Rhiannon Batten enjoys the panoramic vistas and the hospitality of the people of this ancient land
Having spent a sticky afternoon winding our way behind donkeys laden with luggage through rocky fields and green pastures, our small group reached the village of Mequat Mariam just as the sun brushed the horizon. After clambering over pentagon-notched basalt rocks, we sat on the edge of huge drop-off looking out over what one of the group described as “the Grand Canyon without the tourists”
We were trying out a new range of village-to-village walking trips in Ethiopia.
For a country so often associated with images of famine and desperate hardship, it is also a welcome attempt to make more of its real attributes.
Village Ways works with Tesfa, a local NGO that has been running similar trips in the area for several years. The partnership offers tailor-made itineraries incorporating as much or as little walking as you fancy.
Our first stop was Gondar, a town in the north-west of Ethiopia that boasts an incongruous mix of art deco architecture and more ancient sites. Arriving in hazy early morning sunlight, we sped past acacia trees, market-goers and endless donkeys. Gondar was also the first of many places on our trip where we witnessed the intricate shoulder-shuffling Ethiopian dance, Eskesta. We ventured into a local bar to see it. When practiced by the locals it looks fluid and elegant, but when attempted by brave members of our party, it looked more like disastrously bad “dad dancing”.
Next morning we set off on the six-hour drive to Filakit and the start of our first walk. As we passed giant volcanic plugs, oversized haystacks, pocket of forest and fields of sunburnt crops, dust swirled around the minibus. We were glad to pull up and strap on our walking boots.
That afternoon’s trail led up past circular churches and fields so rock-strewn they appeared more stone than soil. After a few hours we reached Mequat Mariam and a dramatic panorama.
Tesfa’s founder is Mark Chapman. That evening, over a few beers before dinner, he explained the concept.“The typical version of tourism in Ethiopia is that people fly between the main sites. Their money doesn’t go to local communities and it doesn’t give tourists a chance to discover the country properly. This seemed an ideal alternative. The Meket area is highly “food insecure”. It is also close to the tourism honeypot of Lalibela, and the landscape is breathtaking. Throw in old Amhara culture, gelada baboons and lamergeier vultures and it offers a complete package.”
It took a few years discussing the project before anything happened, though. “Some of the villagers were suspicious but we just kept explaining it. We brought some tourists in with tents in 2003, showing the villagers that they could earn an income and slowly began to work.”
So much so that, in 2004, even Brad Pitt paid a visit. Though the villagers weren’t too impressed. “He was boring,” one of them whispered. “He went to bed early.” Up to 50 tourists a week now pass through Mequat Miriam in the high season, which runs from October to December.
Later that night, Tesfaye Asfow, the camp manager, told us how the villagers have earned enough to enable them to establish a grain store to fall back on during droughts. “We used to just farm but now we have lots of plans. We’d like to get electricity, a road, a school, we could plant trees to sell…”
The following day our walk took us along the edge of the escarpment, past ancient olive trees, scented eucalyptus groves and more remote villages. We crossed a prairie-like meadow, with butterflies swirling overhead, small boys shepherding sheep and men ploughing with oxen. Then we stopped for injera (huge, flannel-like pancakes topped with lentils, stew and vegetables), overlooking a tall but parched waterfall.
If this all seemed idyllic to visitors, we were given a reality check when we encountered two tiny girls hauling 20kg jerry cans of water up an incline. They told us that the nearest well was a 30-minute walk from their village.
If the scenery wasn’t quite as majestic as it had been at Mequat Mariam, Wajela had a disarming homeliness to it. From Wajela we walked on to stay at Aterow. Then we clambered down from the escarpment past purple-flowered hillsides, groups of haymakers and Metaya gorge.
Next came a brief stop in Lalibela, one of the most popular destinations in Ethiopia, thanks to its collection of rock hewn, 12th-century churches. With sunlight filtering in through stony windows on to intricate arches carved absurdly from the top down, it was easy to understand why Ethiopia holds a mystical appeal. The mix of familiar and exotic is everywhere and, in Lalibela, it seems natural that the Julian calendar is used; that clocks are set from dawn rather than midnight; that St Francis is painted with leopards rather than birds; and that people claim the country’s imperial family is descended from the Queen of Sheba.
Our welcome in Tigray, 400km north, involved being met by parties of colorfully dressed priests, riders on horses festooned with red pompoms, men with flags and rifles and women loudly ululating. The landscape around the project’s Tigrayan sites was harsher than in Meket: a parched panorama of high red cliffs and giant cacti peppered with rock-hewn churches. The challenges are similar, though. At Shenbritty, Kidane Mewgebo, the community’s women’s representative, told us how money from the project will help. The community plans to exploit a spring so they need not walk so far to fetch water and hopes to build a grain store, like Meket’s.
“My dream is that Ethiopia will become known for this type of tourism,” said Mark, as we reluctantly started the journey back to Addis Ababa. With experiences as inspiring as ours to offer, it has a chance.
