The Crna Reka Monastery is unique amongst the Serbian Orthodox monasteries in that is consists largely of rock-hewn rooms connected by narrow stairs and passage ways. Nothing like the big complexes we have seen elsewhere, in Zico and in Studenica. Also, they are a lot less hung up about taking pictures inside, which gives me … Read more
We arrived in Wukro at dusk. The best hotel in town (10 US$ a night) had one single room available, and one double that stank badly. The building looked like a prison, three stories high with rooms exiting on a veranda around a narrow concrete courtyard. Every noise echoed upwards. Our second choice hotel was … Read more
After the Debre Damo adventure we deserved lunch: remarkably good roasted lamb, in the border town of Adigrat, some 20 km from the Eritrean border. Well, border town, in fact the border has been closed for quite some time now, since the Ethiopian-Eritrean war of 1998-2000. I suspect if any smuggling is going on, it … Read more
Being perhaps Ethiopia’s preeminent tourist spot, that is also Lalibela’s curse. The good news is that it has indeed a couple of fabulous assets, in the form of 11 (or 10, or 13, depending who is writing the guide book) rock-hewn churches. But not just hewn into the rock, like in Petra, for instance, no, … Read more