretty one, so we came back here many times over the next few days in order to take the best pictures.

Next day, we woke up super early and went to the churches at 6am when they open for tourists. We heard chanting and praying from multiple places and kind of chased around to find where the biggest mass was going on (it was in the Southern cluster). Anywhere we went though, there was some praying or chanting happening and it was beautiful to listen and watch. Once again, this felt like travelling back in time… Oh, Ethiopia!

We then took our time to properly see the Southern church cluster, in my opinion much nicer than the Northern one.

On our last day in Lalibela, we decided to visit the big Saturday market. It was massive and really cool to walk around – if a bit stressful since kids were begging all the time and teenagers wanting to be your guide. Oh, Ethiopia! So fascinating one moment, so exhausting the next one.

Next day, we were off to a horror bus trip of 8 h to Bahir Dar, from where we would catch a flight through Addis to Dire Dawa…

Ethiopia, World Trip 2018-19

Visiting the rock-hewn churches of Tigray

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From Axum, we took a minibus to Adwa, then to Adigrat and finally to Hawzien in Tigray. Tigray is known for its rock-hewn churches – little cave churches that have been carved into the rocks many many years ago. Some of them can only be reached by some climbing and hiking – an adventure that sounded just right for us! Like the Simiens, most people visit this region on an organized tour… but since that’s not our style, we did it by ourselves – some hassle involved but so much cheaper!

We first took a minibus from Hawzien to Megab, where we were supposed to pick up a (mandatory?) guide for visiting the churches. However, after realizing that we didn’t have our own transportation but wanted to go by public minibus and walking, none of the guides was interested to accompanying us anymore. Lol. So we just started walking, then caught a minibus to where the road forks off to Abuna Yemata Guh – probably the most famous church. We were the first ones to arrive and the ticket „office“ was still closed (meaning: there was no one sitting under the tree yet, selling tickets), so we just walked on – getting hassled by two teenagers so much that I had to threaten to call the police if that didn’t leave us alone. Their attitude changed from one second to the other and they disappeared. Luckily!

We hiked on until we reached the point where you have to climb up a wall. There were already 2 scouts and another guy waiting to „help“ us up (you’re forced to accept their help and then tip them for help you didn’t need and want). Firstly though, the priest had to go up and await us up the steep rock mountain to open up the church for us. Once we had reached the top, the views were incredible! You’re walking on a small footpath with a steep drop-off just next to you. Really impressive!

The church itself was beautiful too with some nice paintings that the priest pointed out. It’s crazy how they built this church all the way up in the rocks!

After some more hassle on the way down and back, we hitched a ride back to Megab from where we walked along the road to Debre Maryam Korkor and Daniel Korkor – the two other churches we had planned to visit. It was a dusty, hot walk, but the views were nice so that made it better.

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Again, people tried to force us to take a scout with us but we plainly refused and were able to walk by ourselves. The hike took longer this time, but there was no real climbing involved. We basically had to climb a whole mountain, which came a bit as a surprise for us! At times, the trail was hard to spot, but with Maps.me we were fine. Also, we just ended up following some groups here and there. The churches themselves didn’t excite us that much this time – but the views were again stunning!

Tigray is a beautiful region and I’m sure there would be some beautiful hikes that you could do. Unfortunately, at this stage there is no infrastructure for independent travellers, you would have to go on an expensive tour for seeing more churches over multiple days. But for us, this was good enough! I believe we saw some of the most impressive churches and after a day with lots of hassle, we were ready to move on…