A Weekend to Remeber

This weekend has been one of the best weekend's I've had in months, and definitely the best weekend I've had so far in Addis. I decided to take two days off work, buy a plane ticket and head off to the north.... to Lalibela, 2650mtrs above sea level, a place which ranks among the greatest religio-historical sites, not only in Africa but in the Christian world. However, the best thing about this village is the total disregard for its status, here, one has the impression of landing in a time at least seven centuries behind ours.

I climbed mountains amongst eagles, mules and monkeys, saw piles of dead people and skeletons, visited a total of 14 churches, played with the little adorable Ethiopian street children, walked narrow dark underground tunnels, had freezing cold showers, made amazing friends, danced to Ethiopian songs in the traditional way and even got declarations of love from some of the guys!!!

This will be a long one.......

So with a total luggage weight of 60Kgs (50Kgs of books for the poor people - a favour for Frank - 10kgs of personal belongings), the trip started off with the first shock!!! The airplane was a little propeller plane..... 2hours of torture, 2hrs of vibrating suspension in the sky 10,000mtrs above sea level. Even worse than the little plane from Helsinki to Talinn, which was smaller.....

The second shock is the landing.... the plane starts going down.... in the middle of nowhere, not an airport or runway in sight... it gets lower and lower and lower, one of the propellers stop turning, and bum, we're on the ground... phew!! a tarmaked piece of land and a tiny building still in the middle of nowhere!!!!

I jumped on to a bus together with 6 other people and headed off for the 45min drive in the middle of nowhere to the city in Lalibela. I finally arrived at the hotel where i arranged to meet Frank, and I received a nice welcome by Frank and some young Ethiopians from different parts of Ethiopia.... most of whom where from Lalibela. Frank had a whole itinerary planned for me for the next 4 days.... and first was a climb up the mountain of Ashetan, to not only see the church of Ashetan Maryam but also enjoy the scenery 3150mts above sea level!! This was not only it...... some of the way will be done with the help of Mules!!!!!

Now I say it was amazing!!! But then I was dead scared!!! Although it only took us 2 1/2 hours to climb, it was way scarier and way more tiresome than the 4hr climb of Mount Sinai in Egypt!!! Why? The road was way steeper, we were at a much higher altitude which made it sooo hard to breathe, the way was not paved but was full of mud and slippery mossy stones and to top it all up the way was really narrow and the drop was very high!!! The first hour I spent on the poor mule I was very scared.....the mule felt that I was not very steady which in turn make it not steady, and was not the ideal while climbing a steep 1 1/2 mtr path. After an hour of screaming on top of a stumbling mule, I finally got the hang of it and led my dearest Molla (the Mule's name) up the rest of the mountain. The mountain also offered a steep 1mtr path, where we had to get off the mule and climb.....

The view of Lalibela half way through the Ashetan Mountain

Two children living on the mountain, one of them wearing the traditional shepherd's hat. We bought them soft drinks!

The scenery was amazing..... we saw all Lalibela, the beautiful mountains, we passed little villages and also got offered cups of coffees in little tukuls, but after seeing the color of the water which was brown with little twigs in it, I decided that I don't like coffee anymore. It was amazing though to see how in a little tukul of about 6mtrs diameter, a horse, 4 chickens and a family of 9 lived. The kitchen was a little fire in the middle of the room and the house was made out of mud and straw. These people had to climb up and down the mountain to go to school, to get food or work....

A little village in Ashetan

We went into this family's home for coffee, they lived in the house behind, together with a horse and 4 chickens!!!

When we reached the top we were in awe, we not only walked amongst the clouds and surrounded by amazingly big and beautiful eagles but arrived just in time to visit the rock hewn church and see the 12th century priests chanting and praying.....

The day ended with stroll around the primitive and medieval village of Lalibela with one of Frank's boys...

The only place to get a hair cut in the village

A hotel promising a panoramic view

The 'villa' of the village

The only gas station in the village, they scoop the oil out of tanks and poor it into the cars

The first day was over, and I went to sleep to the sound of extremely loud Ethiopian music, aching muscles and excitement for the next day.

The second day also involved climbing mountains..... thank God with the help of a 4W drive instead of a mules. So 2 Maltese, 2 Frenchmen (we met in the hotel) and 5 Ethiopians headed out to Yemrehanna Kristos which is a little church built inside a cave by King Yemrehana Kristos. This, 42Kms out of Lalibela, was about a 5hr walk, and about an hour and a half drive on a dirt road out of the village, and a 20min climb up a mountain even steeper than the previous

We drove through planes of nothingness and little tukul villages, the only traffic was donkeys, cows, bulls, and a broken down truck. On the road we met a lot of locals with donkeys making that 5hr walk to the village of Lalibela as it was market day and their only chance in the week to buy animals and food.

Trying to communicate with the little village children, the only thing they could say was 'Faranji Money'

We visited the church which was a totally hidden treasure, it was built in a cave where the only inhabitants were a 12th century priest, monkeys, bats, fleas which dwelled in the church carpets and piles of dead people. The dead people were apparently pilgrims who found the church there and died there, many of whom were apparently from Egypt. The people decided to leave the skeletons there, as a symbolism of death and one day everyone will end up like that. The other amazing treasure of this church was a massive diamond embedded in the ceiling dating the year 1087. Totally surreal and mystical!!! The lonely planet says that 75% of tourists never make it there - I'm glad I'm part of the 25% well worth the aching muscles and lack of breath.

The church in the cave

One of the Egyptian Pilgrims

The second part of the day was also quite an Ethiopian experience. Earlier during breakfast I got talking to two young Ethiopians from Addis, who invited me to go out with them and their friends that evening. As soon as I got back to their hotel I got invited to their room for a session of Chat, which is a legal stimulant, and consists of chewing leaves at the side of your mouth for hours. Once I'm into getting the full Ethiopian experience, I decided to try, though it did not last long enough for it to effect me, the taste is horrible, and I found it quite hard to chew leaves, talk and eat peanuts at the same time, which apparently the Ethiopians seemed to do very well. Nevertheless I met an amazing group of people, from Addis, Lalibela and Woldia (a town close to Lalibela). We had very interesting conversations, and I got to know more about Ethiopia, Lalibela and its people.

Sunday was my last day in Lalibela, and we left the best for the last. Sunday we visited the 11 rock hewn churches that King Lalibela built 7 centuries ago.

Bet Giyorgis - the most beautiful architecture

Bet Amanuel - Bet means house, so this is the House of Emmanuel

Bet Gabriel-Rufael, really amazing, signifies Heaven and Hell, the deep drop being hell and the church being heaven

The churches were amazing..... they were not built, but chiseled out from the ground. The churches were also linked though dark tunnels and narrow paths in the ground.

The narrow paths linking the churches to eachother

Tunnels linking the churches, if you realise the entrances and most of church windows are designed in the above way, it has 2 meanings.... the axumite period design, as well as symbolising the male erect circumsised organ

A church bell made out of a hand grenade holder

Every church had different architecture and a different story to tell, as well as a priest with a different outfit and a different cross. I also got to meet the bishop of Lalibela, who walked between the churches after a mass. It was amazing to see all the Ethiopians running to him and kissing the cross he had in his hands. Frank gave him a catholic cross he had around his neck to kiss, and Frank kissed his cross. The bishop then turned to me and signaled to me to kiss his cross which I refused to do..... the bishop apparently was not at all happy, and took it as a sign of hostility, so I went next to him and kissed his hand which made everyone laugh probably saying 'Stupid Faranji'.

One of the 12th century Monk showing off the church crosses, the one to the left being the cross of King Lalibela

A cool Priest - wears sunglasses cause of all the tourist flashes!! Quite funny actually

One of the priests guarding St Georges' holy water

The highlight of the day were also the children. I got playing with a little group of children while Frank and his boys were taking photos, 3 out of the 7 children decided to follow us around the churches.

One little 7yr old grabbed my hand and held it all the way..... extremely heart warming. We then took the children to a bar and fed them with cookies, bread and soft drinks, you should see howthe gobbled the food, ate and drank heartily... I couldn't take my eyes off them and tears came into my eyes when I realized that probably this is the best meal they will have in a bit and there are 100s of other kids like them. One of them could speak a little bit of English and we spoke about his school, he wants to become a doctor..... this kid probably doesn't have enough money to finish his secondary school, let alone move out of Lalibela to attend the closest College to study and become a doctor......

I wish I could have fed all the children, but for obvious reasons I couldn't, so I bought loads and loads of sweets and lollipops and gave them to the little children I saw on the street. I know that it isn't really right, and this encourages the children to beg even more, but this village was different, there is not other alternative, no work, no food and no money. Corruption is high and many of the people will never had a chance to change their lives unless someone gets them out of there or helps them. What was also sad was that the villages were full of sacks of wheat of USAID, in the streets and even stacked on donkeys to be taken to the outside villages.

The evening was the perfect end to the holiday. I met up with the Ethiopians again, who had also met up with other young foreigners. So two British, a Maltese, an Italian, an American (who also turned out to be an ex-AIESECer) and about 20 Ethiopians headed off to a local village bar. The night was great, and the people were awesome, loads of beers wine and dancing all night.

The highlight of the night was the faranji dancing to Ethiopian music, we probably made the young villager's night. The Faranjis bought rounds of beers for the bar and laughed and danced all night long.... We also tried teaching them how to dance to European and American Commercial music, but it did not turn out to well, we danced to Teddy Afro's 'Lampa Dina', and Bob Marley's 'Buffalo Soldier', and one Ethiopian also tried impersonating Michael Jackson together with the British, but this ended up in loads of laughter and more beers.

Faranji trying to dance to Ethiopian music in a local bar

Monday I spent the morning chatting to the Ethiopians from Addis, who now turned out to be my first close Ethiopian friends, with promising Addis weekends. It was hard saying bye to Lalibela, the lack of modernization, no banks, no mobile phones, barely any cars and the amazing people. By the end of the 4 days all the village knew about the Maltese in Lalibela, they came to say bye with promises of seeing each other again, though knowing that we probably will never, even the guide who took us around on Sunday came to tell me bye!!!!

The feeling on the plane while flying out of Lalibela was the same feeling of nostalgia and emptiness and well being one feels after a motivational AIESEC conference..... but I also flew back with two new amazing friends...... and a future in Addis to look forward to.

I am loving this country more and more day after day. I don't regret the choice I made. Ethiopia is an undiscovered beauty, and I'm glad I've been one of the few that experienced it before it got too commercial. Ethiopia should definitely be everyone's next travel destination, and I can't
wait to see the rest....

Next destination - DUBAI!