Endit now bus (How is it bus)? The driver greeted the early-morning
bus to Lalibela like a rockstar or a politician. The driver has
descriptives to match both. The driver is like a rockstar because of
the mass amount of drugs (chat) he chews in the line of his work and
he is like a politician in that if there is a way that he could rip
you off, he'd be more than happy to oblige. The rains have turned the
dirt roads up to Lalibela into a Disneyland Star Wars ride, without
the charming politeness of C-3PO.
I had yet to travel outside of Dessie since the big rains started in
July. A vibrant blanket of green seems to have been cast across the
whole of Amhara. The dry riverbeds have started their trickle.
Around every bend a thin boy is tilling the ground with two even
thinner oxen pulling him along. I spot a clash in color against the
blanketed background. It is a pinprick of electric blue, like a
shining mirror against the blackness of night it catches my attention.
The momentary distraction was a Starling, the most beautiful bird I
have seen in Ethiopia, made even more beautiful by the contrast.
When I arrived in Lalibela, I set off to find a hotel that was
recommended to me by some couchsurfers I had. Down the hill away from
the tourist hotels, the hotel was found. On the way down, my memories
of insatiable Egyptian tourism were awakened vibrantly. It seems that
the whole of the town wanted to be my tour guide. I guess it is to be
expected, but the home-grown hospitality of Ethiopians seems to have
deteriorated in this case. However, when searching for yejebenaw
bunna (coffee from a traditional coffee pot instead of an espresso
machine) a small souk (store) gave an invitation for free jebenaw
bunna showing that off the beaten path from tourism it is still in
Lalibela if you search for it.
Inflation was quite evident in tourist pricing. The price to see the
church in Lalibela jumped to 300 birr from 100 birr just a few months
ago. The price to see the monastery was 50 birr up from 10 birr. If
you are paid a non-farenji salary, things like this can hurt the
wallet quite a bit.
The following day I went to the monastery on the mountain that shot up
from Lalibela. The hike at elevation was great. Being able to walk
through the lush surroundings brought back memories from Switzerland.
As I walked upwards, large groups of laborers carried trees and other
materials off of the mountain. Clouds of mist brushed over the peak
of the mountain as if the capped mountain was enjoying large puffs of
a cigarette.
When I reached the monastery, I found out about the change in pricing.
I figured I'd hiked all the way up; why not pay to see the monastery?
The monastery by itself was beautiful, but quite common in comparison
to the rock-hewn churches in the town below. The more interesting
part was the epic view from the outcropping near the church. After a
brief interlude of snack-age, I decided to go all the way to the top
of the mountain (a nearly straight-up climb above the monastery). A
little girl who was following us around offered to show us to the top.
At first I declined the invitation as I had declined the many
invitations I had throughout the day for a "guide" to help us find the
very evident path up the mountain, but she offered to take us up to
the top for free and as I didn't know the best way to climb up the
veering cliff-face, I accepted. When we arrived at the top the view
was completely fogged over; apparently the mountain was a
chain-smoker. But the epic-ness of sitting at the top of the mountain
was definitely worth the climb. On the way down the young girl
invited us to her house for bunna (to which she interestingly added
salt in replace of sugar). I had never been in an extremely rural
gojo bet (straw-thatched mud hut) before and was amazed at all of the
mud compartments that were housed on the walls in the hut. In the hut
was a calf that discovered that my arms had been caked in sweat. So
while the girl smoked us out with a smoky fire to prepare the bunna,
the calf cleaned off my skin and removed perhaps four levels of skin
with its abrasive tongue. After the bunna and the hospitality I felt
it would be nice to show my thankfulness by giving her a few birr for
the cost of the bunna. At that point she asked for more money for
being a guide and more money for her hospitality. I told her that I
didn't ask her to be a guide and that the birr I gave her was more
than enough to buy more bunna. This frustrated the adventurous day so
far, but I couldn't blame this little girl for the detrimental social
repercussions of tourism to hospitality.
I met up with some Brits that I had previously run into in Dessie and
we made our way to Lalibela. The churches were amazingly chiseled out
of the rock hundreds of years ago. The most amazing aspect of these
churches is that they were still a part of the rock they were carved
from. The amount of men and time and skill it took to make all of
these churches defies logic. It's comparable in my mind to the
mystery of how the stones of Stonehenge were transferred and placed so
symmetrically.
After the viewing of the churches and dinner, the Brits and some other
travelers from Belgium, Israel, Japan, Canada, and Germany met up for
some traditional dancing and masinko playing (a traditional
one-stringed instrument). Of course this was a Tej Bet (a place to
drink honey wine) so we were obliged to partake in the potent effects.
I did put my Ethiopian dance basics to test. I'm sure that
practicing in a mirror or having some kind of instructor would help as
the constant shoulder shrugging probably looked more like a seizure
than any real form of Ethiopian dance.
Even with the expense of Lalibela, it was definitely one of the
wonders of the world. While I won't be able to go as many times as I
would have liked due to the cost, I will be going again in the future.
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