Ethiopia - It's All Going Tits Up

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Lalibela - Underwear, Churches and Cool Priests

Security Alert

Today is a bad day for the women. We have to leave the hotel by 5a.m. to get the early flight to Lalibela. Everyone - even me(!) - makes it on time. Our bus is on time and we get to the airport on time! It's all good.

At the airport, though, we have to go through bag scans and body scans twice. The second scanner seems to be set a bit too sensitively, though, as all the women set the scanners off because of the metal in their bras. Eventually, after the women have walked through the scanner several times and had other searches, we get through. The first conversation of the day is inevitably a detailed discussion about the design of bras and underwear in general. I make a mental note not to walk through an airport scanner wearing Wonderpants.

Our flight is a short hop to Lalibela on a twin-prop Fokker 50. Being a propeller-driven plane the pilot is able to show us his skills at reversing, a U-turn and an emergency stop.

A good road goes from the airport to Lalibela town - a sign that Ethiopia is trying to increase tourism - and we arrive at the Lal Hotel just in time for lunch.

Our rooms here are probably not as good as in Addis Ababa - the locks are difficult, there is no toilet paper, there is no mirror, and they haven't finished cleaning them. The food, though, is again very good and we are treated to the "coffee ceremony", being shown how coffee is traditionally made - it's definitely not "instant" coffee and not something that could be prepared during a coffee break! I nearly get beaten up for saying "Nescafe".

The Churches

After lunch we head off towards the Lalibela churches. These are one of my main reasons for coming to Ethiopia. The churches were carved down into the sandstone during the 12th Century. They are an incredible sight! Nobody is quite sure how they got there but it is estimated that it would have taken a workforce of 40,000 people to carve out the churches in this remote part of Ethiopia.
We are again searched at the entrance to the site and the bad day for the women continues as some of them are groped during the search.

We saw five of the churches and a tomb. We were allowed to photograph inside the churches but the priests must be so fed up of flash cameras that they have taken to wearing sunglasses when being photographed - they are certainly the coolest looking of all priests!!

More bad news for the women - they are not allowed into part of the Golgotha Church. Apparently this is because Mary Magdalene was the first to discover that Jesus had been resurrected - I'm a bit confused by the logic.

I'm struggling with my feet again because in all Ethiopian churches we have to take our shoes off. This is because God made Moses take his shoes off when he gave him the Ten Commandments. All Ethiopian churches have a copy of The Arc of the Covenant (where the tablets are kept) so, if Moses had to take his shoes off, then so do we. I find Lalibela particularly difficult because the churches have been carved out of rock and I struggle with the hard uneven rock floors and I treat myself to a proper foot inspection when we get back to the hotel {fortunately the water was working}

Dancing Queens

The evening meal back at the Lal Hotel is the first one which is included in the cost of the tour and the first disappointing meal we've had. The food is bland and tastes like the hotel is trying too hard to cater for a tour party and give us "Western" food. After the meal four of us move on to the bar for another drink. There is a a brother/sister act in the bar performing traditional music and dancing. We should have realised what was going to happen, shouldn't we? Eventually all four of us have to join in the dancing which seems to involve mostly just moving the shoulders. Jim easily wins the "dance off" by impressively throwing in a few Scottish Highland moves to his traditional Ethiopian dancing - and all at altitude, too!! He is even videoed by some of the locals in the bar who are very impressed - expect to see it on the Ethiopian version of You've Been Framed soon.

The musician was not singing a set song. He seemed to be improvising and keeping his song topical - a bit like the "wandering minstrel" tradition. He asked us where we were from and then included references to England, Scotland and Australia {well, Austria actually} in his singing. We didn't understand what he was singing about but everyone else thought it was funny!

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Photos

Lalibela Churches, Carved Out Of The Rockface
{Roof by UNESCO}