Our adventure in Ethiopia continued (see parts 1, 2 and 3 here) to Ethiopia’s holy city of Lalibela, the last destination on our adventure in which we had spent a good few weeks immersing ourselves in the often-contradictory and fascinating Ethiopian culture.
Lalibela was the part of our adventure we were most looking forward to. And it was far from disappointing. The town itself is in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by an amazing mountain range and rocky farmland. But we’d seen a lot of that already. We had come all this way to see the 800-year-old rock-hewn churches, which have been considered the eighth wonder of the world (and would be officially if they were better known outside Ethiopia).
Looking around you don’t see anything that even kind of resembles a church. But as you approach, the bedrock opens up to trenches more than 10-metres deep with these amazing buildings set in the middle, below ground level. Rather than being built up, they’ve been carved down!
There is a lot of speculation as to how these churches were constructed. Legend has it that King Lalibela had a vision from God to create a new Jerusalem in Ethiopia and that he had the help of angels. Or, as Graham Hancock argues, the help of the Knights Templar. Some say it was made by aliens (WTF). All I can say is that Lalibela has to be the most mysterious and fascinating place I’ve ever been to.
The journey to Lalibela
Pilgrims walk for weeks to get to Lalibela for Christmas, they generally travel with just a walking stick and a little pack of clothes and food on their backs. The drive from Mekele on the Eritrean border to Lalibela was full of not only pilgrims, but also monks and priests trying to raise money for their local churches. The pilgrims are usually dressed in a simple white shawl while the priests are dressed up in polychromatic robes and carry brightly coloured umbrellas.
Click on the images to see full descriptions
Because of the massive influx of pilgrims (approximately 20 000), the entire town ran out of water. So we stocked up for our three day stay. Drinking, washing and toilet.
It felt like we were at a music festival where the headline act was “Jesus and the Virgin Mary”. There were pilgrims everywhere! On every available piece of ground around the churches people were sleeping, just relaxing or listening to sermons.
