Into the Ethiopian Northern Highlands and Lalibela

It will be a long hard tour of the north, about 2500km of mostly good roads
but plenty of ups and downs to contend with. Leaving Debre Berhan the road
for about 45km until we hit Debre Sina was ok but not great tarmac. Then as
we had been told by our friendly waiter at the Eva Hotel the road got
better. Stunning tarmac, and super smooth. We swept along down and up hills
without a bump or muddy puddle in sight, well almost. It made the drive to
Kombolcha our stopover very pleasant even if it was a long haul. The
accommodation options as expected were not up to Sheraton standards. After
checking out 3 places we returned to the first and the best despite it being
full. We thought we would check if we could camp in the car park. Thankfully
the chap running the place, Ted, was a great help. He spoke perfect English,
not surprising since he had spent the last 19 years living and working in
London. His mother owns the hotel but she had gone on a long trip to America
and he had jumped out of the rat race of the financial business world in
London to relax Ethiopian style and manage the place. The food in their
restaurant was good if not a tad pricey, homemade soups and tagliatelle, so
we filled our bellies again. We did have the surprise arrival of the South
African family we had met at Peponi in Tanzania, Glen and his wife Tandi and
their two children. They had just done the long drive down from Lalibela and
were knackered. We both set camp in the car park and had a bad nights sleep.
Usual story of barking dogs, and Glen and Tandi had one very sick child all
night, not to mention the swarms of mosquitoes. N11'04.219 E39'44.592
Needless to say we all hit the road early the next day, us north and them
towards Addis.
Provided the road was good our plan was to make it to Lalibela. Glen had
said the road was good and he was right. They are doing a lot of maintenance
on it but there were only a few wet and bumpy deviations to cope with but
the steep climbs were a test of Mufasa's muscles. Starting at around 1800m
in Kombolcha we eventually climbed up to 3500m. Second and third gears were
well used as was first at times. At least the lorries we came across were
much slower and leaping past them was not too much of an ordeal. The scenery
again was breathtaking! Everywhere is cultivated, at the cost of the
population of trees. Sadly this leads to a lot of soil erosion when it
rains, and boy it drops it when it does. The plateau at 3500m was again
stunning and pretty heavily populated despite the altitude and the obvious
wet climate. As usual there is only one problem with the struggle up to such
heights, you have to come down again. This is not usually such an issue but
our brakes, despite us climbing all day, were sounding very hot and bothered
but they held up and I will check the condition of the pads with priority. I
think it might just be all the mud and dirt that they have endured over the
recent weeks. Of course after coming down to below 2000m again we had to
make another climb up to Lalibela at around 2500m. The drive all day had
been dry and sunny but not too short of Lalibela the heavens opened and by
the time we had found a suitable place to stay everywhere was very wet.
Thankfully as per most of Africa it rains hard but for a short time. Our
stop for 2 nights was the Seven Olives Hotel and we negotiated a rate for
camping in the car park and the use of a room for toilet and shower, only
Birr100 a night, which is not too bad. We needed two nights as the middle
day was rock hewn church day! Boy what an amazing experience. After some
discussion we took a guide with us and we are so glad we did. Muchaw, the
guide, was very knowledgeable and spoke great English. Without him I think
the experience would have been frustrating and we would not have seen as
much as we did. The churches, 11 of them, are mind blowing. How they ever
managed to chisel them out I will never know. We had heard and read that the
churches are full of fleas so we covered our socks in anti-mosquito spray,
we did not have any flea powder, and thankfully did not get any bites. You
have to take your shoes off before entering any of the churches so your
socks are nice stepping stones for the critters to get a foothold on you. If
you know nothing of these churches, Google them, and be prepared to be
amazed. Better still just pack in work and get yourselves over here!
N12 02.107 E39 02.811