Rainbows and pots of gold
on Rose Hardman (Rwanda), 07/Apr/2011 07:17, 34 days ago
We flew to Lalibela today- leaving at some ridiculous time in the morning.Our transport to the airportWe are staying at a lovely guesthouse called Heaven. We arrived about breakfast time so found a little cafe which, according to Pauline who sampled it today, has the best French toast ever. We then went on a mission to find a guide and vehicle. Not an easy task as the guidebook makes you paranoid about people pretending to be guides who are then rubbish or disappear with your money. We eventually found a guide called Mesfin who took us round the Northern Circuit of rock hewn churches today. He seems very good and I’m pretty sure he isn’t going to run off with our money (as I’m really writing this blog post in May I can let you know now that he was a great guide who didn’t run off with any money! Oh and the French Toast was the best ever!) The churches are incredible and it’s impossible to imagine how people find the time or the expertise to be able to build them. We spent the whole time with our mouths agape! In addition to Mesfin we were also accompanied by Haptumu who was our official shoe looker after (not sure that’s the official term!) You can’t wear your shoes in the church so he looks after them for you whilst you’re looking round. In addition he hones in on the person he thinks has the money and ‘helps’ them walk between churches. Unfortunately for him he placed his bets on the wrong woman as it was Pauline and not Catherine who was in charge of our kitty. Catherine ended up feeling about 85 the way that Haptumu wouldn’t let her walk unaided!Sign in cafe where we had lunch- we never did work out what it meant. Maybe, as we speculated,  it really was pointing to Heaven!Rock Hewn Church. The particularly attractive cover is courtesy of UNESCO to protect the churches from the elementsLooking through one of the churchesAnother church (there are quite a few so scroll through if you've had enough!)InsideAnother- they are so tall!I just can't even begin to imagine how they were built!After we had completed the Northern Circuit we decided to go to Mountain View Hotel to see the view. Of the Mountains. The clues in the name! We managed to see some stunning views for about five minutes when we arrived but then the clouds descended and the heavens opened. We had previously asked Mesfin about when the rainy season was and he had assured us it didn’t rain until June. He’s a good guide but I don’t think he’s getting a job at the Met Office any time soon. When we were flying over Lalibela all of us had seen the dried up streams and rivers, barely a drop of water anywhere so we were more than happy for the rain to come. Particularly since Mountain View had couches and a TV showing Glee. In addition as the rain cleared up and the sun came out we were greeted with two very intense rainbows which was amazing.Dried river- taken from plane as we arrived in LalibeleAnother plane photoMountain ViewAnd againThe clouds descendRed and yellow and...pink and green, orange...and purple and blue...I can sing a rainbow (or two!)We took advantage of the break in the rain to make our way back into town for dinner. We made it to the restaurant just in time because the rains came just as we arrived. We had a lovely dinner with even lovelier juice and then asked a waiter to order us a taxi. It turns out we were swindled because he told us it would cost 150Birr but then he kept 50 for making the phone call and he gave the driver 100Birr! Sneaky, dishonest or just clever? Not sure but we were just glad we didn’t have to walk in the rain!