The flight to Lalibela was at 0700, check-in at 0500 - it would have been a short night and an early lot rise no matter what, but our minibus got us to the airport at about 0230 and we snoozed a bit and had some breakfast before checking in. The flight had whistle stops at Bahir Dar and Gonder, so we got to see from the air a lot of the terrain that we rode through. Got into Lalibela and to our hotel before noon, had a relaxed lunch, then three hours with a guide at one of the main complexes.
Lalibela itself is located in beautiful rugged country. This aerial photo shows a village on the edge of a canyon a few miles out on the approach to Lalibela.
The little round houses in the foreground are traditional construction for this area and are preserved as heritage structures.
With tourism on the rise in recent years, new hotels have been built that try to take on the traditional appearance.
The monolithic churches were hewn out of solid rock under the direction of King Lalibela in the 11th century. The existing ground-level rock surface becomes the roof and they carve down around the church, then carve into it to form the interior structure which in some cases is a three-story affair with stairs carved out of the rock.
This is the first of several churches - it was completed in 23 years - quite a feat considering the complexity of the task and the tools available to do it.
The photo also shows a protective roof over the church. There is an EU-sponsored project to protect them from damage from the elements - controversial in that many believe that the structure as designed is too intrusive and unnecessarily detracts from the attractiveness of the sites.
The churches had various styles of crucifixes. This is the Lalibela cross, and below that a fresco on display in this church.
King Lalibela's tomb is in another church that is part of this complex.
And a short distance away is this three-story structure.
Other complexes featured tunnels, passageways, and bridges connecting the churches to each other, all carved out of the rock.
Monday 3 March - We had to catch the noon flight back to Addis Ababa and overnight there before flying on to Zanzibar on Tuesday 4 March. We dined at the Yod Abyssinia where we were entertained with traditional Ethiopian music and dance - a rather nice way to spend our last night in Ethiopia.
1 comment:
Hi,
I am a stock footage researcher working for Apartment 11 Productions - an educational children's television production company based in Montreal. We're working on the fourth season of our popular kids show, Mystery Hunters which is on YTV and I was looking for a photo of King Lalibela (of the tomb, or the plaques with images of him on them) for one of the episodes. I found your photos online and was wondering if we could use one of them. Could you please email me back and we can discuss. The email is dinacindric at gmail dot com. Thanks so much!
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