More Adventures in Africa: Yeha and Debre

We hired a driver and a car to see the rock-hewn churches of Tigrai. A Belgian couple, Stephen and Catalina, who we first met in Bahir Dar and have seen at every stop along the way, agreed to come with us and share the cost. Before we got to the region of the churches, there were a couple of sights to see and adventures to be had. The scenery was gorgeous along the way and became even more so all day.

Our first stop was Yeha, a pagan temple from the 8^th century BC. These ancient people worshiped the sun, moon and stars and erected the temple with a view of mountains forming a crescent shape. Incense burners were found with engravings of suns and moons and there are ibex carvings on the temple walls. Again, the construction was very solid with granite stone and alabaster. Interestingly, after the pagans died out, Jews used the same structure for worship and then Christians in the 6th century AD used it also and carved crosses in the wall. Allegedly, the Ark of the Covenant was kept here for a while.

Then we climbed mountains, looked down into deep gorges and eventually arrived at a monastery, Debre Damo, atop a steep cliff. Our driver took us as far as he could, we then hiked up a steep hill and at the end was the 45 foot high cliff. The top could only be reached by the visitor attaching a leather belt around his waist which was held by monks on top of the cliff and then the visitor making his way up by scaling the wall. Only men are allowed on the top. No females are allowed, including female goats which are killed immediately if they climb up there. These monks can’t be tempted! Mel and Stephen decided to be foolhardy and go up. It was a terrifying sight to watch them scale the rock face and equally terrifying to watch them come down. They did admit to being pretty scared themselves. And now Mel has to write about the monastery at the top:

Debre Damo is approximately 9000 feet above sea level and the area at the top is about 0.5 km². There is a monk and several assistants who help you get to the top, where you are told that the fee is $10 to visit and $5 to be hoisted up (they don’t tell you how much it will be to get down!). Supposedly, it was founded in the 6^th century by Abba Aregawi who was carried to the top of the plateau by a flying serpent. The main church is believed to be the oldest non-rock-hewn church extant. It was originally built by Aregawi but additions were made in the 10^th and 11^th centuries. It is part of a large complex of buildings with narrow streets and open areas. About 300 monks live there, although some people gave us estimates that varied from 100 to 600. There is a new secondary church and we were told that at the time of our visit that the monks were praying in the new church. Down below on a rock under the new church, there was a group of women who were also praying. As a result we didn’t see many people around the compound except for the monk that collected the money, a deacon who escorted us around the compound and several children (boys) who were tending the goats and gave us cactus fruit to eat – after which they told us that it gives you diarrhea and then laughed a lot.

The ride down was as exciting as the trip up. You step through a window into thin air and try to grab for the rope on the way out. Since I hadn’t done the ropes since junior high school phys ed, I got a bit of a rope burn from sliding down, rather than going hand over hand, but otherwise made it down unharmed.

Stephen and Mel had offered a ride to a priest they met on top and consequently, the priest showed us many religious symbols and areas on the way down. My favorite was a rather large hole in the stone where monks hit their heads when praying!

The scenery was even better on our way to Adigrat. The combination of stone terraced intensely green farm land, deep gorges and majestic peaks was unbeatable. Unfortunately, it was pouring down rain and we were inside the van so the pictures didn’t turn out well.

In Adigrat we tried a regional dish called tholoh. It’s served in a pot like cheese fondue. A woman stood at out table and rolled balls of cooked barley which we then put of long forks and dipped into a pot of a spicy beef sauce topped with a mixture of butter and yogurt. The four of us ordered two portions to share and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.