Ashesten Maryam Hike

 The beginning of the hike up the mountain.

 Brad watches as a local woman makes injera, the local flat bread.

 With her son as the injera cooks in the clay pot to the left.

Some of the local children who love to follow us.

 Hiking on the trail to the rock church at the top.

 The final stairs to the ledge above...

 and the entrance to the church.

 The view from the church.

 Descending with donkeys and locals.

 Removing and breaking up rocks to make terrace fences.

 Continuing on the way down.

A juvenile lammergeier.

 The Scottish woman's restaurant.

One final group photo.

Tuesday, January 30^th.

John and I were up early to join five others from our group, Brad, My, Eduardo, Rosey and Sasha, for a 10 km uphill hike to another rock hewn church. We drove up to the middle of the town to the start point of the hike and then we set off. There is a road that goes most of the way up, and the other members of our group were going to drive up a couple of hours later. We followed the road for a bit and then went on trails off the road and up the mountain. The going was tough in a few spots and breathing was more laboured than normal because we were hiking at 3500 metres. The views were spectacular and watching the daily goings on of the people who live up there was very interesting. It took us about two and half hours to get up there. When we arrived we stopped for a break before entering the Asheten Maryam Rock Hewn Church. This was a pretty basic one that predated the churches we saw yesterday. Part of it had collapsed over the centuries, but the main part was still good. There were the same basic parts with the chanting room and the holy-holy room at the back. The priest was there and showed us the processional cross. He also showed us some of the pages of the 13^th century goat skin texts, that had some beautiful coloured pages.

After that we climbed a little bit more to get a wonderful vista of the whole valley and the town of Lalibela. We hung around there for a bit before beginning the descent. We met up with Kay, Mary, Ellen and Marsha who were just arriving. The walk down was lovely and less strenuous. I fell to the back to avoid the incessant chatter of a couple of members and then stopped to have a pee. When I got back to the road, the rest were nowhere in sight. I figured they were still on the road and just around the corner, but I didn’t see them. On the way up we took off road paths, but I didn’t know where they were, so I just continued downhill on the road, figuring I’d either find them, or the van would find me on the way down. I really enjoyed the quiet and the solitude as I walked past the farmer’s fields. One man came rushing over to tell me his narrative scam in the hopes of getting money out of me, but I just told him ‘don’t waste your time’ and he went back to farming. I watched as down below men were smashing rocks with mallets in order to break them into more manageable pieces with which to make rock walls to terrace fields to help catch and slow the rainfall runoff of the mountain. Very hard work. Apparently, each farmer has to give forty days time to this type of community work.

As I walked the group had left the road and gone down a trail, but didn’t notice I was not with them for a while. When they did John ran back up, but didn’t see me. He figured I was probably still walking the road. So, Kaleb went back up and joined the group at the van, John led the rest of the group down, and after about a half hour, the van and Kaleb caught up to me. Then we couldn’t find John and the group because they missed a turn and headed straight down the hill. Anyway, it finally all worked out and we were reunited in time to drive to a local restaurant for lunch, with a very nice view of the valley below. I watched as the crows, ravens, black kites and the lammergeier (or bearded vulture) soared back and forth on the updrafts coming for the hot valley below. The lammergeier feeds on carrion, especially bones, which it drops from heights as great as 80 metres onto flat rock below. In this way the bird obtains access to the marrow of the bones that have broken. It is the only known animal whose diet is almost exclusively bone (70-90%).

We headed back to the hotel, or some people went off to shop, for the rest of the afternoon. Then we met up again, at 5:00 for dinner at very strangely constructed restaurant owned by a Scottish woman who came here to work as a teacher for a while, then retired and decided to start up this restaurant. She employees about fifty local people and all the foreign tour groups stop here for a meal. It commands a stunning view of the mountains and valleys below. We had a couple of drinks and a good meal and posed for one final group photo. Then back to the hotel for one last night’s sleep.