Multi-day camping treks through Tigray’s Gheralta Mountains now link frescoed rock-hewn churches that few foreign visitors reach, a Press Association travel feature reported in July 2019.
The Gheralta Mountains in Tigray, northern Ethiopia (Rod Waddington, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0) [file photo]
Lalibela, with its 11 monolithic churches dating from the 12th century, is already on the tourist circuit and draws huge crowds of pilgrims for Genna, the Ethiopian Orthodox Christmas, around January 7. Further north, near the border with Eritrea, the sandstone pinnacles of the Gheralta range hide many more cave churches, which the feature describes as carved centuries earlier.
Most of the Gheralta churches can only be reached on foot, along narrow canyons and up to high plateaus. At Abuna Abraham church, prayer sticks lean against rock walls painted with frescoes of St George and the dragon; worshippers lean on the wooden crutches to get through all-night services. Abuna Yemata Guh, reputed to be among the hardest churches in the world to reach, requires a vertical climb, with harnesses and ropes available.
YellowWood Adventures was the only British operator offering multi-day camping trips in the area, the writer said. The group slept beneath a 500-year-old sycamore tree, camped in a school’s grounds, was invited to a traditional wedding in the village of Dugum, and ate injera and shiro in a farmer’s 200-year-old house. Villagers living hours from the nearest road rarely meet foreigners.
The last camp was in the Korora cave, which Tigrayan rebel forces used as a hideout before they marched on Addis Ababa and overthrew the Derg military government in 1991. Ruined buildings still stand beneath the overhang, with the slogan “Victory for our country” cut into the rock.
Sources: Irish Examiner (Press Association), Xposé