Tigray tour, Ethiopia

ETT had told us to be ready for 9am but our driver was at the hotel at 8:30 so we rushed to pack and leave on our two-day tour of the rock-hewn churches of the Tigray region.

We were the only two people on the tour, in a pretty new Toyota SUV. A much more comfortable ride than an old beat-up van that we had on the Simien trek. Same company (ETT), but it looks like their Tigray operation is much better.

The agent suggested a change to the itinerary as Abba Garima is now male-only - Debre Damo is also male-only but one that I wanted to visit to try the 50m climb up a cliff using a rope.

We first stopped at Yeha. At each of the churches, our car was descended upon by hordes of would-be guides and scouts and shoe-guarders and goodness knows what else. Our driver was great at clearing them away.

Yeha has historical significance but is not much to look at architecturally. One of the buildings houses a treasure trove of ancient manuscripts - all stored in cabinets circa 1970. The priest brought some out to show us. These should all be in museums or other sort of better storage, but oh well.

Next up was Debre Damo. It's accessed by climbing 50m up a cliff using a rope. I got about 2/3rds of the way up before stopping on a ledge and getting the "safety harness" - another rope looped under my arms and held onto by an assistant at the top.

Once at the top, the scamming began in earnest. They wanted an additional 200 Birr to enter the church, although I had already purchased the ticket below. I was in it more for the climb up the rope, so I declined and headed back down. I'm sure if I had stayed, it would have cost an additional 500-700 Birr by the time I got through tipping all the roles.

Heather wasn't allowed up the rope, so had taken some pics of me climbing and then visited a church in the village with the driver.

We met up at the bottom and then drove to Adigrat for lunch. It was the first time our driver had done this particular tour, so he just rolled down the window to ask bajaj drivers for recos for lunch. We ended up in a local restaurant that looks like it doesn't get many tourists - but we knew how to order and how to eat with our fingers so we did okay. Had a great coffee to finish and then we were off for the last church of the day, Medhane Alem Kesho. Our driver picked up a kid to help with directions - the last couple km were through rural fields.

The church was okay, partially hewn into the rock. The walk up was also pretty nice.

We had booked the Gheralta Lodge through ETT but our reservation was lost and they were full. So now we were trying to find a place at 6:30pm in a town with not much accommodation. Our driver found us a place, which was clean but very basic.

ETT did make it up by comping dinner and one night at the Planet Hotel after the trek in Mekele. Our driver also went out his was to make sure we were okay.

(Later on the Danakil trip we found from other people that ETT does a poor job of hotel reservations - almost everyone who had booked hotels through them had problems).

The next morning we were ready for our driver at 7am. First a quick breakfast stop at the same restaurant that we had dinner at, eggs with bread and butter and marmalade (marmalade is really popular here).

Then we were off for our first church of the day, Maryam Korkor. It's a steep 500m walk up the path to the church, which is supposed to take three hours but we did in 1:45. Our guide was impressed, although we didn't beat his record for tourists.

The church was very impressive. The old paintings on the ceilings and walls are amazing.

Next was Daniel Korkor, a five-minute along the edge of the hill from Maryam Korkor, with a 500m drop on the left side. The entrance is through a small door about 3 feet in diameter. I found the ceiling and wall paintings even more impressive in Daniel Korkor. So far a great start to the day!

We were supposed to break for lunch but had finished the two churches in under three hours so we decided to do the last church of the day before lunch, and then drive to Mekele.

For our finale we visited Abuna Yemata Guh, which was one of the churches I had been looking forward to when we were researching the trip.

It starts off with a straightforward walk up 125m on a path laid with rocks for steps. Then it got trickier.

We were told to take off our shoes, and we then scaled 15m up the side of a rock wall, with little hand- and footholds. We paid for assistants to help us, telling us left hand here, right foot there, and supported us on the wall if we needed it.

Then it was a walk along a one metre wide path with a 200m drop off. We had seen pics and Heather was a bit apprehensive; but it turned out to be pretty easy. It's only about 20m or so (the Lonely Planet describes it as a 2-3 minute walk, which it's not).

There was another group of tourists inside, so we waited a few minutes in the waiting room / cave.

Then it was our turn! It was amazing, the most impressive sight I've seen on this trip so far. The ceiling paintings should be a UNESCO heritage site. I took a lot of pics. It was really cool.

Getting back down was just as tricky as getting up to the church. We drove to Mekele, stopping in Mukro for lunch.

We checked into the Planet Hotel, which is about the best hotel in the region. Showered, gave some clothes to the hotel for express laundry, and made our way to the hotel restaurant for dinner. The food was okay, I was hoping for better. They had dessert on the menu so Heather ordered the banana bread, hoping for a repeat of the dessert we had in Entebbe, but it was not to be. I was feeling a bit under the weather again (I've been 100% only for a day in Axum) so we had an early night.