Guest Blog - Nick Wastnage (again!)

I’m here in Ethiopia for a second time in six months. It’s an exhilarating country and one of much contrast. I’m pleased to be back and staying with Ben and Margot and their cat, Bole. My wife, Mary, my daughter, Laura and her friend Sophie are with me. After spending a weekend in the capital, Addis Ababa; a disorganised bustling earthy city where shacks and huts sit alongside new high-rise buildings and where none of the roads are named and signposts non existent, we headed off on our own to Lalibela and it’s marvellous collection of 12th century churches hewn out of the rock surface. There are at least eleven churches to visit, all built over twenty-three years and each incredible. Built at a time before any mechanisation, they are perfectly constructed and cut out of the rock surface; some dug down into the ground, some cut out from the side of a hill. One man, King Lalibela, designed and organised their construction.
After Lalibela we went on a mountain trek and stayed the night in an Ethiopian village. We slept in a round Tukul constructed of mud and straw and without any electricity, running water or a WC. The views were stunning and always took your breath away. We were 10,000 feet up; and with a sheer drop a few paces from the door of our Tukuls. Women from the local village cooked us a delicious dinner which we ate around a wood fire. During the night, if nature called we just turned over and went to sleep and hoped the call would go away!
The following morning we travelled to Gheralta Lodge in the Tigray region of Ethiopia and met up with Ben and Margot. Here we walked again, this time to visit more of the rock-hewn churches, but unlike the ones in Lalibela, they were built at the top of a mountain. Mary and I miraculously managed to follow Ben and Margot and our guide up to the top of a mountain to see one of these churches. When we got there, we looked down to see the tiny speck that was the vehicle that had brought us to the start point. We gasped. We could not believe we were so high and that we (Mary and I) had managed the scary ascent.
After Gheralta Lodge, we returned to Addis Ababa and relaxed in Ben and Margot’s comfortable and peaceful house and garden and enjoyed a couple of excellent meals in the city before we flew home.
There are three things that stick in my mind about my trips to Ethiopia. The countryside and scenery are beautiful, the people are charming and Ben and Margot are a great couple and extremely hospitable.