Showing posts with label rock churches. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rock churches. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Where are you go?

Warning: many of the commentaries and opinions that you will be about to read might sound very harsh, but I promise they are the most accurate account of the frequently miserable experience that is crossing Ethiopia by bicycle. Given the radical difference that exists between those of us who travel by bicycle across this country (and those who walk the world too) and those who travel by any kind of motorised transport, I don't feel particularly well predisposed to accept any objections coming from those who haven't crossed it in the same way.

After four days of resting in Wukro and recovering a bit of the lost faith in the Ethiopians thanks to father Ángel and his mission, we resumed the long journey to Addis Ababa. We had already crossed tens of mountain passes to get to the Tigray and go across it, bearing the tireless harassment from the evil Ethiopians, and tens of mountain passes we still had to go across to get to the capital, but to our surprise and relief, we would experience a calmer Ethiopia, at least for a little while.

Friday, March 20, 2015

Faith with Ethiopian flavor


Warning: many of the commentaries and opinions that you will be about to read might sound very harsh, but I promise they are the most accurate account of the frequently miserable experience that is crossing Ethiopia by bicycle. Given the radical difference that exists between those of us who travel by bicycle across this country (and those who walk the world too) and those who travel by any kind of motorised transport, I don't feel particularly well predisposed to accept any objections coming from those who haven't crossed it in the same way.

The Tigray region was the main reason, if not the only one, why our route across Ethiopia was almost double the distance that takes to cross the country along the shortest route. The one that pretty much everyone else takes. From the very beginning, my thoughts were that if we were going to have to suffer Ethiopia anyway, then we'd better doing it trying to find a way to compensate the bad with the best the country has to offer. In my specific case, I had been dreaming for years to visit this enigmatic region of the world of ancient religious practices and exquisite vernacular architecture. We arrived there with a very irritated spirit and filled with susceptibility after having accomplished the exhausting long odyssey of the “route of the Italians”, but believing once again that in this remote province everything would be much more relaxed. Once again, we believed wrong....