Named after the king who lived here in the eleventh century, who "built" eleven churches, this is another of Ethiopia's world heritage sites. Built is definitely the wrong word, as they have all been hewn out of the solid rock. Depending upon the style, they are either monolithic or semi-monolithic, but still stupendous. It took just 23 years to finish them, reportedly with the help of angels sent down from heaven.
We were "lucky" to visit today as there was a major religious celebration taking place - this was fascinating from the point of view of spectacle and sound, but rather infuriating as we could hardly hear a word that our guide was saying. We spent the whole day visiting all the churches, none of which are the same in external design or internal layout.
Conscious that I have not been able to blog since leaving Gonder xxxx days ago (we all lose track of time), I was getting desperate to find some wifi somewhere and the Mountain View hotel on the far side of town came up trumps. That was the good news, the bad being that we had to pay for a rather expensive meal in order to be able to use it. We being Paul, Karin and myself - Karin took a shot of Paul and I seemingly having a quite, romantic, candle lit supper.
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