The Hard Way To Lalibella

By G. B. Spenceley

Everyone had said “You must visit Lalibella.” but then realising when I should be there, had added, “But of course it’s not possible in the summer!” The “big rains,” which fall over the Ethiopian Highlands in July and August and on into September, completely cut off this ancient capital from the outside world. The tiny airstrip that has improbably been levelled out in this uncompromising mountainous landscape becomes a sea of mud. The ubiquitous DC 3 that at other times drops its daily load of tourists can no longer land, and there is no road to Lalibella. Rain, knee-deep mud, swollen rivers, bandits and a dozen other hazards all vividly described, would make an overland approach unthinkable; or so I was told. It seemed a pity. Sometimes described by that outworn expression as one of “the seven wonders of the world” Lalibella, with its unique cluster of rock-hewn churches, did seem a place worth making an effort to see.

The Ethiopian Highlands rise up from the surrounding desert like cliffs from the sea. Nowhere in Africa is there a mountain mass so vast, so remote or so uniformly high. Defended by the huge ramparts of the escarpment, cut off from the outside world, this is the Amharic homeland in whose mountain fastnesses there has flourished—for more years than in Britain—an ancient Christian kingdom.

Central in these highlands is the ancient monastic town of Lalibella, once called Roha. In the eleventh century there arose here a new dynasty, that of the Zagwe kings. One of these was called Lalibella, after whom the old capital has now been named. It was at his command that the eleven monolithic rock-hewn churches were built—one man’s twelfth-century dream of a New Jerusalem in Ethiopia.
 
Although thousands now come to see these churches, tourists are a new phenomenon to Lalibella. It is only in recent years that the daily Dakota has dumped its motley collection of sightseers and the priests and beggars and an army of guides have grown rich on the pickings. Before that one had to walk there, or at least ride a mule, and there were few who would so venture; for many years no one came at all. The first European was the Portuguese priest, Alvarez in 1520 but he wrote little of what he saw, fearful lest his story be disbelieved. After that Lalibella lapsed into obscurity for more than three hundred years until visited in 1868 by the German explorer, Rohlfe. Still very few followed: two or three Frenchmen, an American and, in 1925 Rosita Forbes, the first British visitor. Although fully in the wet season, I hoped to follow in their footsteps.

There can be few countries that contain such diversity as Ethiopia, and already I had seen much of it. In a disintegrating bus of ancient vintage I had plunged 8,000 ft. down from the temperate plateau of Eritrea to the torrid plains of the Red Sea, passing in a few hours through three climatic zones. In a ‘plane even more ancient than the bus, and nearly as decrepit, I had hopped across the highlands from one almost washed out landing ground to the other. This was, of course, the tourist trail through Axum, Makelle, Gondar and Bahar Dar, the so-called “Historic Route.” There were no tourists, however, on my next flight. This was west almost to the Sudan, in a cargo ‘plane in which I crouched uncomfortably amongst crates and protesting sheep. Naked spearmen unloaded the ‘plane at the last jungle airstrip. I was told to contact Alek, the Greek, the uncrowned king of Gambella, and he it was who arranged for me to travel down the Boro river in the Red Cross boat. At Itang, half-way to the border, I found a solitary British V.S.O. worker selflessly tending the still warring Nuers and Anuaks. There were crocodiles and hippos in the river, naked hunters paddling dug-out canoes, and at night one heard the beating of drums; it was all rather romantic and I felt like some nineteenth-century explorer. This was still pagan black Africa and a world away from the ancient culture of the Ethiopian Highlands.

Back in Addis Ababa I planned my trip to Lalibella which, in spite of pessimistic warnings, I was anxious to attempt.  From the capital I went 300 miles north on an Ethiopian bus; there can be few more uncomfortable ways of travelling. No bus departs before it contains at least half as many again as it was intended to carry, seemingly with all their worldly possessions. From dawn to dusk we shuddered and groaned hardly with halt across plateaux, down escarpments, over plains. I sat on the back seat along with eight other people. The man in the middle rested his rifle across his knees, the muzzle jabbing my stomach. Firearms are a prestige symbol in these parts, bullets a form of currency.

I was making first for Bhati, to visit the great market of the rift border where the Gallas from the escarpment edge mingle with the nomadic Danakil of the desert. Lean and handsome, with lances and broad double-edged knives at their hips, they stood unsmiling beside their camels, the proud inheritors of yet another culture. Of all the people of Ethiopia, the Danakil (or, more correctly, the Afars) have the most sinister reputation, for killing is still the royal road to honour and glory.

But there were more usual ways of dying than by the Dana-kil’s knife, for the rains had failed and there was famine in Wollo Province. In the country every road was lined with the carcasses of cattle; only the vultures grew fat. In the towns every corner held its cluster of suffering humanity, too weak, too resigned even to beg; cholera, typhus, enteric fever raged rampant. I bent over the shrouded form of a child stretched across the road. “You can’t do anything,” they said, “she’ll be dead in the morning.” Life is cheap and death they saw all too often.

For the equivalent of twenty pence I found a bed in a sleazy hotel and the next day continued north to Waldeya. This is half-way up the scarp and the nearest point by road to Lalibella, which lies another hundred miles or so across the highlands to the west. It is a typical ramshackle town of tin-roofed houses, Arab shops and Amharic drinking dens each side of a muddy street. On this day it was jammed with lorries, for a landslide had blocked the road ahead, not an unusual occurrence in the “big rains.” This road runs like an infected sore through the land, for, with its attendant veneer of modernity, has come a commercialism and greed absent in the unprogres-sive highlands. The usual hordes converged upon me, beggars, pedlars and schoolboys. It is estimated that only five per cent of the population ever go to school; in relatively remote rural areas such as this it must be much less. But whatever the proportion, they are an intrusive minority. Pushing themselves to the fore, scattering the importuning mass, the literate youth of Waldeya took charge of me. At previous places I had learned to evade such attention, either by ruse or rudeness, but now 1 was grateful for their assistance for I needed an interpreter. They secured me both mule and muleteer and, after prolonged negotiation, agreed upon the price. It was to cost me twenty-five Ethiopian dollars (five pounds) for a march that could not be less than eight days. I was told I must estimate another dollar a day for food, which I was assured was enough for the needs of my muleteer and myself.

I had neglected to buy provisions in Addis. No doubt inspired by my readings of Wilfred Thesiger, I nourished some foolish notion that I could also “go native,” eating only the local food. It was anyway now too late to change my mind. There may have been shops in Waldeya but I could find no food even remotely titillating to a western palate. But a tumbledown shack, smelling like a neglected public lavatory, turned out to be a restaurant, where they killed and cooked a chicken. I managed to chew my way through half of it and the rest I took with me. By then we were ready to start, and never before had I ventured off into wild places so ill-equipped, so ill-prepared or so ignorant of what lay ahead; my only concessions to civilisation were a pair of boots and a sleeping bag.

My muleteer was called Makonnen and he was now resplendent in blue cotton shorts and jacket bought on the strength of my advance payment. No doubt this assumption of Western dress was a prestige symbol, but I was sorry he had abandoned the more graceful shama, the usual toga-like garment. He brought with him a porter called Gabra who was to carry my pack. Of all the muleteers of Waldeya, Makonnen was the only one bold or foolish enough to attempt the journey; all the others had talked about heavy rain and unfordable rivers. I could only hope his prudence was not over-ruled by his poverty and need; anyway he had an open, honest face and he looked sturdy enough. But one should be a judge more of mules than of men for this sort of journey. The drooping head and scraggy frame of this poor ill-fed animal was not exactly encouraging. The comforting illusion which had so far bolstered my resolve, that when overcome by exhaustion or heat I could ride, was now utterly shattered. I tenderly coaxed the mule’s neck in sympathy, an action which caused astonish-ment and howls of laughter from the crowd around. Someone handed me a stout stick.

Escorted by the youth of Waldeya we made our way through the town, ignoring as one somehow must, the prone famine victims by the way, to a place where those with strength enough to reach it, were being fed by the Ethiopian Army. Waldeya, half way to the plains, is on the edge of the famine belt; the highlands to which I was going, although often in abject poverty, were not stricken with famine.

We followed a well-worn track rising gently towards the mountains, amongst many returning from market, their donkeys laden with the produce of their barter. From the number of times Makonnen repeated the word, ‘Lalibella’ it was obvious he was being asked where we were bound. Already beginning to wilt under the fierce midday sun I no doubt cut a sorry figure and they looked at me in disbelief. Frankly, I was already beginning to think of Lalibella myself with some disbelief, or at least of my capacity ever to reach it. Unusual for the wet season was a cloudless sky from which the sun blazed vertically down on my already weary, dried up frame. I suffered torments of thirst. It was a measure of my disorganisation that my goat skin gourd lay empty somewhere at the bottom of my sack, and to drink from the torpid trickles of chocolate coloured water was unthinkable. Such places are the usual latrines in this land. Then, just as I felt I was about to collapse with heat exhaustion, relief came unexpectedly. At the crest of a hill, squatting under an acacia tree, sat a filthy ragged woman with an equally ragged child in attendance. Beside her was a large earthenware jar of talla. Taking this to be the Ethiopian equivalent of a roadside pub I collapsed nearby, frantically pointing to the jar. I had tasted talla before. It is a kind of beer made from barley and the leaves of the gesho plant. Someone had told me that fermentation should kill the bugs and I was relying on talla to save me from dehydration. I had not been told that it could rarely be produced in these poverty stricken areas. It was gourds all round and in spite of its muddy appearance and unspecified floating matter I have rarely drunk with more delight. But an hour later I was just as thirsty.

The way was now downhill and I was invited to mount my mule, a relaxation I had hardly thought possible. Indeed the mule was sturdier than it looked and I was able to ride much of the way, but rarely and only briefly uphill. I was perched on a wooden saddle with stirrups too narrow for my boots. The pommel was a solid upright piece of carved wood which on all steep descents, of which there were many, I thankfully clutched. I was soon to gain great respect for mules; they suffer not at all from any sense of exposure but will boldly walk along the lip of some fearful abyss and descend crags where a scrambler would step with caution. They must never be steered for they know better than their rider the route to take and will not easily be deflected from their choice. I quickly learnt to have complete faith in their unerring judgement.

But this was an easy gradual descent and I could sit back and enjoy the grandeur of the scenery, as well as effortless travel. Ahead, beyond the valley into which we were now descending and beyond another valley after that, there was a long line of mountains. Many, characteristic of the country, were flat-topped descending in tiers of basalt cliffs, but there were more isolated summits, bolder and finer in feature, which even on my map—the Michelin Map of East Africa—were shown as named mountains well over 4,000 metres high. From this distance it seemed an uncompromising line but I knew that somewhere we must cross this barrier to reach Lalibella. And so we pleasantly travelled, only Gabra, my rucksack on his head or perched on one shoulder, and of course my mule and Makonnen, making any muscular effort.

But I knew this tranquil travel would soon be interrupted. At the bottom of the hill lay a challenge; indeed a hazard, where I would be struggling in an element quite unfamiliar; a hazard about which all my counsellors, both European and Ethiopian had issued stern warning. The valley into which I was descending contained the River Tiku Wiha, the first of four great rivers to cross. That all day the sun had shone from a cloudless sky had not made me forget that this was the time of the “big rains.” It may not rain all day or even for several days, but when the storm does break it is sudden, dramatic and furious, and the rain is certainly “big.” In a few minutes a trickle becomes a torrent and the rivers, already swollen, become unfordable. I knew the state of the rivers would leave the issue of each day’s travel much in doubt and ultimate success problematical.

Thinking of all this, I got myself worked up into a state of apprehension but it was all something of an anticlimax. The river was fast indeed, but less than thigh deep. Makonnen, who was later to prove more timid even than I, committed himself to the water with little concern. I followed more hesitantly and clung to my mule’s girth strap for support. Really it was no problem at all, but I knew a storm anywhere in its upper reaches would have made it a very different matter.

The long climb up from the river was steep and there was still enough heat left in the sun to add to my thirst and fatigue. At every tukul I called for talla but Makonnen ignored my pleadings and hurried on, eager it seemed to reach some particular village. We continued even after night-fall until the barking of dogs warned us of some settlement. Thankfully we turned off the track towards a cluster of tukuls whose outline I could vaguely see against the sky. There were strange calls either of challenge or greeting and a figure appeared with a firebrand. The tukuls were conical and thatched, typical of the country, but in the centre of the group there was a rectangular structure of mud brick walls—a more prestigious dwelling into which I was ushered. This was the headman’s home whose duty it was to shelter and feed the passing guest, a levy being made from the villagers according to their means.

I groped my way into the hovel and sat on an earth platform at the back. The only illumination was the glow from the dung fire, in the centre of the floor; the atmosphere was thick with smoke, the smell pungent. A massive earthenware jar of talla was brought in by one of the women of the house. It was poured out into conical horn goblets the woman first sweeping a cupped hand of it into her mouth—an unfailing custom where the traditions of poisoning die hard—and with a bow I was offered with both hands the first goblet. With both hands I received it as etiquette requires.
 
While we drank, a small boy held up an oil lamp made from an empty can, leaving us from time to time in order to refill our horn goblets. Meanwhile the woman stirred the fire into life. She was handsome, with the well-cut refined, even delicate features common to her race. She wore the usual off-white shama, a fold of it concealing hair and half her face. Also concealed by the garment, making her look like a hunchback, was a sleeping child strapped to her back. She busied herself with the preparation of food.

Ethiopia’s national dish—almost her only dish—is injera and wat which is taken for breakfast, lunch, tea and supper. Injera is made from the cereal teff, ground between stones into a fine flour, and then baked in a large saucer-shaped griddle pan. In appearance and consistency it is exactly like foam rubber. On its own, injera has an uninspiring taste but the main body of the meal is wat. Wat can be almost anything, animal or vegetable, but giving it its distinction and marking its quality is the sauce in which it is prepared. This is made from berberi or peppers, red or green, chilis and other spices and herbs all prepared with loving care, dried or cooked, peeled and pounded.

After lengthy preparation a basket-work table was set before us on to which, folded like a napkin, were placed large circular sheets of injera. Ladles of wat were poured into the centre. Urged by my host I took a handful of injera and used it to soak up the wat. The effect was devastating. My mouth caught fire and I was left gasping. It was so hot that even with relieving gulps of talla I could take only a little and not at all satisfy my hunger. Not for the first time I wondered at my folly in boasting I could go native. Later, on another journey, I was to learn the Amharic for “not hot wat,” an invaluable expression that should be in every phrase book. Had I known it earlier, I should have been saved much pain.

But the worst ordeal was yet to come. It was not only of swollen rivers that I had been warned; my counsellors had told horrifying tales of tukul denizens. Rats, fleas, bugs and even lice were the accepted companions of every dwelling. But by Ethiopian standards this home was spacious and clean and, indeed, had I not accepted the saddle cloths to ease the hardness of the floor, all might have been well. Foolishly I took them; after all had I not an ample supply of insecticide? Liberally I dusted everywhere; down my shirt, over my hair, in my sleeping bag, on the floor. Thus with some confidence I settled down. But my confidence was short lived. Soon an army of foot-loose vermin invaded my bag; twin allied armies indeed, both fleas and bugs, regardless of all defences, hell bent for blood and my discomfiture. My body began to prick all over as if suffering from some dreadful skin complaint, and sleep escaped me totally.

At the first glimmer of grey dawn the woman of the house roused herself from the floor and fanned the fire into life. More injera and wat were produced but the talla jar was now empty, and without liquid I could eat little. The thought of an unending diet of foam rubber and fiery sauce and more tormented nights in tukuls so appalled me that I would have welcomed some natural calamity—earthquake, flood or landslide perhaps—that would have compelled retreat. But no such event offered excuse and, without loss of pride, I could but go on and suffer more. In contrast to my sorry self, Makonnen and even the mule seemed well fed and rested, eager to be off.

The way was downhill, often so steeply that the muscular effort of simply sticking on the mule’s back as it launched itself down slopes of 45 degrees was so great that scrambling would have been easier, certainly on the nerves. But I was anxious to save my undernourished legs for the mountain wall ahead, and anyway I didn’t want Makonnen to see what a coward I was.

The river at the bottom was wider and deeper than the last but, happily, less swift. A passing fellow traveller sensing my hesitation relieved me of my bag and returned across the river, giving me support, a natural act of courtesy for which he sought no reward. Now we mounted up the terraced hillside where humpbacked cattle struggled with primitive wooden ploughs. Small boys urged the cattle over the stony ground with long whips. Even as high as 10,000 feet, this fertile soil will produce crops of teff and durra, beans and barley. The cracking of whips is a competitive sport among the children; the sharp report carrying far across the valley was a sound that broke the silence of the mountains on every day of the journey.
 
Clusters of tukuls clung to the hillside looking like thatched mushrooms. Had we called at any they would have shared with us whatever meagre food and drink they had to offer, as is the custom. But now after a morning of travel our thirst and appetite were far from meagre; Makonnen’s as much as mine. He kept pointing to a larger village up the hill and repeating the word talla. We were following an age old caravan route along which there is the occasional hostelry offering rest and refreshment to passing travellers. The village for which we were now making contained such a place, a mud hovel kept by an aged crone of indescribable filth but, to my joy, offering talla galore. It was like liquid mud but at that moment it seemed the most glorious of God’s or man’s creations. My thirst satisfied, I was able to share the injera and wat that followed.

Caravan route or not, few foreigners pass this way. My arrival here nearly caused a riot. All the tukuls emptied as the villagers rushed to see the strange being that had come among them, the children fighting each other to get to the fore. The door of the hovel was blocked by staring faces while a group of the more privileged children were permitted in. They squatted on the floor motionless, as though hypnotised, staring speechless, their eyes wide with wonder.

The high pass that we must cross to enter the Tekassi watershed had been in view all day, and all day I had wondered how we could reach it. From this village, basalt cliffs soared up a full 4,000 feet seemingly offering no easy line for a mountaineer, let alone a mule. Indeed so it proved, at least by the direct route. Our track contoured the mountain slope to the foot of the gorge where a herd of lion-maned Galada Baboons fled up the rocks. We halted here, and there was much discussion and what seemed contemptuous glances at me as if they doubted my ability to go further. At last a decision was made and Gabra beckoned me after him, pointing straight up the steep side of the gorge. Makonnen took my pack and led the mule out of sight. Gabra bounded barefoot up the rocks with almost the same agility and speed as the baboons; I laboriously followed. It was a scrambling route too rocky for mules and too steep for me to keep pace with Gabra.

It took me over two hours to reach the crest of the ridge where at some 12,000 ft. it was pleasantly cool. I collapsed thankfully on the turf with a great longing to lie in the sun and sleep. It seemed we must be hours ahead of Makonnen but Gabra urged me on, beginning the descent of the long valley ahead. Where was Makonnen? I wondered, and for a moment I feared some treachery. Perhaps by now he was on his way back with all my money and I was to be disposed of in some secluded corner. I suddenly remembered one of my European advisers, with a vast experience of Ethiopia, warning me of such dark deeds. I felt a flash of fear, but then a distant call was heard far to the right and Gabra directed my gaze to a tiny figure and a mule descending a tributary valley. I felt ashamed for having doubted their loyalty.

Soon we joined company and for a while I could ride, now descending the long deep valley that in a day and a half of travelling would lead us to the great Takazze Gorge. At this height it was all pasture lands where small boys tended flocks of sheep and goats. They fled at the approach of such a strange being, eying me curiously but warily from a distance. Lower down the valley we came to small groups of tukuls where we sought talla but they were so poor they had none to offer, only a handful of stale injera, which without liquid I could not swallow. My thirst on this journey was an almost endless torment. It was no ordinary thirst produced by hard exercise, but a profound bodily need to replace what had been sucked out of me by the power of the sun. Food, too, I needed but there was none that my stomach did not repulse.

But the sun was not with us all that day; thunder rolled in the distance and dark clouds covered the mountains. The storm broke with dramatic intensity and we rushed to the nearest tukuls for shelter. Grudgingly it was offered after an exchange of angry words. The women and children were hustled away to another house and the men sat before us, staring with menacing eyes, clutching, as if with evil intent, their dulas, the stout sticks which, for lack of a more lethal weapon, all men carry. Even Makonnen was ill at ease and we departed before the rain had stopped. In all my journeys in Ethiopia, this was the only case of open hostility I was to meet, but it was probably induced more by suspicion than maliciousness. Suspicion and fear of the foreigner are traditional in remoter Ethiopia but discourtesy is rarely shown. Usually a smile and a few polite noises from my limited vocabulary would ease the initial tension and evoke a warm response. The most important word the visitor should learn is the greeting tenastalin. I used it to everyone I met and every passing traveller, and it was always received with the customary low bow repeated several times.

An overcast sky gave welcome relief from the sun, but the hard packed dusty track on which we had been travelling was now a ribbon of mud, so deep and glutinous that even the mule floundered. I had to walk or rather wade, and our pace was pathetically slow. Darkness fell long before we had reached the large village for which we had been making, and Makonnen led the way to a group of tukuls. There was no exchange of angry words this time, but smiles of welcome and gracious bows.

The head of the household was splendidly handsome with the deep-set eyes, aristocratic features and proud bearing that distinguishes so many of his race. He received me with the utmost courtesy and led me by the hand into the tukul where I was seated on a flat stone by the fire.

It was the usual conical straw tukul but larger than most. It needed to be. I never did find out how many people lived there; perhaps eight or nine adults and rather more children to whom my arrival must have been the funniest thing that had ever happened. It was very crowded; a tight knot of humans encircled the fire in the centre, elsewhere there were animals. Along the whole of one side stood a row of cattle; on the other side were sheep and goats. Innumerable hens roosted on shelves all round the tukul. The smell of animal urine, dirty clothes and unwashed bodies was asphyxiating. The thought of spending the night there filled me with horror. Not for the first time I wondered how a people so noble in manner, so fine in feature, could spend the whole of their lives in such filth and squalor.

But what they lacked in cleanliness and comfort they made up for in the warmth of their welcome. The talla was soon flowing and there was more injera and wat. I was so hungry that I had lost some of my earlier distaste for this unending diet. But sleep I needed as much as food, and there seemed little hope of that. What small space there might have been at the back was now taken up by the mule which had been led in for fear of hyenas. Eventually, after hours of talk and more talla, a small space was cleared for me on the floor. Everyone else simply wrapped their shamas more tightly round themselves, curled up and promptly fell asleep. But I, jammed up between cocooned bodies, so tightly that I could neither move nor fully stretch out, did not sleep, or so at least it seemed. And then, of course, there was another army of fleas to add to my general discomfort. I welcomed as never before the first light creeping through the cracks which signalled the end of a night so awful.

The whole family came to see us off, the head of it accompanying us a little way, a common courtesy in these parts. I had pressed money on his wife, but she would not take it. An empty tin would have been an acceptable reward, but I had none to offer; all I could do was attend with pills and plaster to those in need. There had been another storm in the night, but the track had nearly dried out and we made good speed to the village of Kulmask. Here I enjoyed beakers of tedj, a kind of honey mead and a rare luxury in rural parts, and fresh eggs with my injera instead of over-spiced wat. For the first time since leaving Waldeya, hunger and thirst were moderately satisfied.

What out-of-season Lalibella could offer a weary traveller I did not know, but even with the usual tourist amenities closed, it must be a haven of comfort in comparison with what had gone before—at least I could expect some familiarity with Western ways. Lalibella now loomed large in my mind, no longer for the wonder of its rock-hewn churches, but for the promise of uncramped, uninfested beds, unlimited drink and acceptable food. It was still far away, perhaps thirty miles, but I was determined, as far as it was within my powers to direct, and my muscles to permit, to reach it that night. Somehow Makonnen got the message and managed to replace his own exhausted mule with one more sturdy.

But besides time and distance and my own physical limitations, there was another major obstacle that might shatter my yearning for the luxuries of Lalibella. A few miles ahead, the valley down which we had been travelling—which on its own supported a substantial river—-was joined by the much greater Takazze. Its steep sided gorge we could now see with an occasional glimpse of the foaming ribbon in its depths. I knew this hazard had been on Makonnen’s mind too for there had been much talk of the Takazze, and Gabra had been sent on ahead to recruit assistance.

We could hear its ominous roar long before we reached it, and, when we did reach it, I wanted to turn back, the perils of this barrier completely ousting from my mind all my earlier longings for the delights of Lalibella. The river swept down between cliffs a good 200 yards apart, so obviously swift and seemingly deep, it did not seem possible that one could commit oneself to this relentless force and resist its power. My imagination worked overtime and I thought of myself entering the White Nile, somewhere below Khartoum as a decapitated, mutilated trunk. I think Makonnen had a similar idea, for he showed no enthusiasm to go further.

Indeed, here the expedition would certainly have ended but for the complete fulfilment of Gabra’s mission. Beside him on the river’s bank stood a group of sturdy, naked men—professional river crossers. For them the torrent offered no threat to offset their anticipation of the rich reward they would receive, and indeed would fully deserve, on the far bank.

There was something of a hiatus while an obviously nervous Makonnen protested with the river crossers and I looked at the rushing waters with increasing doubt. Then, either to convince Makonnen or bribe me, one of the men grasped his dula, snatched my precious camera bag, balanced it on his shoulder and, as calmly as if wading the Cam at Cambridge, launched himself into the torrent. I watched horrified, as much concerned, I confess, for the safety of the precious burden perched so casually on his shoulder, as for his life. Thigh deep, he met the full force of the current, immediately to be swept down with it, but somehow, either by strength or skill, miraculously maintaining an upright position. Nonchalantly, with a sort of dance-like motion, he pranced downstream, giving way to the current but with each stride making some progress across until in quieter waters he could change course and work back to land safely on the opposite bank. I was mightily impressed. Now it was my turn and I tried to assume an air of confidence I certainly did not feel. Two stalwarts encircled my waist, I their shoulders, to which I clutched frantically as I was half carried, half propelled across the mid-stream fury of the current, my legs hardly touching the river bed.

We landed 200 yards downstream and my relief was boundless. I walked back a little way to watch the struggle of the others. It gave me some smug satisfaction to see that their hesitation and fears were no less than mine had been, indeed Gabra twice broke away from his supporters and floundered back to the safety of the shore. Only with a third man supporting and pushing from behind was he at last urged across. The mule was the bravest of our party; half a mile down river in deeper but quieter waters both guide and animal swam across.

Now it seemed that nothing but the limits imposed by the daylight hours and my own endurance, could prevent us reaching Lalibella that night. We made good progress, I sustained for the time being by the rest and refreshment at the village, Makonnen no doubt encouraged, as I was also, by the prospects of finer fare in the fleshpots of the town ahead.

Almost at the crest of the next ridge Makonnen suddenly halted. A short distance away, outlined clearly against the sky was a line of four mounted men, each heavily armed, rifles slung across their shoulders, over their chests bandoliers of bullets. Shifta, I thought, and Makonnen thought this too for he was visibly agitated. But there was no escape, they had seen us. They were waiting for us, our paths would soon converge. You cannot travel far off the road in Ethiopia without hearing stories of shifta, they are armed bandits living beyond the law who murder and rob the unwary traveller. Ethiopia has a long tradition of them; some have become almost folk heroes, feared yet respected, the stories of their deeds spoken of in every tukul. Among the many horrors and perils of the journey with which those of greater experience had tried to discourage me, the threat of shifta had been given some prominence. I had been comforted by the knowledge that nowadays they rarely kill, at least not white men, but I had heard stories of recent travellers left helpless, stripped both of possessions and clothes. Not unnaturally I suffered a very uneasy feeling as we completed the remainder of the way to the crest of the ridge and the waiting men, thinking all the time of my folly in not listening to the counsel of those wiser than myself. But if they were shifta, and this I will never know, they were very nice ones. They may have looked like a gang of rapscallions— many Ethiopians do anyway—but their friendship was genuine. They smiled and bowed, they shook hands and with innate courtesy they shared food and drink. Perhaps they were a bunch of Robin Hood characters—as some shifta are said to be—and thought me poorer than themselves; perhaps after all they were just a group of the more affluent returning from some function in a distant village.

A long descent, another river to cross, a further climb and we reached the crest of the final escarpment. I could now ride, which was a mixed blessing for we followed narrow paths contouring the cliff, the mule unconcernedly walking on the lip of some fearful void. Darkness fell but we could continue, first in the light of the moon and later in the illumination of almost continuous lightning. A stationary storm was poised over Lalibella, whose roofs we could now see and our entry, the first by strangers since the onset of the “big rains” some two months earlier, could not have been under more dramatic circumstances. The rain helpfully held off until we were at the first dwellings, then it came in such a torrent that we were forced to seek shelter in the nearest tukul. Thwarted within yards of that imagined haven of all good things, I was again crouching in some smoky squalid overcrowded hole, eating more of that abominable mess which for too long had been my daily diet and which politeness would not permit me to decline. But storms of such intensity cannot last and after an hour or so we could leave.

Lalibella now boasts a hotel, certainly no splendid place but of basic Western standards. As expected this was closed but I had trusted in some reasonable alternative, more modest perhaps but at least with some modicum of comfort and cleanliness. All that Lalibella could offer was the local bar, a fearsome and filthy den with what purported to be a bed in some dark hole in the back. And to satisfy that gargantuan appetite all I was offered was an apology for an omelette and more square feet of foam rubber, washed down with cups of Kat-ikala, the local hooch that undiluted burns throat and stomach like fire and turns legs to water. Even so, poor food and foul bed notwithstanding, it was a marked rise in the standard of my living and I slept long and well that night.

Next day a priest took me round the eleven rock churches. It is certainly a remarkable spot, the more so as this is no dead city like Petra but a living place of worship where that strange archaic faith of monophysite Christianity is practised as fervently today as it was nine hundred years ago when these enormous edifices were being quarried and carved from the living rock. Now with the tourists gone, Lalibella had more fully returned to its true monastic self.

I would willingly have lingered longer but for the fear of delay on the return journey. And indeed we were delayed, half a day before we dare cross the first river and even longer by other diverse difficulties. But these need not concern us here, for although in worse weather and slower, the return was very much a repetition of the outward journey. If there was a difference it was in myself. I had not relished the rigours of the return march but wondrous are the powers of man’s adaptability. Slowly, if painfully, I was becoming an Ethiopian. To live in filth and squalor, tortured by a thousand pests, to sustain ones self on a repetitive mess of injera and wat had surprisingly become less of a trial. I was adapting; or was it simply that I was so hungry that I could eat anything, so exhausted I could sleep anywhere. Whatever the cause I did perversely enjoy the return, feeling some smug satisfaction in having made a journey that almost all had said was impossible, and perhaps more pertinently, having proved myself, however modestly and if only to myself, in a strange environment amongst an alien people.