I couldn’t think of a glib title for our Lalibela posts. Although I’m writing this a few days later, Lalibela demands a degree of reverence. Actualy demands is to strong…facilitates, maybe…
Anyway as we’re wont we headed straight for the first and most famous (we’re always scared Leah will run out of steam before we get to the denoument..)
Totally messed up sense of scale…
This pic you should click through on…you still don’t get a sense of the insane grandeur of the place…but look at the size of the priest at the bottom…
Access to – and between – the churches is through tunnels, holes in the wall, and elaborate arched entrance. All carved. Out of a mountain. By angels. Or 40 00 Abyssinians. Or both, which seems the most plausible…
So this gives a sense: first you have to excavate to a depth of 20-40m. Then you carve, with small chisels…everything – the windows, the doors, the decorations from solid rock. And not crudely…
Sometimes you walk through complete darkness, and then glimpse a beautifully carved window…
and see this…
or this…
or this, Demetrios – The only collapsed church…
Hope Road 