Tuesday, December 8th - Lalibela, Ethiopia

Today we were up, had breakfast and left on the rest of our tour of the rock-hewn churches at 9 a.m.  Our guide was waiting for us as we finished our breakfast and then when we went out we couldn't find him.  He appeared several minutes later and rescued us from the neighbourhood kids who were pestering us with lots of questions.  They are actually very friendly and their English is pretty good.  Most of them can carry on a conversation for quite a while.  Eventually they ask for something like a pen or notebook or candy or money to fix something or buy a football or some other great cause but they generally accept a "no" answer quite well.  They have all left smiling and saying goodbye or God bless so I guess they aren't too offended by our response.

Our second day of touring started with a walk back down to the main entrance and through the field to the right past the two-storey round houses - the same route by which we exited yesterday afternoon.  Then we went off that trail and went forward for a while on another trail through the field and up and down some steps until we came across the top of St. George's Church.  This was the last church King Lalibela built and it is a monolithic rock-hewn church.  From the higher vantage point you can see just the top of the church which is in the shape of a Greek cross with four equal sides.  There are two Greek crosses carved in the top with one Latin cross in the centre.  It just appears to be in the centre of a hole.  When we got to the edge of the hole we looked down at a 15 metre high church.  The ceiling is three metres thick so the interior of the church is 12 metres and it is set on a base a couple metres high.

This church was built to represent the ark that Noah built.  There are three parts: a big lower level for the large animals, a smaller level for the small birds and animals, and an upper level for the humans.  The human level has windows but the middle level doesn't so the birds can't fly out and the bottom one doesn't so the water doesn't come in.  There are nine false windows on the lower level and they represent the nine saints of Ethiopia at the time.  There are three doors: the main larger one and a smaller one on each side.  

Inside there are Greek crosses carved on the ceiling and, since this was the last church King Lalibella built, all of the tools that were used in the building process are stored in a secure tool box.  The mechanism to open it involved unscrewing two long shafts and then pulling back the levers on either side that were released by that process.  It's quit ingenious but doesn't work right now because someone broke one of the levers.  A boring old padlock is used now instead.

From there we went on an adventure to find the next churches.  Well, the one was pretty easy to find but Gabriel ad Raphael church is being renovated so we just looked at it from a distance.  The guide said George Bush gave them the money to renovate this church but the sign we saw later mentioned something about US Aid so we think he meant the money was given with Bush was president, not from him personally.  Although that may not be right either since the work was just started in June 2015.

We then walked through some interesting places.  First it seemed like we were walking up a dry river bed that had a lot of growth in it.  Then, just when we wondered where on earth we were going because there was total vegetation in front of us, a passage way was cut into the rock so into it we went.  Some of these passageways were just tunnels through the rock but others were deep trenches so you could see the sky way above you.  Along these passageways there were ups and downs and some of them were not very nice.  Luckily it was drier today than yesterday or I would have really had a problem.  They also twist and turn and there seem to be hundreds of them throughout the complex.  I guess if you know them well enough they would be very helpful for getting around between churches at the entrance levels.  

One of the passageways is called the path to heaven or something like that.  It is a curvy tunnel that goes slightly up and down but generally stays flat.  Once you are about 10 feet in there is total darkness right through to the end.  The guide said to put our right and on the right wall to follow its path around and our left hand on or above our heads to make sure we didn't bump our heads.  It was a bit unnerving but also pretty neat.  Only near the end did the guide turn on his phone because there was a rock that we could have run into.  In other places there were incredibly steep rock stairs along the side of the rock with no railing or anything so one could very easily fall and get hurt.  Luckily our guide was there to help me each time.

We went into three more churches:  Emanuel, Mark and Libanos (an Ethiopian monk).  I can't say that I can even keep them straight any more except that Livanos was definitely the smallest and it was very cracked and deteriorating.  It was also the last one we visited so perhaps that's why I remember it.  One of them had very faint paintings on the wall.  The years had definitely faded them though so they were hard to make out.  One of the churches followed the design of Petra in Jordan and it was really neat with more texture/design work on the outside.  The original is apparently a mix of two different rocks in layers.  Lalibella simply alternated the depth of the chiselling so it looked like there was a different material or design along the whole exterior.  This one has a protective cover above it but much of the church is deteriorating.  However, it was still one of my favourites as it was more interesting to look at than the other plain ones.

After we finished all of the churches we walked back to our hotel, again being followed by young people as we walked along.  My afternoon was spent resting in my room and trying to do internet, which just wasn't working.   So I did some blogging, took a shower and washed my hair, and just generally relaxed.  At 6:30 I went down for dinner and shortly after 8 I was back up in my room to finish some more blogs (like this one) and get ready for bed.  When the power went out I knew it was definitely time for bed!

Lalibella is set on a high plateau over 2,400 metres above sea level.  My room is on the second floor and overlooks the town and valley, hills and mountains beyond.  It is a spectacular view.  The streets go up and down the hillsides in town and the people have no trouble navigating the hills regardless of the weather, unlike some of us.  There are small shops along the streets and when we stopped to get water they charged us more than in the previous locations and said that was because of the transportation charge and that may well be the reason as they are rather isolated.  Even from the airport it is a long winding road up and down the sides of the mountains to get to town.