We are standing high up in the mountains, on a cliff with no shoes on. How did I get here and how am I ever going to get down? We are exploring the culture of Ethiopia, unique in East Africa and I feel like Tomb Raider. Come explore with me!
Risking
it all at the border of Ethiopia
We arrive in Gondar without any issues, happy to leave Mettema behind after a week of containment. This paperwork nightmare seems to be haunting us. Such a huge mistake to leave both bikes on my name, but Suzuki insisted it was not possible to register a bike in Jojo’s name. It doesn’t matter anymore, this is the way it is now.
We find a nice hotel and have a hot shower to wash off any negative emotions. We take our time to reset our spirits and not let the experience affect our time in this country. It’s hard sometimes to flip the switch again. To go from fixing a problem, to enjoying the ride.
Ethiopia is not making it easy, people are avid businessmen and women and will try to sell you anything. Sometimes they chase you for several 100 meters while you continuously and politely refuse to make use of their services or to buy their products. It’s relentless. Finding a quiet little street side restaurant to eat an injera is a huge relief from the hustle out there.
In a park, away from the honking tuktuks and the rumbling diesel pickup trucks, we find some peace. The locals are just hanging around, looking on their phones or playing a game of pingpong. It’s here that we find some solace under a hundred year old tree, I think it is the tree that radiates tranquility to the parks visitors.
In the midst of it all are two little boys running around the steps that the tree is planted on. Climbing up and jumping off, trying to impress one and another in a way only young boys can. Daring to jump further or higher they increasingly make me cringe, my motherly instincts are holding my heart and hoping they don’t hurt themselves. While Jojo is relating to the locals by spending some time on his phone to connect with home, I am watching fascinated at how they are entertaining themselves, pretending to look on my phone, but secretly keeping an eye on them just in case they do get hurt.
It’s there on that bench that I catch their eyes and quickly they come to ask for a pen, something quite common here in Ethiopia. I didn’t bring any pens nor do I want to support the act of begging so I tell them I don’t have any. They look intrigued at my phone and I decide to show them some instagram filters. If you are not familiar with those, it is a functionality that uses the camera and then overlays different illustrations or alters parts of the image. The first one gives the boys cat ears, nose and whiskers. As soon as they see themselves, they burst out laughing. Their laugh is infectious and I start laughing too.
They play around with their new ears and look at each other just to check if they are real or not. A swipe to the left gives them a dog face and it adds to the laughter. For more then half an hour we go through the many filters the app offers, some giving you a gigantic mouth, others letting heart arrows shoot out of your eyes. I am really enjoying myself, having a laugh with the boys, it feels more valuable than when I would have given them the pen they asked for. Who knows have many pens they already have at home. Giving doesn’t always have to come in the form of stuff, it can be in the form of attention.
After 2 days we hop back on the motorcycle, ready to head north and explore the Ethiopian highlands. As a part of East African Rift where the African tectonic plate is ripped apart as the Somalian plate is planning to leave the party creating the Afar desert in the north east of the country which we will visit later. First are the mountain roads meandering through the landscape. A mix of tar and gravel roads mixed in with mountain vistas make focussing on riding quite hard. The way the hills are shaped is unique, I haven’t seen anything like it before. Rugged, uninhabitable and random are words that vaguely describe the feel of this view. The tops brown from the dried out vegetation, the green still thriving at the bottom. The ride is enjoyable as we leave the towns behind us. Plenty of space and not a lot of traffic, great for flowing through the many corners such a road has to offer. We have to stay vigilant because you never know what is around the bend in this place. There might just be a goat standing in the middle of the road so we keep the speed low. Our trail leaving behind a cloud of dust that slowly falls back to earth as we leave this part of the planet behind us.
Our route through Northern Ethiopia
During lunch we try to figure our a plan for the night, looking online to see if there are any nice places to camp or stay but we are in an area that doesn’t have any tourism so options are non-existing. Wildcamping in the country is also turning out to be impossible as I look during our ride for places we could hide. Not only is the landscape making it harder to find a spot that is accessible, the sheer cliffs and steep uphills are a definite no go for us, every trail we think of following leads to a hut, a town or some kind of inhabitation. No place for us to hide.
As the kilometers pass by and the sun slowly sets, we still haven’t found a place to stay. We pass through towns every once in a while and I start to think of finding a small hotel to stay at. All of a sudden I see a sign indicating such a place and stop to ask if we can stay. We always have two concerns; is it affordable and can we park the motorcycles somewhere safe. The affordability is dependent on how much the owner is thinking of charging you. The color of your skin defines the depth of your pockets in their eyes. It’s not that we are poor, but we don’t appreciate paying a tenfold of what locals would.
We take the beds we are offered, we don’t have much choice as the sun already disappeared behind the peaks and riding in the dark is extremely dangerous. Luckily we are allowed to park inside of the restaurant as soon as it closes. Another improvised garage added to our list of ingenious parking places.
We leave before the sun rises as the night was not the best and the toilet….. I will spare you the details, all I will say is that there was only 1 for the whole hotel plus restaurant. The ride makes up for my morning grumpiness as the light hits the slopes outlining the cliffs and peaks. The tarmac looks brand new, probably a Chinese one, as we’ve seen them build roads all around the world. You can have an opinion about this practice, but I cannot deny right now that the asphalt is butter smooth and very nicely done. Speeding up our progress through the north of the country immensely.
We head north for other day after which we turn east the next day and plan to turn around and go south again. We have no idea what the quality of the roads will be like and soon we leave the Chinese tarmac behind trading it for bumpy gravel roads and dusty roadworks. What we get back is incredible scenery. Table mountains arise on every side and peaks shaped like child drawings with red earth as the primary color. We are not as high in elevation anymore and there is more inhabitation here. Which also means more people on the road. Not in the form of rolling traffic, but in the form op people walking, herding their goats on the side of the road. If you are lucky. Plenty of times we need to slow down to make space for the animals.
Our destination for today is a lodge close to the rock churches in the Tigray region. I once saw them featured on a national geographic episode, it showed how the monks have to climb the mountain every day, without shoes, to get to their place of worship. Without ropes or any safety measures they risk their lives. I remember being impressed and thinking one day, I would love to visit this place myself. I had forgotten about it until I was researching what to see in Ethiopia. All of a sudden it was on the top of my list again.
Korkor Lodge
The next day we ride to the churches, leaving most of our gear at the lodge, wearing no helmets I feel excitement running through my veins. Going places I have once seen on tv, what a childhood dream come true. We park the bike at the bottom of a steep looking cliff. I look up and really wonder where we are going and how we are going to get there. Jojo is Austrian and claims to be a child of the mountains so he takes the lead as we hike up the trail. The first section is a walk in the park, it’s steep and we are out of breath, but no climbing required just yet. As we gain elevation the view over the area keeps improving, I can’t keep myself from stopping and looking. Or am I just cheating to catch my breath? We will never know. Thirty minutes into the hike we come to a section that is rockier than before and it is harder to see where the trail is going. Jojo goes right as I go left. My track requires the use of hands and feet and a travers next to a steep cliff but the rock looks worn and so I guess this is the trail of the priests.
I am right and come to a section where there are 3 men waiting and 3 other tourists climbing down. I am shaking from the traverse, I inherited some of the vertigo that my dad has yet I refuse to let it define me. My heart rate disagrees with that. With the adrenaline running, I start calling Jojo’s name because I cannot see him. My mind is racing and coming up with terrible scenarios that might have happened to him. No response. What if he fell and cannot hear me? What if I have to carry him back to the motorcycle, he is far too heavy for me.
He calls back and sigh of relief escapes my mouth. His route was a dead end and is now coming up following me. My heart still races when I see him come around the corner traversing the rocky section, I can see him trip and fall in my minds eye. I cannot suppress the urge to tell him to be careful, but like a mountain goat he makes it look like it is a walk in the park.
From this point forward we need to take our shoes off because we are treading on holy ground. The shoes from the other tourist group are standing on the side as we look up to see them climbing down the cliff. I doesn’t look that hard but without shoes and hardly any climbing experience I am starting to get worried. What I do know from hiking in the Himalayas is that up is always easier than down.
I watch and pay close attention to what to do and before I know it we can go up. We let one of the men guide us up as they know exactly where the hand and foot placements are. Jojo goes first and is proving his Austrian heritage. When it is my turn I am surprised at how hard it is and how little grip the holds offer. How can anyone do this without shoes? I am now officially pooping my pants but refuse to give up and give in to the fear. I would rather travel solo through Pakistan for a month then climb up here. But if they can do it, I can do it too, so I put one foot in front of the other and slowly make my way up the cliff. It’s not even that high, maybe 10 meter or so, but the view from halfway when you feel like your foothold might slip away any second because your feet are sweating like otters is not helping my heart rate lower.
I look up and Jojo is smiling and encouraging me to keep going. A few last grabs and I make it to a wider ledge on the rock. I made it! What a feeling, looking down, it looks much steeper from up here.
The next section is easy and we scramble our way up. Only one last ledge, next to a sheer cliff of 200m, around the corner is the chapel. It takes all my courage to travers the ledge to the entrance. I’m walking like an old woman trying not to trip. Who came up with the idea to cut a church into the rock here? To be closer to god? To hide it from invaders with other beliefs? I must look this up when we get down.
And then, around the bend of the rocks a door appears and the priest is standing inside. The walls and ceiling a beautifully painted with depictions of religious events. The light of the sun shining through the door hits illuminates the space in a unique way, making it feel like you are stumbling upon a secret, hidden high up in the mountains. I’m so proud I overcame my fear to get up here, to see this mysterious pearl with my own eyes.
We sit down on the ledge for a while and look out at the view in the distance. Sheer cliffs surrounding us. We rode here, to this remote place in the middle of Ethiopia. Once seen on tv, now enjoyed with our own eyes. I get a feeling of being explorers and discovering hidden gems, like a real life tomb raider, just without the shorts or the boobs.
On our way down, I tear up as I finish climbing down the cliff. How I made it safely while my heads tingle and started sweating, I don't know. But since I am sitting down to write you this story, you know I survived.
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