Lalibela is wonderfully “Ethiopian” – you really do feel that you are seeing something which is different from anything you would see elsewhere. There are other “rock cut” religious structures around the world but Lalibela possesses an atmosphere of “otherness”. Even if you don’t visit at the time of a religious festival (we didn’t unfortunately) you will see/meet Ethiopian Priests in the churches and get some feeling for the rituals – which mostly take place in inner sanctums containing the “Ark” and are inaccessible to ordinary mortals, with only the sounds to hint at the activities going on behind the curtains.

As a European visitor you will have to accept the high “hassle factor” – you are very much an “opportunity”! As we emerged from our hotel we were accosted by a boy wanting to act as our guide. We usually decline and initially did so on this occasion. Not worth it. Even if he doesn’t/can’t do much guiding his mere presence will save having to continually dissuade alternative contenders. We gave in for this reason - it also appeared that we were his “assigned” tourists for the day to meet as we emerged, follow us wherever we went and use all his powers of persuasion on – if he failed he would go to the back of the guide queue and await his next turn “unpaid” for that day.

As most tourists do we flew in and out on the generally good and very cheap Ethiopian Airways internal flights. I understand that Lalibela “airport” has been resited/acquired a new runway since we were there in 1995. This should make this wonderful place a little less fraught to visit. Any rain closed the old airstrip. And getting away could be a bit of a lottery too. At that time the only communication the local Ethiopian Airlines had with flight control in Addis was via an unreliable radio connection at the “7 Olives Hotel” which, because of geographic/climatic conditions, only seemed to work at night. Thus the morrow’s possible flights were agreed the previous evening and, in the morning, one traversed the several miles of rough road on a 4x4 to the tin hut which was the airport terminal to be weighed with one’s bags on a set of old luggage scales and await whatever plane(s) might turn up! We finished up doing an aerial tour of the country to reach our next destination at Gondar.