Africa Ethiopia Ethiopia Trip 2015

The Churches of Lalibela

I arrived in Lalibela early this morning where i was greeted by hot, sunny weather and a landscape that looked both appealing and inhospitable.

Upon landing they took my temperature, as they have upon each arrival, and i bused to my hotel, the Tukul Village. While my lodgings in Addis Ababa and Harar were sketchy and charmless, those in Gondar and Lalibela are fantastic. Upon seeing where i would be staying for the next three days, i wished i would be here longer.

I have this wonderful, round little hut built in the traditional style but with the comforts of a nice hotel. (So far there is running water and electricity so i am hopeful anyway.)
Immediately after settling and swapping a book at the book exchange, i went to explore the churches.

Lalibela is famous for a few groups of churches that were built about 1000 years ago after King Lalibela decided to create a new Jerusalem in Ethiopia. But rather than building the churches, he decided that they must carve them into the sold rock ground, such that the roof of each church is level with the ground and the rest is sub-terrainian, with each church being carved from a single stone. Just think about this for a moment. It’s madness and incredibly beautiful and confounding. What is even better is that these churches are still very much in use, with white robed priests and pilgrims attending for prayer and blessings.

Some of the churches are plain inside, and others have lovely carvings and paintings.
As if all this wasn’t cool enough, to get from church to church, you either walk through stunning pastoral settings or through underground tunnels. Now, a word about these tunnels. They are wide enough for one person and i had to stoop to walk through them. The ground is uneven and slippery from centuries of footsteps. That is fine, but they are also suffocating, pitch black. You can’t see your own hand in front of your eyes. In one tunnel i was able to use a flashlight, which was a great blessing, although even then, i was terrified. I am not really afraid of anything – danger, death, loneliness, hyenas, heights…but i am completely freaked out by the dark. Even with the flashlight i was very uncomfortable. As it turned out, all the flashlight did was bring to my attention that the tunnel was full of bats – two of which flew directly into my head. Since bats have excellent abilities to find their way in the dark, i can only assume that they did this on purpose.

After surviving that experience and visiting another church, there was another tunnel, which my guide (yes, i hired a guide. I don’t normally but i would have been quite lost without one in this experience) said was the tunnel of hell, or something like that. He said it is forbidden to use light or to speak in this tunnel. I suspect that he might have just been messing with me, but i obliged, with the light part anyway. This tunnel was equally dark and bat filled (i could hear them all around me), but longer. I really though i might die of fright as i felt my way slowly

along the twisting wall. I did not comply with the no speaking part and swore viciously the whole way. When i finally saw the light, i ran for it and then collapsed in laughter. I’m glad i did it.

One other thing worth mentioning is that in the walls of rock that surround the churches are many small tombs carved into the rock – basically tiny caves where people were laid to rest. Most of the bodies have been moved and reburied elsewhere, but in one spot, there were still two or maybe three bodies piled up at eye level, reduced to dusty bones and bits of cloth.

After that i walked around a bit but it had made for a long and tiring day, so i went out for dinner and am now sitting outside at my hotel with a cigar and pot of tea, listening to the tv on which the staff are watching “The Golden Child”.

A fantastic day. From what i have seen Lalibela ranks up there with the wonders of the world and i feel very lucky to be here.

Africa Zimbabwe Zimbabwe-Zambia 2023

Victoria Falls, the Town

I flew from Harare, Zimbabwe to Victoria Falls (the town), Zimbabwe. The reason for my trip to Zimbabwe was to visit Victoria Falls, the falls. Not surprisingly Victoria Falls the falls is in Victoria Falls the town. I didn’t have much in the way of expectations about the town, but I did want to leave myself a little bit of time to explore it, so I had set aside enough time to visit the falls, explore the town, and do a day trip into Botswana to go on a safari drive. All of this was accomplished, and two of the three things were wonderful. Victoria falls the town… It was OK.

There are a lot of land transportation options between Harare and Victoria Falls, and if I had a little bit more time, I would have done that, but I was on a ten day holiday from work, so I took a flight a direct flight to Victoria Falls the town on an airline called Fast Jet, which lived up to its name. Upon arrival at the airport, I took a taxi to my accommodations the Victoria Falls Backpacker Lodge.

The accommodations were fine. This place had dorms, private cabins, spaces where you could park your van if you were doing a road trip, it had an outdoor kitchen under a little hut, and a small swimming pool, and areas for hanging out. It was actually quite pleasant to look at.

Most of the accommodations in Victoria Falls are set quite far from the town. This was no exception. This turned out to be one of the things they didn’t like about Victoria Falls – the lack of walk-ability. Every time I wanted to go to or from my accommodations and the town, I either had to walk or arrange a driver. I don’t like arranging a driver because it’s expensive (not really expensive; it’s just that I’m cheap) and I had to wait around for one to show up. The walk wasn’t really that far (about 40 minutes), but in the daytime it was blisteringly hot and at night it was pitch black and wasn’t particularly safe due to…animals. I’ll come back to that.

I stayed in one of the little huts at the lodge; a self-contained unit with a thatched roof and two beds with mosquito nets. No AC, no fan, shared bathroom, very dark. It was OK. A fan would have been great, as it was so hot and mosquito-y. I didn’t love my accommodations also because there often was no one at the front desk so if I did want things like, say, a fan or a bottle of water or a driver into the city, there was just no one to ask. And although there were people staying there, I didn’t see any of them, so there was no fun backpacker vibe. I probably wouldn’t stay there again, but if you’re a little more self-sufficient and driving I think it would be a decent spot. Or if you are willing to spend more money, there are really nice-looking lodges a little farther away on the river where hippos will practically serve you dinner.

Shortly after my arrival, I did go into the city and had the driver deliver me to the entrance to Victoria Falls. (I will write about that in another post.) After the falls, I browsed around various craft markets. There’s one right at the entrance to the falls and there’s another one called the Elephant’s Walk. This one I enjoyed quite a lot, as there are lots of crafts, little shops, and a café. It’s a nice place to take a rest. Other than that, there’s really nothing in Victoria Falls. It’s not an attractive town, it doesn’t have much in the way of interesting areas to look at, and it is entirely built for tourists.

At Elephant’s Walk

It just doesn’t feel like a real place it just feels like a bunch of tourist amenities. Most of the restaurants are very much geared towards tourists: brew pubs and pizza restaurants and that sort of thing. Also, and this is kind of a niche complaint, there is absolutely no place that I could find to buy matches or a lighter. They took my lighter away from me at the airport in Harare, so I needed to buy some way to light my cigars. I asked everyone I could find and no one had any idea. I went to a supermarket, a gas station, a convenience store, a liquor store, and a hardware-type store, and none of them had matches or lighters. Not even the places that were selling barbecues and firewood. I eventually was gifted a box of matches from waiter at a restaurant. That half full box of matches became precious.

On my last night I went to a restaurant called Mama Africa’s, which I really enjoyed and would recommend. I met a nice couple there from South Africa, who were planning to drive the length of the continent. They were nice and we had a good chat. This restaurant and its atmosphere, felt more authentic, but the rest of it wasn’t for me.

dinner at Mama Africa

I had another nice evening though where I met up for dinner at a restaurant called the 3 Monkeys with an American fellow that I knew of through Instagram and Twitter, who happened to be there at the same time as me. Another crazy world traveler person. That was fun. It’s always interesting to meet up with real life people that you met on social media. That night, after dinner, I caught a ride with his driver who agreed to drop me off at my accommodations. As we were driving, on the side of the road in the darkness, were two elephants. It was incredible. I could barely even see them. I could just make out their black silhouettes against the black sky with just a hint of moonlight, and I could certainly hear them stomping and crunching through the brush period. My first wildlife sighting on this trip. Being just a few meters away from elephants out having a nighttime walk was amazing. No pictures. Too rapt in awe.

I did see other animals while I was in Victoria Falls. Walking between my accommodations on the town I saw big warthogs, which was pretty neat. I found out from locals that not only are there elephants and warthogs at night, but also potentially hippos, which are the most dangerous animal in the world. So that is why it’s not safe to walk around late at night in Victoria Falls.

My visit to the falls was excellent, my day trip into Botswana was very good, and I had a couple of decent meals out, but otherwise I did not like Victoria Falls the city and I was content to leave. It’s not a place you visit for the city; it’s just a base from which to do excursions and activities, like visiting Chobe National Park or Victoria Falls, the falls, both of which were great.

Onward to Zambia.

Africa Botswana Zimbabwe-Zambia 2023

Beautiful Botswana: A Day in Chobe

Like just about everyone else who goes to Victoria Falls, I did a day trip in to Chobe National Park in Botswana. Botswana was a new country for me and while I would love to go and see other parts of Botswana, because it looks simply stunning, this would be the only part of the country that I would see at this time. As beautiful as Botswana is, it’s also very expensive; it is a tourism model like Rwanda has, which is fewer tourists with more money in order to better preserve the ecology. I don’t have an issue with that, but it moves Botswana further down my travel list as a place I’d like to spend a lot of time in.

I did the day tour with Africa Zim Travel & Tours there are a lot of companies who offer this particular package. They pick you up at your hotel early in the morning, they drive you across the border into Botswana, you visit Chobe National Park, you have lunch, you visit more of the park, they return you to Zimbabwe. It’s a pretty long day, but definitely worthwhile, and not very expensive considering everything that’s included.

My group was about 11 people, so not too big. I didn’t really make connections with many of the people. We spent most of the time just in the van driving and then looking at animals. But the few people that I talked to seemed pleasant and they were from all around the world.

The drive to the border was pleasant. At the border we got out of the van and walked to the building that would stamp us out of Zimbabwe and then to the building that would stamp us into Botswana. I didn’t need a visa for Botswana so there were no major formalities – just don’t forget your passport.

We entered Chobe National Park. As I mentioned in my post about Victoria Falls, I was there during the low / dry season. I think that visiting Chobe National Park during a wetter season would be more beautiful as it would be more lush. A lot of the trees were dead and leafless; of course, this provided for some interesting landscapes.

We drove all morning looking for animals.

And here is where I am going to tell you that this was the first time that I had ever been on a safari drive. I’ve always sort of wanted to go on a safari, but it just seemed cost prohibitive so I’ve never done it. And while I have seen animals in Africa, I’ve never gone a focused drive to go see animals in Africa before. And here’s where I tell you that I wasn’t 100% into it. It was interesting to see the landscape and it was nice to see the animals but at no point did I feel moved or amazed.

It was cool to see elephants, impalas, kudus, waterbuck, warthogs, gazelles, and mongooses, but it wasn’t exciting. Even lions; we did see five of them under trees, but it were not particularly exciting to me. We would we watch them sleeping or eating and everyone has their cameras out and you are all sort of struggling to get a good view of the animals, and I just found that a bit tiresome. This is not to say that I didn’t have a good time, it’s just that i somehow was expecting it to be more exciting than it was. The highlight of the morning was probably when we saw the giraffes. (A tower of giraffes.) I’ve seen giraffes in zoos before but never in real life, so when we came upon them it was pretty it was pretty impressive, even if we couldn’t get very close.

We stopped and had lunch at a resort along the river. I wish I knew the name of it, but it was fancy and in sort of a traditional style. They had a vast buffet of delicious western and African foods that we ate while looking out at the river. Not being one for group activities, I chatted with people for about 30 minutes, scarfed down my lunch, and then moved to the side of the river to have a quick cigar before the second half of the day. Time well spent.

After lunch, we boarded a boat to visit some of the park from the water. This was nice in the way that being on the boat is always nice, but again it wasn’t super exciting. We saw lots of hippos. (Did you know a group of hippos is called a “bloat”?) We saw various creatures on the land including a big lizard and groups of elephants walking along the water. Very pleasant, but not necessarily remarkable.

I don’t mean to sound grumpy. I had a good day, I just was expecting something more exciting. All the animals we saw that day paled in comparison to the excitement that I felt when I passed the two elephants on the side of the road on my previous night in Victoria Falls. I think it was the fact that I was out with the expectation of animals so when I saw the animals all it did was meet my expectations; it didn’t excite me. I am so glad I went, and I would certainly recommend it. My expectations may have just been too high.

We drove back to the border of Zimbabwe where I had to purchase another single entry visa, because I had been unable to purchase a multiple entry visa when I first arrived in Harare. And they drove us to our hotels.

More animals seem hanging out at the border crossing.
It is unclear if this monkey works for Nelson’s of Durham.

So I can now say that I’ve been to Botswana. If I wanted to get really technical I can tell you that while we were on the boat we actually crossed over the border an entered Namibia, but I’m not going to count that as a country visited, because that would be ridiculous. It is incredible that all these countries – Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Botswana – all come together in such a small area. If one was really committed, I suppose you could visit all four in one day. Maybe that’s an activity for another time.

I went out for dinner and a cigar that night in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, and the next day I was crossing the border on foot into Zambia.

Africa Zimbabwe Zimbabwe-Zambia 2023

Victoria Falls, the Falls

This was the reason I was in Victoria Falls the town: I wanted to see Victoria Falls the falls.

Victoria Falls, the waterfall (as opposed to the town of Victoria Falls), was “discovered” by missionary and explorer Dr. David Livingston in 1855. Obviously he wasn’t the first person to ever see the falls, but he was the first European person and so, according to the books of history, that’s what counts. That’s why the falls are named Victoria Falls, because he named them after the Queen of course. There is also the African name Mosi-oa-Tunya, which means “the smoke that thunders”, which is used more interchangeably with the English name, but that tends to be used more on the Zambian side.

Victoria Falls are not the largest waterfall in the world either by length or width, but for the amount of water that flows over the side during the rainy season, they are considered the biggest. The falls are divided in the middle by the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. You can visit the falls from either country and there’s really no reason to choose there is a bridge that connects the two countries and you can go back and forth easily, providing you have the right passport or visa.

You see more of the falls from the Zimbabwe inside, but there are a lot of activities to do on the Zambian side including but not limited to the Devil’s Pool. There are so many falls and Zambezi river activities, that it is kind of overwhelming. A person could spend probably a week in Livingston and Victoria Falls just doing all the activities: bungee jumping, boating, rafting, kayaking, swimming with crocodiles, flying over the falls… It seems never ending. But on the Zimbabwean side, all I was going to do was look at the water.

Despite this being the entire purpose for my trip to the Zambia and Zimbabwe, I wasn’t sure the Victoria Falls was going to be an impressive sight. I had never before been to see a big waterfall, and I did not entirely understand what the attraction was. I mean…it’s falling water. I guess it’s nice to look at but is it worth traveling halfway around the world for? I was about to find out. I entered the falls from the gate on the Zimbabwe side in Victoria Falls the town.

The entrance fee was about $50 US. Like most places in Victoria Falls you can pay with a credit card. Once inside, it’s not necessary to have a guide. There is a path with various tributaries off of it with signposts leading you to different lookout places. It is impossible to get lost and no explanation is required.

I was there in November of 2023, this is not the high season for the falls. If you want to see the falls at their true majesty go during the rainy season which is roughly from February to May; at that point the falls are going to be a solid sheet of water. But I chose to go in November, which is the dry season so the falls were greatly reduced in their volume. Part of the reason that I chose to come during the dry season was so that I could visit the Devil’s Pool on the Zambian side but I’ll save that for another post.

So what did I think of the falls? Really impressive. That first turn when I left the main path and went down to the first viewpoint, was really spectacular. I was the only person there and as I got closer I could hear the roar of the falls and then as they came into view it was just this tremendous amount of water. Having seen it, I still can’t articulate why it was so impressive, but I know that I got a little bit of a lump in my throat which completely shocked me. I suppose it has something to do with being in proximity to something natural that is so vast and powerful, and feeling small and insignificant in a wonderful way. It was great.

Walking along, I appreciated the view from all of the different angles. At the end of the right side of the path you get the view of the bridge across the river and sort of this sweeping view of the landscape from kind of a rocky outcropping and it’s a nice way to end the journey.

A lot of the information that I had read stressed how wet you would get visiting the falls and that you needed waterproof shoes and a poncho, this is not really true if you are going during the dry season. There was a part where I did get wet, but for the most part this was not an issue. (But given how wet I did get I can only imagine that going during the rainy season you would be absolutely drenched from head to toe and a waterproof bag for your phone or camera would be a necessary.) It was a totally pleasant visit.

Was it worth flying halfway around the world for? Yeah, I think it was. My visit to the falls took maybe two hours at the most but it was still satisfying.

A small aside here. As small and insignificant as I felt, it didn’t stop me from feeling critical of what other people were wearing. I get that you’re in Zimbabwe, and that it’s hot and there are mosquitoes, but the amount of people that are dressed head to toe in safari gear is kind of hilarious to me. They’ve got the safari hats and the convertible cargo trousers and the tactical shirts and hiking shoes, even though all they’re doing is walking. And they are dressed completely in khaki. It’s like they’re trying to look like archaeologists. I’ve known archaeologists and they didn’t even dress that way. I just thought it was kind of funny. I’ve noticed this in a lot of African countries, that tourists tend to dress like they are at an archaeological dig or an Indian Jones costume party. I don’t think the memo has gotten out that you can just wear regular clothes when you visit Africa. I’m not posting any photos here because I’m critical, but I’m not mean.

At the end of the walk, I went to the little cafe that’s there on the grounds where they serve various meals, and I had a tasty burger and watched monkeys running through the trees and along the tops of the thatched hut roofs trying to steal food. That was a nice bonus.

lunch with monkeys

I did this on my first day in Victoria Falls the town. The next day I would going to Chobe National Park in Botswana to go on a game drive. Two days in Victoria Falls the town was enough for me, and I was looking forward to going to Livingstone, Zambia.

Wandering North

The Churches of Lalibela

Leave a Reply

Share this:

Related Posts

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Leave a Reply