Two Weeks in Ethiopia
In January 2020 Carrie and I went with a small group to Ethiopia for a two-week tour. We had a fantastic time in that wonderful country. It was educational, our guides were great, and the group we were with was a lot of fun. It was an indescribable experience.
Nonetheless, I try to describe it as well as I can through a few of the thousands of photos I made. This page is an overview of the entire trip, with sub-pages (linked below and in the narrative) for specialized topics.
Street Photography - featuring images taken on the street in Addis Ababa, Lalibela and Wukro.
Churches of Ethiopia - images from churches we toured, a major component of our trip.
Dallol - photographs of the fantastic landscape of a sulfur geyser in the Danakil Depression.
Salt Workers of Danakil - Salt miners of the Danakil and their camel caravans.
Clicking on any image will expand it, often showing explanatory text.
Map of Northern Ethiopia with orange circles indicating where we went.
Addis Ababa, Timkat
Carrie and I arrived in Ethiopia the day before our official tour started so we had a bonus day. Those of us who were there early went to Sabahar, a textiles and weaving shop that spins, dyes, and weaves silk, cotton and linen.
School children visiting the Sabahar weaving room.
We also drove through the Mercato, the largest open-air market in Africa. It was amazing, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I took many street photographs as we drove through the market and in Addis Ababa in general. They are viewable on their own page: Street Photography in Ethiopia.
That evening we were treated to a visit to Habesha 2000, an Ethiopian restaurant featuring traditional food, dancing and singing. Not just for tourists, there were lots of Ethiopians there too. The live music and dancing is fun, but the real fun kicks off when dancers single you out of the crowd and dance in front of you. You’re expected to dance with them, then give them a tip after they finally let you off the hook. Traditional Ethiopian dancing is super energetic and athletic.
Although all we see are Westerners in this picture, there were lots of Ethiopians here too.
Screen grab from a video of me trying to mimic this dancer. It was hilarious for all.
On our second day there, the first of the official tour program, we toured the St. George Cathedral and several museums, including one where Lucy’s remains are stored. I was glad for the background on Ethiopia and its history, and I found the Lucy exhibit surprisingly moving.
Beth studying Lucy’s skeleton
Our third day was spent taking part in the Timkat celebration. Timkat is the Ethiopian festival for Epiphany. During Timkat, large processions carry holy relics from church to church. We took part in one of these processions in Addis Ababa. It was chaotic and difficult to photograph. We also needed to be wary of pickpockets, with which our guide Mareg helped a lot.
Lalibela, Timkat
We flew to Lalibela in the morning, getting there in time to see the Timkat celebration there. I enjoyed this a lot more than the celebration in Addis Ababa - it was a smaller, more intimate, and seemed friendlier.
Our local guide throughout the trip was Mareg Asmro. He is a great guide and a wonderful person, everything came off without a hitch under his care. He helped make our trip really fun and successful and I’m glad to have met him. His website is Mark Land Eco Tours. If I go back to Ethiopia I will contact Mareg first.
Mareg, joyful at having herded all his ducklings successfully through airport security.
Several local teenage boys attached themselves to us to help guide through the crowds, talk to us in English, and hopefully tell us about their families, work and studies. Mine was named Yosef and he was very nice.
Lalibela Churches
Our second day in Lalibela was probably my favorite day of the whole trip. It was packed with fun, interesting, and beautiful experiences.
It started very early because a church across the valley from our hotel held an all-night vigil, broadcasting amplified chanting prayers out over the valley all night long. I found it to be beautiful, the prayers weaved themselves throughout my dreams all night long. I imagined waves of beneficence radiating through the night, laying a blanket of peace over all of Lalibela.
In the morning we drove out into the countryside and hiked to visit the Ashetan Maryam monastery perched atop Abune Yosef mountain (10k+ feet elevation). While there, a priest showed us a series of religious artifacts.
Coming down from the monastery, we were treated to a coffee ceremony by a village woman in her hut. The coffee ceremony consisted of her roasting beans over a fire and wafting the coffee smoke over each of us. She then ground the beans and brewed us all coffee. This occurred in the two-floor hut where she lives - the ground floor is where the animals live and the loft is where the people sleep.
Woman roasting coffee beans over the fire in her hut while her cow (and Rex and Georgia) looks on.
Coffee by the fire
After we got back down from the monastery we had a wonderful lunch at the Seven Olives hotel.
Lunch at Seven Olives. From left: Georgia, Rex, Lola, Joni, Beth and Dani, Debbie, Carrie, Mareg and Peter. Dani is an Ethiopian friend of Joni’s who was able to accompany us on the trip.
In the afternoon, we started our tour of the Lalibela stone-carved churches, going through six of the total eleven churches. I’ve described these churches on their own page: Churches of Ethiopia.
The pinnacle of this day was at the last church, where we had just exited when the Timkat processing came to put the Arc of the Covenant relics into Bet Golgotha for storage after the celebration. We were standing an arms-length away as the religious procession filed across a walkway into the church. It was a very intense and awesome moment.
Screen grab from a video I made of the Arc of the Covenant (in the shrouded boxes) being carried across a stone gangplank into Bet Mikael.
This wonderful day culminated with dinner at Ben Abeba restaurant, built by Rastafarians and looking like something Dr. Seuss would have designed. It was a great dinner in a great place.
Ben Ababa Restaurant at night.
On our third and final day in Lalibela we drove out in the countryside to view the Yemrehanna Kristos church. This church was built under an overhanging shelf of basalt (like Silver Falls). In the back there’s a crypt.
Later that day, after returning to Lalibela, we toured the final cluster of five underground churches, including the most famous of them, Bet Giyorgis (the church of St. George).
Carrie and me standing in front of Bet Giyorgis, Lalibela in the background.
On our last evening in Lalibela we went to Torpido Tej House for tej (a honey wine) and to listen to traditional music. The singer would come by and make up impromptu double intendre poetry in Amharic, making fun of who he was singing about. There was also lots of dancing.
Tigray
Map of the Tigray region in Northern Ethiopia, including Berhale in Afar
The next day we flew from Lalibela to Mekele in the Tigray region. After lunch in Mekele we rode in a van to Abraha We Atsbeha church near Wukro. This church is said to be the first stone church in Ethiopia, preceding the ones in Lalibela. Legend has it that it was created in the 4th Century but archaeology states 10th century. Regardless, the interior walls are covered with well-preserved murals.
After spending the night in the Wukro Lodge (awakened at 2am by amplified chanting prayers that continued all night) we went into Wukro for some shopping and street photography.
Church across the valley. In the morning, the whole valley was filled with wood smoke.
In Agula we traded our van for three Land Cruisers, then linked up with another tour group to form a caravan to the Danakil Depression. We drove through Tigray into the Afar region, then descended about 7000’ into the Danakil, which is below sea level.
Carrie in one of the Land Cruisers with children gathered around.
Danakil Depression
Map of Danakil Depression. Dallol is circled in orange. The arrow points to where the salt workers were mining salt. The circled X is Hamedela, where we camped overnight.
Once part of the Red Sea, the Danakil Depression is a huge salt flat with shallow salt lakes, bubbling sulfur geysers and active volcanoes. It is both the lowest and the hottest place on Earth, a truly alien environment. When we were there it was overcast so temperatures were only in the 80s, instead of the predicted high 90-100.
Access to the Depression is tightly controlled by the Afar tribe that lives and works the region. All tourists must caravan with authorized guides and caravans must stay on established routes. Parties of tourists are further accompanied by armed Afar tribesmen and must stick together. It was unclear to me whether this is for our protection or to protect the area from us.
On our first day in the Danakil we visited a salt pool, in which we could swim if we wanted. A few of our party got in, including me. The salinity was so high that we bobbed like a corks, it was pretty cool!
Joni and Spectators
After visiting the salt pool, we drove over to Lake Karum for “sunset.” The lake varies in size and shape depending upon wind patterns. It’s so shallow that the wind causes large areas to flood as the lake gets blown in different directions.
At the salt lake.
Nightfall on the salt flat.
After dark, we drove back to Hamedela, an Afar village where tourists are clumped together to camp out. Usually this means a spectacular view of the stars but cloud cover meant there was nothing to do but eat and go to bed.
Out campsite at Hamedela. Our group was packed in next to each other, surrounded by other groups also packed together.
Dallol and the Salt Workers Of The Danakil
Our second day started early with a drive to Dallol, the sulfur geysers. There, we walked around in an amazing, other-worldly landscape. I’ve made a separate page of photos of this extreme environment: Dallol.
After leaving Dallol, we visited a site where Afar tribesmen are mining salt for salt caravans. I put these photos together into a separate page: Salt Workers.
Afar tribesmen mining salt blocks.
Final Day, Abbis Ababa
After returning from the Danakil Depression, we spent a night in a disappointing hotel in Mekele, then returned to Addis Ababa on the last day of the official tour.
Carrie and I had an extra day at the end, during which we rented our friend Dani’s services and toured a few more places in Addis Ababa. Some of the street photography on my Street Photographs of Ethiopia page are from this trip.
Touring Addis with Dani’s guide service.
Dani clowning with a new friend
Entoto Maryam Church in the Entoto Mountains, near Emperor Menelik II’s old palace.
And that was the end of a wonderful trip to Ethiopia!