Sun 2 Feb 2014 (25 Tir 2006) Lalibela

Sun 2 Feb 2014 (25 Tir 2006) Lalibela Carol gets up before sunrise while Mike sleeps. She spends a long time in the garden, listening to the birds. While in the garden, she begins to hear a church service [and maybe a Muslim call, too]. She walks out into town, going downhill toward the church, Bet Emmanuel. There is a huge crowd of white dressed parishioners. Because she is only wearing slacks and a shirt, she doesn't feel comfortable entering the gates. It is a good time to walk down the road, in the cool of the morning, past the northwestern set of rock-hewn churches. A bit further on, on the left, there are structures that might be called "hobbit houses," circular 2 story stone dwellings with thatched rooftops. Down and around the road, a nicely dressed little boy with surprisingly good English strikes up a conversation. He says he has just come from church, and is going home. He takes Carol into the area of small houses. They are called tukuls. We walk up, over and around the rocky terrain. He points into a doorway where a priest lives. We talk about a lot of things - he notes that Obama cannot serve again(!) and he hopes that the woman becomes president(!!). Also about schoolbooks and how the big 4400 word Amharic-English dictionary would be helpful to a student. Carol says maybe he could see it later when her husband awakes. We bless each other. He gives Carol a small white hand-carved rock cross. We walk out of the area of tukuls, much higher up on the road, and very near Seven Olives Hotel where we say good bye. Mike is finally awake. We shower and dress. Carol decides that is appropriate to wear a long skirt and tights to visit the churches. We arrange to wash 4 days of Mike's clothing (about 2 kg (4.5 lbs)) for 160 birr ($8.40 US). We also agree to stay 2 more nights for a total of 3 days for $100 US (a five dollar discount.) Since breakfast is not included in the hotel fee, about 9:15 AM we are out and about. We pass the "Obama Gift Shop and Art Gallary [sic]." Many of the places we pass serve more European-style breakfasts. However, a local points out one, across the street, serves fuul. The proprietress puts some sweet-smelling grass on the table for effect. And fuul it is, this time, special fuul, that is, fuul with scrambled eggs, onion, hot peppers, and tomato. The metal fuul pans are hot so we get impromptu pot holders to hold them, along with big crusty rolls. There is a young girl with thick eyeglasses sitting across from us. (Eyeglasses are rather unusual here.) Helping with the coffee is a woman with a cloudy eye (her mother?). We watch the coffee brewing process. Some local folks come in for tea and what look to be giant donuts. After breakfast, Carol takes Mike for a look at the tukuls, and we take pictures all around. There is a passageway that leads up steep steps to a closed door. We decide not to attempt it. We leave the tukuls, and walk uphill to buy our tickets. To visit the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, you must buy a ticket, which is valid for 5 days. The price of 1000 birr ($52.50 US) or $50 US in that currency, when compared to sites like Petra in Jordan ($31 in 2004) or Iguasu Falls in Argentina ($30 in 2007) is pretty stiff, but what you might expect for an internationally recognized World Heritage Site. For this price, you get 13 (count 'em, 13) churches. In order to pay, you are searched, your dangerous items (like Mike's small pocket knife) are confiscated and checked, and your passport scrutinized. However, once the payment is received, Mike resolves not to spend a single additional birr - on a guide, on a church contribution, or on anything related to seeing the interiors. First off, we visit the museum attached to the ticket office. It is a modest but arresting assortment of vestments, ritual objects such as crosses, staffs, umbrellas, etc. Some very nice religious art removed from church walls for preservation and some very, very old books. One volume almost looks like Mishneh or Koranic commentary, with what must be interpretive commentary about the page. A comment before we elaborate on our visit. Rock-hewn means carved out, instead of built out, from the volcanic tuffa rock. The construction of a monolithic rock church was in fact an excavation. These buildings are as tall as 15 meters high (50 feet). They remind Carol of laparoscopic surgery (can't get away from work) - going in to complete the process. Or maybe, Intelligent Design. The churches were chiseled out of rock- pillars, arches, beams, and all- from a first entry at a future top window. Where did the excavated stone go? Who carried it all away? How was it lifted up? The more you think about it, the more sense it makes that "angels worked side by side with the stone masons." Thirteen churches come to be in 24 years in the 12th and 13th centuries, CE (or so the historical memory says.) Shoes must come off before entering churches, which have rugs over the rough stone floors. Not easy walking, even inside. And especially with a long skirt and thin tights. The first church we visit is Bet Medhane Alem. It is an impressively big space. An artificial roof over the structure has been constructed by UNESCO, for the church's protection, so it is hard to see the original roof. The traditional Orthodox church has 3 parts, an outside, a center, where the parishioners congregate, and an inner sanctum, where only the priests and bishops can go. Of the seven churches in the northwestern group, only Bet Medhane Alem is a complete church in the sense of having an inner sanctum. It also has (perhaps) 72 internal columns holding up the structure, based on pictures in the guidebooks. A deacon begins to explain the significance of the interior. He is miffed when Mike does not give a small offering. As we head to the next church, we hear a loud conversation between a woman and several priests. The other churches we see this morning are more in the nature of chapels or shrines, lacking the inner sanctum. Or maybe they had a secular use at some time. From Bet Medhane Alem you go west to Bet Maryam, an independent building having the next most complete structure. Flanking Bet Maryam on either side are Bet Masqal and Bet Danaghel, each having the feel of a small chapel. Before we leave, we see (from a discrete distance) the woman disrobe and submerge into a small pool of water. The priests surround her. A baptism? An exorcism? Who knows ... Leaving Bet Danaghel you climb down some long steps. If you keep going, you have left the northwestern group. But if you take a sharp right turn, follow the trench, and climb back up, you are at the twin churches of Bet Debra Sina and Bet Golgotha. The former has eight internal columns and is the third largest of this set of churches. At Bet Debra Sina, we come upon a younger Sri Lankan woman with a guide. She is constantly taking pictures of herself, or the guide is taking pictures of her. No detail is too small to fail to be memorialized in pictures. She is a real roadblock. Carol feels that we have sacrificed depth for efficiency. The visitors with guides seem to be seeing details we miss. She feels that we don't know which pillar has a bas relief on the bottom, which church has a fascinating legend, which priest will open a special curtain to reveal treasures. Mike feels that we have two guidebooks that we can consult. It was at this point that noon came. The churches are open 6 AM- noon and 2 PM-6 PM. Since Orthodox worship begins at 3 AM, it is possible to view services at 6 AM. These viewing times are strictly enforced. We are chased out of Debra Sina and Golgotha. The seventh church in this group is variously described as the Tomb of Adam or Bet Uraiel. We walk past, climb through a doorway and down some steep steps, and we are back in the tukul section. We slowly make our way back uphill to the town center and the hotel. On the roadway back, there are tailors with vintage sewing machines, ready to repair or create. It is warm. We are tired. In the hotel garden, Diane, Mike, and Ivo are eating lunch. It turns out that Heaven wasn't so hot- they moved to another guesthouse. We relaxed for 2 hours in the pleasant hotel environment. The garden and restaurant are favorites of tour groups not staying at Seven Olives. A woman in one group tells us that they saw 3 weddings at the Bet Emmanuel church, early early this morning. At 2:15 PM it is time to go back to the churches. We walk back to Bet Medhane Alem, and go directly to the twin churches of Bet Debra Sina and Bet Golgotha and then finally Bet Uraiel (the Tomb of Adam). So now Mike has seen both Adam's Tree (in Iraq, at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates) and Adam's Tomb. Instead of exiting there, we go back to the twin churches. Across is a tunnel, described as "from Hell to Heaven." With our flashlights on, we negotiate the tunnel, fight off the bats inside, and emerge into daylight ready to exit the steps as before. This time around, we are ready to try to get to the southeastern group of churches. We walk down the road about 50 meters, crossing a small depression which is called the Jordan River. (No water this time of year.) We see a set of steps going up to the left and follow the path uphill. After a bit of a slog, passing a souvenir seller, we cross a bridge, and, lo, we are at the entrance to the first (or last) of the southeastern churches, Bet Gabriel-Rufa'el. You enter Gabriel, a tight little space, and then cross into Rufa'el, another tight space. From there you can walk onto a ledge, with some exposure. But you cannot exit. You must retrace your steps. Carol thinks that we are doing the usual order of church visitation backward, but we do not see any subsequent guided groups doing the churches in the other order. From Bet Gabriel-Rufa'el, you walk through a tunnel up to the height of land. We saw the next church, Abba Libanos, impossibly lower than us, with no idea how to get down to it. There was a rope ladder, but we were not near enough to assay it. The next church, Mercurious, was at a reasonable level, and we walk in. Though large in appearance from the outside, some of it has collapsed, and the interior is fairly small. It is now after 4:30 PM. There are several guided groups currently in this church. We follow them and the guides show us how to get into Emmanuel, the fourth and most complete of these churches, and then into Abba Libanos, aka Bet Lehem, the lowest and most hidden of these churches. It is [Word of the Day] hypogeous - only the roof and floor are attached to the strata. Supposedly, one part of the altar wall glows of its own accord 24/7. We don't see them, but there are niches throughout the complex where pilgrims and monks are buried. By this time, Carol has stumbled and fallen. Her tights are shredded at the feet, and she has had to hitch up her skirt by folding the waist band. Clearly a long skirt, though most respectful, is WHAT NOT TO WEAR. Finally, it is 5 PM. We have seen all of the churches in these clusters. The finest of them, Bet Giorgis, which stands apart, is for tomorrow. The guided groups disappear, and we head off, sort of in their direction, on a dirt track uphill. With a little guessing, we make our way back to familiar territory, and soon we are back into town. We have dinner at 7 at the Seven Olives restaurant. We order the spinach soup (terrific) and doro wat (ditto). Not long after the food is served, the electricity goes out all over town. Candles are lit by the staff and flashlights come out. There are candles all through the restaurant, along the walkways, in each hotel room. They know the routine. It is familiar. We figure out how to pay our dinner bill without the obligatory computer generated receipt. A note on receipts. There is a 15% VAT in Ethiopia. Thus a dinner for 120 birr is broken down: 104.5 birr for food and 15.5 birr VAT. Or maybe: 104.5 birr plus 10.5 birr service charge, plus 17 birr VAT, for a total of 132 birr. It is all very complicated. We seen receipts for hotels that broke out not only the VAT but a 10% service charge. Why? Anyway, without a computer, the restaurant staff resorts to carbon triplicates. Carbon papers seems to have disappeared from the rest of the world and migrated entirely to Ethiopia. We go to bed. Some crazy people are driving on streets, but there are also locals walking around in the dark with much merriment. If you look up, you can see the stars. At ten, the lights come on, so we turn them off and go back to sleep.