This is a picture of the Blue Nile Falls, locally known as Tississat which means smoking water. We went there on a tour with maybe ten others and had a great time trekking for two hours around the waterfalls. The Ethiopian government has recently built a hydro power plant resulting in a canalization of 75% of the water. Hence there is normally only 25% of the water left for the waterfall. To our luck one of the two turbines had broken down the day before we came.














Finally we managed to get a picture of the “African Sun” as we have seen it in the Lion King and TV documentaries about the Savannah. In fact the sunset did not look like the picture at all, but luckily our camera was kind enough to think that it did. It was taken from a wonderful terrace-hotel in the mountains surrounding Gonder. The hotel had a great panoramic view and was an ideal spot for a sunset drink. (This is just one of about forty great sunset pictures we have taken on the trip).











Here is the Fasiladas Castle in Gonder. In fact there were six castles on the same compound as all members of the royal family wanted to be remembered and therefore all built their own castles instead of just sharing the oldest and biggest one. We had a great guide around and also went to a church outside of town where there were these extremely famous angel-paintings in the ceiling. I am pretty sure you have seen them sometime in your life – you are just not aware they are Ethiopian.











During our stay in Lalibela we also went to a very, very remote church and palace outside of the town. Here is a picture from outside of the cave in which the palace and church were built. The wall on the picture is new to protect the cave, but you can maybe get an impression of the Indiana Jones Quest for the Treasure in the Ethiopian Highlands. We felt very Indiana Jones-like at least, being in a remote jungle discovering a thousand years-old, hidden church. It could have been a great Aztec sanctuary too.



















Here is one of the many rock-hewn churches in Lalibela seen from above. It is quite small compared to the others, but it is the only cross-shaped one. On the picture you can not see how high it is, but trust us, it is quite impressive.











One of the many pictures we took of one of the biggest rock-hewn churches in Lalibela. The amazing thing here is that the entire church is made from the rock on which it’s standing… It has all been carved out of the rock – no stones or building materials used. We are still wondering about how they did it 800 years ago, but apparently noone knows – which is also some of its charm. The locals claim that the King Lalibela built ten of the eleven churches himself. It only took him 23 years because angels would come down from the Heaven every night and build twice as much as he had built in the day (thanks, angels). His wife one day saw him building the churches (he kept it as a secret) and decided to build one herself… we don’t know if she was helped by any angels (or slaves).



















Some of the great view from our hike up the Lalibela Mountains. The view was greater than the church, and here you can see a small hut-village at the bottom of the picture and the never ending Ethiopian Highlands stretching towards the horizon (this is also why traveling by bus is not fun).