Ethiopia–Why to Go NOW? 3. Reason: The rock-hewn Churches of Tigray

Experience the thrill of visiting the rock-hewn churches of Tigray, Ethiopia. Hike through sandstone formations and climb to ancient cliffside churches!

The rock hewn churches Maryam Korkor and Abuna Yemata Guh of Tigray in Ethiopia are the most adventurous and spectacular I ever visited. You have to be brave and able to scramble to reach them. Here all the info you'll need.

rock hewn churches tigrey ethiopia cliff sunset

The sandstone formations close to Hawzen in Tigray/Ethiopia rise like romantic castles out of the otherwise flat plain. If you start early in the morning you could have a full day of the most spectacular hiking, with a visit of the even more spectacular churches of Maryam Korkor and Abuna Yemata Guh

Safety note: I was in Ethiopia in 2019. There is currently a travel warning from the Federal Foreign Office. Please check before you book a trip.

Only the brave (tourists) go to church

Haftu doesn't quite understand the problem:

"What's wrong with the tourists? It's not difficult to visit our church. I was baptised here and my parents carried me up here in a basket when I was a baby."

What is intended as encouragement for Richard, who is terrified and doesn't want to take a step forwards or backwards up the seven-metre-high steep wall, doesn't really work.

The older, local men are more helpful: one holds his foot, which is trembling in a sandstone hole, while another talks to him reassuringly and shows him where he should hold on. Haftu immediately tightens the safety rope with every centimetre of movement.

Tourists are protected by rope and harness

He is one of the hiking guides who received climbing training from Italian alpinists a few years ago. Since then, climbing harnesses and ropes have been used on the ascent to the Abune Yamata Guh church carved into the rock, so nobody really has to be afraid any more ... although, as we all know, fear of heights is an untamable beast that you can't always control.

"Once we had a man from America - actually quite athletic, but he stood here and didn't move for six hours. We climbed around him and talked him down, and at some point he was finally on the ground again.

Click on the first photo to start the gallery:

While the tourists climb the small steep face on a rope, the locals crawl up the wall like lizards.

Everyone here is barefoot, as the approach is part of the - so to speak sacred - grounds of the church. Anyone who overcomes their fear of heights (like Richard at the end) will have a blast here.

"If every church visit was as cool as this one, I'd definitely be at the start every Sunday."

He says and euphorically climbs further through a narrow rock corridor until he can look down through a hole in the wall to the other side. Here it's a 200 metre vertical descent. The route continues unsecured a few metres further up a narrow rocky ridge until the keen church visitor walks, creeps or crawls horizontally on a roughly one metre wide ledge through the steep face to a hole in the middle of the mountain.

Voilà, here is the entrance to what is probably the most spectacularly situated rock church in the world.

A very old-looking priest awaits the visitors here and leads them a little further into the interior of the mountain. Haftu greets him cheerfully, "It's not difficult for us to come here. He lives down in the village and walks up in the morning and back home again in the evening." The churchman unlocks the inner chamber. Richard is speechless as he marvels at the unexpected things he sees here: the walls are artistically painted with natural colours. A church visit in Tigray/Ethiopia is like no other and one I will remember forever.

In this short video clip you can see where the entrance to Abuna Yemata Guh is situated:

The hole in the picture is actually the entrance to the church.

To reach it, you walk over a 1m wide ledge, which leads you over a 200m drop – spectacular!!!

You can see 3 churches, when you do a 15km hike

There are 30 such churches in the mountains of Gheralta alone, the oldest of which dates back to the 4th century. A challenging day tour leads to three such churches and those who are not religious will still find fulfilment in this 15-kilometre hike with various climbing sections. While the "normal" ascent to the two large churches Maryam Khorkor and Abune Yamata Guh is relatively easy to find, it definitely makes sense to take a local guide with you on the day tour, as the connecting route between the two churches is rarely travelled.

Click on the first photo to start the gallery:

How to get there:

Ethiopian Airlines flies daily (at least from Frankfurt) directly to Addis Abeba. If you book with them, you get a discount on the inland flights, which you will probably need, as the roads are very bumpy and dusty …

Sleep:

Here come my biggest recommendation for a night in Ethiopia: The Gheralta Lodge is really worth booking well in advance as it is propably the nicest place we stayed at duirng our whole trip. You can have a glas of wine in the evening while enjoying the perfect view of the sun setting behind the mountains.

Friends of us stayed in Korkor Lodge, which is close by. It is a bit more expensive, but really nice as well.

Package:

We arranged everything through Lalibela Eco Trekking. Molla Kassaw - the owner - organized our whole trip and everything worked perfectly. We didn't have a single guide, but always different local guides, who showed us their town/hike. That way we got to know a lot of different people, who knew their local attractions best.

In the separate blogs I will recommend places and restaurants we visited or have seen, alongside any other comments we had about the various places and the what-to-dos.