Lalibela

Our trip to Lalibela was pretty smooth. flew over some pretty big mountains to get there. I sat next to a guy about 25 to 30 who was a nurse in a health center. He was going to school to become a doctor. They study for a go to school for a little while then they work to pay for school. He wanted to become a doctor for the rural areas surrounding Lalibela. He got great joy from helping the people. As a nurse he made 700 bir per month. Right now the exchange rate is 11.5 birr per US dollar. so he lived on about $65 per month. He said when he became a doctor they make 1600 birr per month. That is about $150 per month. Our guide met us at the Airport and we checked in at the Hotel Jerusalem. Nice hotel quickly unpacked and headed off to the churches. These churches were amazing, built by around the time of king Lalibela in the 13th century, he spent a significant amount of time in Jerusalem, he layed out the churches to resemble Jerusalem including the Jordan river. King Lalibela wanted to provide a safer alternative to the pilgraming Christians. At the time these churches were built there was a lot of fighting between the Muslims and the Christians and the Muslims won most of the time. Ethiopia was fairly safe at the time. But the cool thing about these churches is they were built below ground. Basically the building was dug out then the building was hollowed out. A lot of them were interlocking through tunnels. We went in one of them. It was wild going through them in the dark. My dad was a crack up trying to go through. Max liked it so much he and the guide went through again. The best church was Saint George it was built in the shape of + sign or a cross. There were no pillars on the inside. There were also some dead bodies that were fairly well preserved supposedly because they were washed in the holy water. They were amazing. Later on that night Max and I walked around the hotel and met some new friends. had a nice meal with a nice staff. Our guide's father and grandfather was the priest of one of the churches. So he had a lot of insight.