We had an 8:10am flight to Lalibela on Dec 24, so were up before 5am, a very short stay at our hotel in Addis. We had our Ugandan souvenirs to leave at the hotel, otherwise it might have been better to book a connecting flight from Entebbe-Addis-Lalibela.
There were more tourists on the Dash 8 to Lalibela than we had seen in all of Uganda. It's the main attraction in Ethiopia and we were now into busy season so I guess that's not too surprising.
It was an hour flight to Bahar Dar, a 30 minute wait for more passengers and then a 30 minute flight to Lalibela. This was a way better option than the two day drive from Addis, and for only $40 because we had booked our international flight on Ethiopian Airlines. We even got served a lunch!
The hotel and tour touts were all lined up in Arrivals at the airport in Lalibela. First we had to go back out to the tarmac to pick up our luggage (the little luggage train just stopped outside the terminal, they didn't unload it inside). We had booked a guide and transportation through our hotel (Hotel Maribela) and they were there to pick us up.
Tourism is growing fast in Lalibela but it's not yet quite there. They're paving new roads from the airport to town and to the ruins out of town, but in the meantime it's pretty dusty getting about. There's lots of new hotels under construction, and the staff are still figuring out how to run them.
Anyways, we were there to see the ruins and got right into it. Our guide took us to the Seven Olives for lunch - a nice setting outdoors under olive trees. The food was really good too.
After lunch we bought our tickets ($100 USD each) and then starting our guided tour at the northwestern cluster. The churches are all dug down into the rock, with the tops of the churches at ground level. There's tunnels interconnecting them. It all looks and sounds amazing, but for some reason we were both underwhelmed. Maybe we had read too much about how amazing they were and had really high expectations, especially after seeing Petra a couple years ago. I think also the underfunded attempts at conservation - corrugated metal jammed over doorways to prevent erosion, wires strung about with dangling neon light bulbs in the interior, rusty old garbage cans at entrances to the churches -- none of it were really 'wow' sights for us.
We finished the day at St George's (Bet Giyorgis), which is the most famous of the churches. It was pretty cool, but not amazingly cool.
Back at the hotel we cleaned up, and then went to Ben Abeba for dinner, with a great view overlooking the valley. We were both pretty tired (me in particular) so called it an early night. I think we were asleep by 9pm.
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