Ethiopia

If you plan on visiting Ethiopia, then the town of Lalibela must be part of your itinerary. Lalibela is located at about 2500 m above sea level in the Amhara region. The locals proudly state the population of the town is 100% Ethiopian Orthodox Christian.

The churches are built during the reign of Gebre Mesqel Lalibela, who spent some time in Jerusalem in his early years. He is believed to have attempted to build a new Jerusalem. The rock-hewn churches are considered as the most impressive historical site in sub-Saharan Africa. They are grouped in two main clusters – Southeastern and Northwestern. The most famous and for many the most impressive church forms the third group – this is the church of St. George.

St. George – Bet Giyorgis 

This is the most finely executed and best preserved church which is the only one left unprotected by a shelter. The church is a bit isolated from the other two groups of churches and is the spot chosen by tourists to wait for the sunset. So if you leave this church last in your program you need to be prepared to meet all the other tourists exploring the churches this same day.

St. George – Bet Giyorgis in Lalibela

THE NORTHWESTERN CLUSTER

Bet Medhane Alem (House of the Saviour of the World), home to the Lalibela Cross, is believed to be the largest monolithic church in the world with its 11m height and covering an area of almost 800 sq m.

Bet Medhane Alem

Bet Maryam, Meskel and Danagel – you can reach the three churches from Bet Medhane Alem through a small tunnel. While Bet Meskel and Bet Danagel are two very small chapels, Bet Maryam is much more impressive not only from the outside. It is very popular among the local pilgrims and you can still see them sitting there reading the bible. In my personal list this church is sharing the first place together with Bet Gabriel-Rafael.

Bet Maryam

Bet Maryam

Bet Mikael and Bet Golgotha share a common entrance, women are prohibited to enter the latter. Within Bet Golgotha is situated the Selassie Chapel where King Lalibela is believed to had been buried.

THE SOUTHEASTERN CLUSTER

Bet Emanuel was the private church of the royal family and is regarded as the only full monolith in the southern cluster.

Bet Emanuel

Bet Emanuel

Bet Mercurios, Bet Lehem and Bet Abba Libanos – the first one is a cave church which may be a former prison, the second one is a small chapel. The last one – Bet Abba Libanos has the most beautiful legend for its creation – it was built overnight by Lalibela’s wife and the assistance of a group of angels after the king’s death.

Bet Mercurios, Lalibela

Bet Gabriel-Rafael, possibly a former royal palace, as I already mentioned, is among my favorite churches in Lalibela. It is surrounded by a deep trench which you cross on a wooden walkway.

Bet Gabriel-Rafael, Lalibela

DIRECT FLIGHT TO LALIBELA

If you are not interested in visiting Addis Ababa for instance, then you can look for flights landing directly at the Lalibela airport, located about 30 minutes of Lalibela town. Honestly, I would have skipped Addis Ababa if I could plan our Ethiopian trip again. For me there was nothing so interesting in the capital, compared to Lalibela, where you can enjoy not only the churches as the highlight of an Ethiopian trip, but the whole atmosphere of the place which makes you feel so relaxed and at home.

There are different routes for those heading to Lalibela from Addis Ababa:

from Addis to Dessie and from there to Lalibela;

from Addis to Bahir Dar and from there to Lalibela.

FROM BULGARIA

The cheapest tickets I could find from Sofia to Addis Ababa were with Qatar Airways. A return ticket costed us around 450 Euros per person. You can check the prices here

HOW WE DID IT

Addis Ababa – Dessie

We went to Mesqel square in Addis Ababa where the offices of the Selam bus and Sky bus companies are located. The Sky bus office was a bit difficult to find and in the end turned out to be closed so we decided to go with the Selam bus. Their office is much easier to find and from my experience their buses are better, although most of the comments you will find online about the two companies are in favor of the Sky buses. Anyways, we bought our tickets to Dessie for 250 Birr per person (USD 11) and on the next day arrived at Mesqel square around 5:15 a.m. to catch the bus, which was expected to leave at 6 a.m.. We had to wait around one hour in the cold, so my advice would be to take warm clothes, as Addis Ababa is located at an altitude of 2350 m which makes it the fifth highest capital in the world. This means very high temperatures during the day and very cold nights and mornings. So be prepared if you plan to travel by bus, as buses usually leave early in the morning.

The Selam bus stop on Mesqel square in Addis Ababa

About 6 hours and few stops later we arrived at Dessie where we went directly to the bus station, located centrally, 1 minute walking from the main road. There we bought our tickets for Lalibela for the next morning – 100 Birr per person (USD 4.5).

Dessie – Lalibela

Now this is a true adventure – the buses from Dessie to Lalibela are very small, there are much more people inside than seats and it is a mess. Also, after Weldiya there is only dirt road and construction works going on, as a new paved road is planned to be placed into service within the next few years. So expect a lot of dust and a very very bumpy travel for more than 2:30 hours.  Overall, getting from Dessie to Lalibela through Weldiya took us around 7 hours with a very long stay at Weldiya.

Bus from Dessie to Lalibela

Lalibela – Bahir Dar

For returning to Addis we arranged a car from Lalibela to Bahir Dar, as transportation with a bus would had been very complicated – you need to take a bus to Weldiya and to wait there and ask every bus arriving at the bus station if they are heading to Bahir Dar, which can take hours and there is still no guarantee you will make it the same day. I can’t recall how much exactly we paid for the car but it was something around USD 50, as there was another passenger travelling with us. In Ethiopia it is very expensive to arrange a private car rental so this was a pretty good deal.

If you want to check the options with a car, I highly recommend the travel agency, which has an office in the Olive garden restaurant in the center of Lalibela.

Bahir Dar – Addis Ababa

In Bahir Dar it was easy – we got to the bus station office and bought tickets to Addis for the next morning. This time we travelled with the Sky bus, which compared to the Selam bus we travelled with, was in poorer condition, but still much much better than the small one which took us to Lalibela. The price of the tickets was around USD 10.

Important!

Keep in mind that there is a local Ethiopian time and International time – they have 6h difference so be careful not to miss your bus and always ask if the time stated on the ticket is local or international. We almost missed one bus this way.

The monolithic rock-cut churches of Lalibela, the Ethiopian cuisine, the country’s landscapes and the beauty of local people – just a few reasons why Ethiopia should be in your travel list.

Our first African journey started after midnight when we arrived at the Bole airport in Addis Ababa. We had to wait there for two hours just to get our passports checked. While we were still waiting on the queue the passengers from a plane coming from Saudi Arabia entered the passport control area. They started pushing each other, and once a guy tried to jump the queue, where we were the only foreigners left waiting, I realized how peaceful Ethiopian people are. They didn’t say a word, so I told the guy with the white thobe to wait for his turn but he didn’t even turn to me. I tried explaining once again but he didn’t listen. But when the guy heard Ivo almost shouting at him he suddenly stopped. This is when the authorities decided they might intervene and put some order.

As I said, what surprised me the most was the way Ethiopian people were reacting to all the waiting, the rude people trying to get ahead of them and even the authorities who seemed like they didn’t know how to react in such a situation.

Once we managed to pick up our luggage we went outside to look for a taxi – so we had to choose between a Lada and a Lada J That’s right – almost all taxis in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, are some 40-50 year old dark blue Lada’s, like the one my grandparents had when I was little. Only that the Ethiopian ones had a bonus – once you get in you start inhaling the burned gases as there are no filters preventing this. Ethiopian taxi drivers also like to adorn their cars. Inside you can see Christian icons, plastic flowers, a tufted rug which you could see in almost every socialist home in Bulgaria not so long ago.

It turned out we had booked our accommodation in an area that looked like the African version of the Red Light District in Amsterdam. Since it was already around 3 a.m. we just checked in and went to sleep.

On the next day we took a taxi to Meskel square where the office of Selam Bus Company is located. There we bought our tickets for Dessie for the next morning. In the office we met a young guy and his friend who both started chatting with us. They showed us the way to the center and even explained interesting facts about the monuments and buildings we were seeing on our way. We first went to the old train station, build by the Italians. From there we walked along Churchill Avenue until we reached the Piazza and Menelik II Square – the heart of the city. At that time we were still walking around with the two guys we met at the ticket office. They took us to a cozy traditional restaurant and ordered something which turned out to be lamb served in something like a big pancake which Ethiopians call injera. Our new friends started eating with their fingers like all other people around us but since we were super afraid not to get sick we decided not to eat. That is when our suspicions about the Ethiopian guys were confirmed – they wanted money from us. They asked us to give them $130. So that’s how we realized that when someone in this country comes to talk to you, in 90% of the cases this person will ask for money. And that’s how it really was, only that no one else asked us for so much money the following days. So those two guys gave a bitter taste to our first day in Addis. But it was a good way to be prepared. As one of the guys said when someone asked us for money earlier the same day – you have the color of rich.

We spent the rest of the day by ourselves, just walking around and went to the hotel earlier, as we had to wake up quite early in order to catch our bus to Dessie.

Around 4 a.m. we arrived at the bus station at Meskel square. It was really cold and it was a mess. A dozen of buses parked, people waiting with their luggage. After waiting for almost an hour in the cold (Addis Ababa is at an altitude of 2400m – the day can be very hot while the evenings are chilly and sometimes it can get really cold) we finally were directed to the bus heading for Dessie and in some minutes we were already on the road. It took us about 6 hours to reach the destination. We stopped at several places where our fellow travelers enjoyed a cup of aromatic Ethiopian coffee. What I was hoping to enjoy was a toilet J. Well, there was a squat toilet and while I was trying not to touch anything my sunglasses fell directly into the hole. And that was the end of them.

Once we arrived at Dessie we started looking for a place to stay, so we checked two of the places listed in our guide as budget options – Amba Ras and Qualiber. For what they were offering, these places were a bit overpriced. The showers in both hotels looked as terrible as did the bed linen so we decided to go to the only hotel listed as moderate in our guidebook – Time hotel. It is located somewhat far from the center, but its rooms are the best in town and, of course – the most expensive ones (around $40). So we decided to invest a bit more for accommodation, but enjoy hot water and a clean room with no mosquitoes.

To find a decent place to eat was also a little adventure. According to our guide the Amba Ras and the Qualiber hotels had restaurants offering good local and Western dishes. We checked both restaurants where there were no other people, it didn’t look very clean and we had difficulties explaining we want a vegetarian dish. So we decided to find the last restaurant listed in the guide – Aytegeb. After looking for the place for half an hour a guy drinking coffee in front of his shop told us the place doesn’t exist anymore. Starving and slowly losing hope that we will find a place to eat we started walking towards the Piazza on the main street. There we saw this 4-storey restaurant called Milano. The food was nice, the service was excellent, the coffee amazing, but for a tea drinker like me it was so strong that I had to mix it with a lot of milk to be able to drink it.

Dessie is famous for its traditional azmari bars with traditional Amhara singers who improvise with the lyrics based on the questions they ask the guests and the answers they receive. Shembeket bar is one of the popular places to check in town. Unfortunately, nothing was happening there when we went to check it out. So we went to Aba Jalewo which is located almost opposite the Shembeket. It is like a maze with different more private areas and the central area, where the musicians and singers are. When they saw us enter the place the lady, who was singing came to us and started talking in Amharic. Then she started singing to us and wanted me to stand up and dance with her. I preferred to enjoy my drink sitting, but she insisted and then a teenage girl came to me and started pulling my hand so that I stand up. It was very difficult to explain to her to leave me alone. It was a bit weird and we felt, as being the only foreigners there, everybody was too focused on us. We finished our drinks and left.

On the next morning we took a bus to Lalibela. We bought the tickets for it from the bus station in Dessie located close to the main road. It was a bit difficult to find it but people were very helpful, one guy who was speaking English even came with us and asked for our tickets in Amharic. The bus station at 5 a.m. looks horrible: people shouting around, buses trying to make their way through the crowds, animals looking around confused by all the mess and dirt all over the place. Our bus was a small one, which is why the number of people who entered it was rather unexpected. They were sitting on the floor, three people on a double seat; a woman was begging the driver to take her although there was no space to breathe inside. This is how we spent the next 7 or 8 hours. It was a good opportunity to blend in with the locals. The most typical thing about Ethiopians travelling is that they listen to music super loud, so loud that in 2-3 hours you get a headache. This was the case in all the buses we took, as well as in a private car, where as a bonus the driver was singing along.

In one village we stopped and people started opening the windows to buy cane sugar bundles which the villagers were selling. And then they started peeling them with their teeth, spitting the peelings on the floor and eating the inner part. In a couple of minutes the bus floor was all covered with the cane sugar remains.

After several hours of travelling we reached Weldiya where we spent more than 30 minutes for a break. This is a small village situated along the main road with nothing much to see or do, the locals were staring at us as if we were exhibits in a zoo.

After Weldiya you only get to enjoy a dirt road which at times gets really bumpy and dusty. It took us about 3 hours to get to Lalibela so when we finally arrived our butts felt heavily bruised. But we were really happy to have reached our destination and inpatient to go and see the churches in the rocks. So we rushed to the hotel and then to the ticket office where we were surprised to find out that an entrance ticket costs $50. We got our 2 tickets and since it was already 4 p.m. we had one hour to walk around and see some of the churches. After 5 p.m. you are not allowed to walk around in the area where the churches are situated. The major exploration of the churches we left for the next day and we enjoyed a dinner in the Ben Abeba restaurant – a must see while in town. The restaurant is located on top of a hill at the end of the town and offers a splendid 360° view over the valley. Its architecture as well as its cuisine and service are amazing and if I have to recommend a place in Ethiopia – this will be it.

Another great restaurant in town is Seven Olives. Centrally located with a beautiful garden and stone tables, this place is cheaper than Ben Ababa but its dishes are of the same quality if not better. It is usually recommended for a place to enjoy your lunch. If you also need to plan the next days of your trip you can go to the travel agency office located within the restaurant area. There we managed to find direct transportation for Bahir Dar for the next day.

The next day we spent walking around the Lalibela churches, accompanied by many kids who were willing to talk with us in English and practice and improve their language skills. The kids were awesome – they were so kind and warm-hearted, full of hopes for the future.

Since we were in Lalibela at the time when the elections in the United States were taking place everyone wanted to know what we taught about the candidates. We could see that people in all the houses were watching TV programs about the elections. When we went to a tour operator office the first thing the guy working there told us when we entered was that Trump won.

In the evenings when we were going home there were at least a dozen of kids walking with us, giggling and asking us where we were coming from. When they were hearing Bulgaria they were saying “Oooo, Sofia”! All the kids in town knew all capitals of the European cities.

Overall, the best time we had during our stay in Ethiopia was in Lalibela. The evening walks in the quiet town with the groups of kids around us were the best. This reminded me of my childhood days spent in a village when I was spending the whole day and the evenings outside with my friends. Free as a bird.