ETHIOPIA: Lalibela

Lalibela is amazing. I’d say that Lalibela is probably the second most amazing place I have ever visited. The Grand Canyon takes first place in my amazing rankings. I don’t think I can even do justice to how amazing it is with my description or photos. Lalibela has rock churches built like 900 years ago. Not just churches carved into rock but churches entirely freed from the rock. Think of a rock face you can walk over. All rock all the way down. The churches are dug out of the rock so what you are left with is a quarry with a church standing in it. I can’t describe how amazing it is and it is more amazing when you realize that there are 11 of these churches within 42 km of Lalibela and they were all supposedly built within 23 years. Scholars still argue over how they were exactly made although the locals just say that god and angels helped out or that god made the rock like mud so it was easy to make the churches. Regardless, it is still amazing. We only saw the three groupings (5 or 6 total churches) that are within Lalibela itself.

Iris was still hobbling along on her “sick foot” so we went nice and slow through the churches. I think this slow down allowed me to enjoy it all even more. I was able to soak in how incredible it all was and appreciate it that much more. I give Iris a lot of credit for continuing on through all the churches as the ground was rocky and uneven and must have been extremely difficult for her to transverse. I’m not glad that Iris was injured but I am happy that we went through the churches at a snail’s pace. Really amazing.














Lalibela isn’t much of a town. It’s more like a large village. But nice to walk around and buy souvenirs. I got a nice scarf supposedly made by some local monks. A restaurant had some very tasty local honey. Thick and raw it was great spread on some fresh bread. I also visited a tej beat and upon the waiter’s instructions had the medium tej rather than the strong. The medium was strong enough. At the tej beat I met a couple from Sweden that knew a friend I work with and her boyfriend. So the small world continues in Ethiopia.

Although I was still called a faranjo in Gondar and Lalibela Iris took almost all of the attention away from me. Iris is Filipino and very pretty. While walking around with her I didn’t get stared at like I usually do as all the focus was on her. “Konnichiwa!” or “Hey, Chinese!” were the most common shout-outs to her. Her response was always the same: “I’m not Chinese/Japanese/Korean” or whatever other country they shouted at her. No one ever got Philippines, though. Iris said she was determined to put the Philippines on the map in Ethiopia and that’s why she responded to everyone who yelled something at her. Conversely, I kept to my unwritten rule to ignore shout-outs. But in Lalibela the tendency was to yell the country of origin. (“Hey Chinese!”) There seemed to be many tourists from Spain in Lalibela at the same time. I laughed as I heard “Hey Spanish!” followed by “Hey English!” and finally “Hey American!” after ignoring the first two. But this was only shouted at me when I was alone.

I can’t recommend Lalibela enough. Ethiopia needs to conduct better marketing. These churches should be must see for traveling people interested in different cultures and history. Amazing.