Dec 29 - Lalibela

And finally, the main focus of our Ethiopian pilgrimage - the rock churches of Lalibela. For me, this brought to an end a 25 year wait to see what many claim are the eighth wonder of the world. Standing on the edge of Bet Giyorgis, looking down into the hand-carved trench that surrounds this huge monolith, it's hard to think of anywhere in the world that provokes the same sense of wonder, disbelief, admiration. The Treasury at Petra? Macchu Picchu from the Sungate? Angkor Wat at sunrise?  The Great Wall?  The hand-hewn churches of Lalibela certainly hold their own alongside these better known human miracles. The more you explore the churches, inside and out, the more you wonder just how a 12th Century civilisation could even have conceived of 'building' them, let alone actually gone ahead and chiselled them out of solid rock.  After 25 years, I can honestly say it was worth the wait. Absolutely staggering. 



Bet Giyorgis - the best known of all the Lalibela churches.  It
sits on its own, a short distance from the others, and rightly
so.  This was King Lalibela's final creation and his finest - a
church in the shape of a cross.



Imagine standing here in the 12th century before the church
existed. There's just a smooth, sloping dome of rock. Now
turn to the person standing next to you and say  'Hey, great
place to chisel a church, don't you think?' 



See! No blocks of stone, no bricks, no joints, no mortar.
Just one humungus lump of rock.



Not far from Bet Giyorgis lies the northern cluster of rock churches,
five of them sitting in a cross formation. Bet Maryam(above) lies at
the heart of the cross.

Bet Medhane, the largest of Lalibela's churches
and the largest human-carved monolith in the
world, lies at the head of the 'cross'.

A carved ceiling inside one of the churches.

Getting from one church to another in the
northern cluster involves scuttling through
tunnels which, like the churches, have been
chiselled out of the rock.



From inside the church, this carving becomes strangely familiar!



One of the apostles carved into the wall.



More details of the roof. Again, no joints, no mortar.