Day 76 - Historic Route

Point of departure : Bahir Dar

Point of arrival : Lalibela

Accommodation: rooftop tent @ Roha Hotel

Km travelled today: 305km Cum: 14 529 km (gravel155km cum 3 829km)

Countries so far: 7/16

Where to next? Axum

Total number of photos taken: 176 (cum 3 472)

A few kilometres outside Bahir Dar, we crossed the bridge over the Blue Nile River, our last sight of the Nile until we get to Khartoum.We tried to stop and take a photograph but were unceremoniously moved along by a local police officer.

What was supposed to be an easy morning to Lalibela, with the churches in the afternoon, turned out to be quite different. Firstly, the road (the China Road) was rather worse than we had anticipated with some 155km of gravel including the usual endless deviations. In addition, we had two punctures… one really, which John tried to fix unsuccessfully, and the tyre went flat again. The hole was too big for a plug fixing. Apart from the frustrations of the punctures we had to deal with the hordes of kids (and some adults) crowding round to see what we were doing… really invading our space. While we tried to keep an eye on everything going on around us (locking the doors, putting things away etc etc), they still managed to steal one of our puncture repair tools… the new reamer we went to so much trouble to get in Addis Ababa. Only discovered the loss once we arrived in Lalibela. Today, we were ready to reduce Ethiopian's 89 million population by a few hundred kids. Having said that however, a couple of local road contractors did stop to help us with the second puncture, and even chased the kids away, and for this assistance we were very grateful.

The "China Road" is the road from Lake Tana area through to Lalibela via Debre Tabor and the junction town of Gashena through to Lalibela and the road from Bahir Dar to Gondar. The Chinese built this gravel road in the 1970's and are now currently upgrading it to asphalt.

On the positive side, the scenery was SPECTACULAR!! Much of the route before the Lalibela turnoff at Gashena, was above 3 000 metres, and we got another new highest altitude of trip at 3 200m above sea level. The mountain passes; views of spectacular valleys and gorges below and wonderful mountain vistas had us thinking of the Drakensberg in South Africa. Some of the passes were a little hair raising for Marina with her sense of vertigo but we survived.

On arrival in Lalibela we checked out the Asheten Hotel (for camping)… from what we saw not to be recommended and we did not stay. We then went to the Roha Hotel - a different proposition altogether. Although a government establishment at US $50 a night for a hotel room ($12,50 for camping) the reception and public areas looked very acceptable and we felt we could have stayed in the rooms if that had been the only option (unlike the Ghion in Bahir Dar). As it was, we did camp and found ourselves in a pleasant garden environment with grass, trees and peace and quiet, and the use of one of the hotel rooms for ablutions. A pleasant end to a long day.

Next day 77 - after visiting the local tyre garage to have our puncture repaired we set off to visit the rock hewn churches.

Lalibela an isolated town, set high (2 630m above sea level) in the Lasta mountains, famed for its rock-hewn churches.Known as Roha until recently, Lalibela was the capital of the Zagwe Dynasty which ruled over Ethiopia from the 10th to the 13th century and its new name derives from King Lalibela, the 12th century ruler.

Local legend states that Lalibela was the youngest son of the royal line of the Zagwe dynasty which ruled over much of northern Ethiopia.Despite several elder brothers he was destined for greatness.Whilst still in a baby, his mother found a swarm of bees around his crib and recalled an old belief that the animal world foretold important futures.She cried out: "The bees know that this child will become King". But trials and tribulations followed and the ruling King fearing for his throne tried to have Lalibela murdered and persecutions followed for many years culminating in a deadly potion which left the young prince Lalibela in a deep sleep.During this sleep Lalibela was transported by angels to heaven where God told him not to worry but to return to Roha and build churches - the like of which the world had never seen before.God also told Lalibela how to build the churches and where to build them as well as how to decorate them.Once he was crowned, he gathered carpenters, masons, tools and starting building. The churches are said to have been built with great speed because angels continued the work at night.These churches seem to be of superhuman creation as they have been hewn out of solid red volcanic tuff on which they stand.

In size and scope the church complex feels like a subterranean village. There are a total of 11 churches and are quite big - several are in excess of 10m high. Four are completely free standing. They are divided into two clusters and separated by the Jordan River - the north cluster with six churches, the south cluster with four churches and one free standing (Bet Giyorgis = St George's).

We started off in the northern cluster, the largest church being the Bet Madhane Alem (Church of the Saviour); Bet Maryam (Mary); Bet Meskel;Bet Danaghel,; Bet Miael (Debre Sina) (Michael) and Bet Golgota.

The Southern cluster consists of: Bet Emanuel; Bet Mercurios; Bet Abba Libanos and Bet Gebriel-Rafael.

The Lalibela Cross is made of solid gold and weighs about 7kg. It comprises in the centre a cross representing Jesus Christ with six disciples on either side (depicting the Last Supper) and each church has a copy of the Lalibela Cross.The original is in a secure place in one of the churches.

While there is a certain roughness about the interiors, and the floors are quite uneven in places, these churches are a spectacular monument to King Lalibela's religious fervour. Each one had to be designed according to the size of the monolithic rock mass and carving/excavating would start from the top and cut out the space around the church (leaving the solid mass of rock) which would then be carved from the sides inwards.Depending on the size of the church, this would include several spaces including a nave, side sections for women and men separately and special holy sanctuaries behind the "alter", columns supporting the roof of the structure, sometimes carved with royal or religious emblems, and domed and carved ceilings. Obviously, doors to allow access and windows, often high up, for light and air.As if this was not enough, many of the churches (in the same clusters) are joined by underground tunnels.While we were there, one of the churches in use for a mass ceremony, what we saw was primarily a singing/chanting/swaying celebration all to the beat of drums.

Too many churches to talk about individually (we saw them all, and entered 6 of them) but the church of St George, probably the most iconic in terms of photography really was fantastic. As mentioned earlier, it stands alone, on large open piece of rock surrounded by olive trees on three sides and a wonderful view of the country side below.It is shaped as an equal sided cross (cross of St George) is said to represent Noah's Ark and it was special to see something for real that had previously only been seen in photographs.

It is possible that the fleas and bugs were on holiday when we visited or that the anti flee spray that we used did its job. We did enter Ethipioa armed with 4 cans of Doom, 2 cans of Flea/Tick spray and 6 cans of Tabard. Certainly we were no worse for wear for removing shoes and padding around the churches. We only spent 3 hours as we were short of time as the churches had closed for lunch. We are sure there is more to see and do, but we felt satisfied with what we had seen and felt no need to go back in the afternoon so we decided to hit the road to Axum.

If you would like more information on the churches we suggest you read Philip Briggs Bradt Guide to Ethiopia.

We knew that we had about 395km to Axum with probably about 8 hours of driving but decided to at least make a start by leaving at 12h30.Whilst the road was largely good gravel, there were a lot of twists and turns (and beautiful scenery). Once we got to Abi Aday (at 275km) we took a conscious decision to press on to Axum, breaking our cardinal rule of not travelling at night in Africa. We figured that there would be even less traffic than we had encountered, sensible pedestrians would be at home in bed, there was a good chance that cattle, donkeys, camels and goats would be corralled.In addition the spot lights lit our way and more importantly, we had no issues about security in Ethiopia. We were a bit slower but our theories were largely correct (there were still some pedestrians and animals) but we made it through to Axum safely by about 21h30, and checked into the Yeha Hotel.

A long, long, long day, but we were pleased to be in Axum.