A LEAP OF FAITH
A new tour takes travellers to areas few Westerners visit. But scaling the Gheralta Mountains requires strength of spirit,
ILLUMINATED by flickers of candlelight, an elderly pilgrim squats in the mud, reciting passages from a well-thumbed, leather-bound copy of the Old Testament. Around him, figures swaddled in white linen are stacked tightly together, covering every crack, crevice and precipice of Lalibela’s ancient rock-hewn churches.
Having walked for days, they lie still – but when sunlight spears the horizon in six hours’ time, heralding Ethiopia’s Christian Orthodox Christmas Day, this place will be very much alive.
Lalibela, a small town in northern Ethiopia, is the heartland for religious festivals such as Genna, celebrated around January 7 every year. While the faithful queue for hours to find a patch of rock at Bete Maryam (House of Mary), one of Lalibela’s 11 monolithic churches dating from the 12th century, I’m given privileged access.
In search of an elevated position, I clamber barefoot over human husks so weary and fragile I fear they may crumble into dust. But as dawn approaches, drums and dancing coax these chrysalids to unfurl, filling the holy caves with a flutter of angelic butterflies.
Witnessing Genna is a spectacle and an alternative way to spend the festive period – but Ethiopia’s churches are open for business all year round.
Home to the Ark of the Covenant (a chest containing tablets inscribed with The Ten Commandments), the country has been shaped by Christianity and many of its elaborate, historic and often hard-to-reach churches are still a focus for the community today.
Lalibela is already popular on the tourist circuit, but further north in the region of Tigray, which borders Eritrea, the Gheralta Mountains conceal frescoed caverns sculpted more than six centuries earlier. YellowWood Adventures is the only Brit operator to offer multi-day camping trips here, venturing where few other Westerners tread.
Eroded by the elements, sandstone pinnacles soar from the arid earth, swirling with an inferno of fiery colours. Trails follow narrow canyons knifing the landscape, steeply rising to high-altitude plateaus at eye level with the clouds.
Carrying baskets of injera (flatbread) and new-born babies, a
train of flowing, floral fabrics leads us to Abuna Abraham church, where a baptism is due to take place that afternoon. Inside, prayer sticks lean against a rock wall dazzling with frescoes of George and his dragon. After a three-hour trek, the wooden crutches are essential for surviving all-night services; endurance and stamina form the backbone of religion in these parts.
While some churches are easy to access by road, most can only be reached on foot, requiring us to camp along the way. Our first night is spent sleeping beneath the boughs of a 500-year-old sycamore where camels graze and jackals howl.
We also pitch tents in a school’s grounds and, in the village of Dugum, we’re invited to a traditional wedding, where we’re treated as guests of honour with platters of fresh injera and home brew served from a rusty US Aid tin can.
Having spent all night in church, the weary white-clad couple eventually emerge from a simple homestead after dusk. As the revelry intensifies, I’m swept up in a fervour of beating drums and the strumming of masenqo
stringed instruments. Even the dud AK47s proudly worn by some guests as status symbols no longer pose any threat.
Living several hours from the nearest road, these people rarely run into farangis (foreigners), making tourists a welcome novelty rather than a nuisance.
A day later, jovial farmer Abraham beckons us into his 200-year-old farmhouse, where his granddaughter Medhin toasts coffee on an open fire.
Sitting on baboon-skin stools, we communicate with laughter and sign language and exchange our Tupperware boxes of tuna pasta for some of the finest homecooked injera and shiro wat (a chickpea stew) I’ve ever tasted.
Crawling through tunnels of paddle cacti and edging along trails with sheer drops, paths connecting the Gheralta Mountains aren’t always easy and, at times, we all struggle.
Reputed to be the scariest church in the world, Abuna Yemata Guh requires a vertical climb to reach its hallowed hollows, although the availability of a harness and ropes mean even sprightly 80-year-olds can access it with relative ease.
Later, as night falls and the sky explodes with stars, villagers join us for a party, dancing around a bonfire. Captivated by the moment, one invalid uses his crutch to leap over the flames. Showing solidarity, a senior member of our group ceremoniously tosses her walking stick into the pyre.
Bound by unfaltering faith, these people are strengthened by a spirit which surpasses any religion.
In the Gheralta Mountains, where time stopped at the last road many miles from here, the open heavens provide a roof for the most impressive church of all.
Reputed as the scariest church in the world, Abuna Yemata Guh requires a vertical climb to reach its hollows