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How It Started

This time I went to Ethiopia mainly for two reasons.

The first was that a few years ago, I read Graham Hancock’s The Lost Ark of the Covenant, The Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant by Graham Hancock. Although it is a little hard to read, the author walks you through, step by step, why he believes the lost Ark is in Ethiopia, why there are Black Jews in Ethiopia, and how the Crusades once searched for evidence of the Ark. He made the argument for the Ark’s presence in Ethiopia feel like an adventurous, thrilling journey, while still carrying the rigor of a scholar. It draws you gradually into the ancient religious history of Ethiopia. It was captivating and mentally intense.

Since reading it, I’ve wanted to visit Ethiopia. I became especially interested in the stone churches there, which seemed mysterious.

The second reason was that an elder relative in our family is a Catholic in China and has never traveled abroad. Last year, I promised to take her to see Jerusalem when I had time. But this year the Israel-Hamas war broke out, and Israel was definitely off the table. So after thinking it over, I decided to take her to Ethiopia to see the rock-hewn churches that are a UNESCO World Heritage site.

So I started researching Ethiopia. Ethiopia has not been very peaceful: since November 2020, the conflict between militias and government troops, the Tigray War, has been ongoing, though a ceasefire agreement was reached in November 2022. During the fighting, between 120,000 and 600,000 people died, and mainstream media barely covered it.

Initially, I wanted to stay longer in Ethiopia, travel south to visit “primitive” tribes, and head north to camp near an active volcano. But after reading more information online, I found that flying directly into a few major cities is considered safe, while traveling by road might still pass through areas occupied by militias. Since I was traveling with a relative, and this wasn’t a daredevil trip—and with how hot the north can be in summer—I decided to just go to Lalibela, where the rock churches are.

I read online reviews and saw several people mention that they had recently visited Lalibela and found it very safe. So I decided to go anyway. Even though I usually do independent travel, this time I decided to hire a guide for safety. Hiring a guide ended up being the right decision. I’ll explain why later.

Sharing Experience and Precautions

Visa

After deciding to go, I had to apply for a visa. Ethiopia offers both online visas and visas on arrival. To avoid trouble after landing at the airport, I chose to apply online, only to find the online process gave me even more headaches.

This is the official Ethiopian eVisa website:

  • https://www.evisa.gov.et/

A few cautionary notes first:

  1. I applied using my phone. After filling out the information, you need to upload your passport and a passport-style photo. On my phone, there was no clear instruction on which to upload first, so I uploaded the photo first and the passport second. In fact, it should be the other way around. Later, I tested the site on a computer and saw the labels were there—just not visible on mobile. That caused the trouble that followed.

    After payment, I got an email with a link on the third day asking for a new photo upload. Two of the three applicants received this request, and I resubmitted the photos for both. Strangely, after resubmitting, only one got the eVisa. The second person never got any further response.

  2. This is important: apply separately even if you’re traveling as a family. Do not submit as one batch, or one payment may run into problems. I’m not sure what’s wrong with their system, but it does seem to glitch.

    I applied for eVisas for three people at once. For one person, the credit card payment was still showing as “payment pending” after paying. I thought my card had blocked the payment, so I asked a friend to pay with WeChat (WeChat and Alipay can be used). Even after my friend paid, the site still showed payment pending. That’s when I realized it was a system issue, so I didn’t risk paying a third time.
    For the next few days, I called the office listed on the Ethiopian capital’s visa page, but could never get through. I emailed repeatedly and never got a reply. With departure getting close, I finally decided: I’ll handle it at the airport with a visa-on-arrival.

Customs and Visa-on-Arrival

Now let me talk about what happened at the airport because their system was broken.

Of the three of us, one person received the eVisa early and cleared immigration smoothly, then picked up luggage. My companion and I went to the visa-on-arrival counter, expecting it to take minutes, but we ended up waiting three and a half hours. Thankfully, the airport had Wi-Fi, so we stayed in touch with the person who had already left.

The eVisa fee for Ethiopia is high at $82. The second person had paid and resubmitted photos, but did not receive the eVisa. The third person paid twice and still received nothing, so when we reached the visa-on-arrival counter, we asked why their submitted online visas were in this state.

The officer was extremely rude (I had assumed that under Belt and Road this would be friendlier to people with Chinese faces—but I was wrong). He asked us to show receipts. We had paid $82 twice for two people and had no receipts to show. So he told us to sit aside and wait, and he spoke to us in a harsh tone.

Later, another staff member took us to a row of rooms at the back. There were many uniformed people there too, but no one seemed to be doing anything, and again we were told to wait. After nearly an hour, we asked someone. It turned out the back office belonged to Ethiopian Airlines. They just held our passports and did nothing, saying they were waiting for immigration in front to clear us, while immigration said they had already handed us over and then stopped handling it. It was a dead-end loop.

We went back to immigration at the front. They said we had to wait for the manager to come in before they could clear our payments. When would the manager come? Tomorrow morning. At that moment, I felt like I was going to pass out.

The only option was to go back to the Ethiopian Airlines staff holding our passports and show our card-payment screenshots. The payment was made to Ethiopian Airlines, likely because the immigration department uses them as a collection agent before transferring it on. But after seeing the screenshot, the airline staff said, “You paid to the wrong place. This is not Ethiopian Airlines.”
I explained that the official eVisa checkout page clearly shows the card payment to Ethiopian Airlines after confirming the eVisa payment. They didn’t believe it and gave us the eVisa website again. It was overwhelming.

Eventually, we returned to the visa-on-arrival counter and said we would forget previous payments and apply afresh for visa on arrival.

This back-and-forth went on for about another three and a half hours. Finally, someone brought us to the immigration visa-on-arrival office. After some time with the phone, the second person’s eVisa was issued.
As for the third person, who had paid twice, they said the photo upload order was wrong, so the visa could not be issued.

It was already close to 10 p.m., and we just wanted to leave that awful place. So we told them we would re-pay and do visa on arrival. We paid $80 on the spot (not $82), and a visa sticker was placed in the passport.

In total, one Ethiopia visa ended up costing $82 + $82 + $80 = $244. Now that we’re back in the United States, I’m still disputing refunds with the credit card and WeChat.

At the same time, a Brazilian father and son were waiting as well. The father had received an eVisa; the son had paid but got no follow-up, so the two of them were waiting there too. There was also an Indian traveler who comes to Ethiopia often. He kept telling us, no matter what, “they’ll sort it out eventually.” In the end, though, he booked an airport hotel and planned to wait there until the manager came to work the next day.

Currency Exchange

While we were waiting for our visa, a guy from India was pretty helpful. He told us the official rate was about $1 to 57 birr, while the black-market rate was around $1 to 110 birr. Yes, you read that right—the black market was almost double the official rate. It was that crazy. (It seems like the birr has weakened a bit again lately, though I haven’t been tracking it closely.) He said I didn’t have much cash on me, so he offered to exchange some for us first so we wouldn’t get overcharged by taxi drivers once we went out. He exchanged $20 at the 110 rate for us.

At the airport, we spotted that our hotel had a pickup shuttle. Although the hotel replied by email that it was $15 per person, because we hadn’t pre-booked, the driver didn’t charge us. But when we later stayed at the Hilton, each person had to pay $15 for airport pickup.

When we got to the hotel, the driver mysteriously took us to our room and then started trying to exchange dollars with us, opening at 80 and finally settling at 90. The next morning, after breakfast at the hotel, the front desk insisted on being paid in USD at checkout. We said we had birr, and they replied that amounts over $40 required an exchange receipt by law, otherwise payment had to be in USD.

The front desk asked where the money came from. Of course we couldn’t expose the driver, so we said nothing—though they likely guessed as much and were flexible. Because we had booked two rooms, we split everything into two bills, which kept each one under $40. They made us sign that the money came from an ATM withdrawal, and they kept it on file in case of a government check.

Later in Lalibela, the guide would only exchange at 80. Since we also couldn’t exchange much, we didn’t push it. So if you want to get 110 like the Indian guy did, it can be difficult when you’re not familiar with the area. Also, each person entering Ethiopia can carry no more than $3,000 in cash.

Tickets

For flights, we first went to the UAE. From Dubai, you can fly nonstop to Addis Ababa (ADD). You can buy the tickets separately, or redeem miles for the Dubai–Addis Ababa–Lalibela segment. The best option to redeem is Ethiopian Airlines, so Star Alliance points can be used. I used Air Canada points, and with a multi-city search we booked outbound DXB-ADD-LLI and return via Addis Ababa to Cairo, LLI-ADD-CAI.

Flying to Lalibela

Addis Ababa, the capital, has little to see. There is only one Trinity Church, and it was closed for renovation, so we flew there the next morning. The plane was a small one with a 2+2 seat layout. Takeoff and landing were a bit bumpy, but acceptable. There are two flights a day from the capital to Lalibela, and the plane felt quite full.

Lalibela is surrounded by hilly terrain, and from the plane it felt a little like the American West. When we arrived, our guide was waving at us from a distance. He didn’t have trouble identifying us because we were the only three foreigners on the entire plane. The state of local tourism was obvious: during our three and a half days in Lalibela, we saw only two other foreigners.

At both airport exits and the airport-to-town checkpoints in and out of Lalibela, there were government military checkpoints. We later asked the guide, and he said the town and airport are controlled by government troops, while the outskirts are controlled by rebels. Even in a conflict setting, tourists are still safe because tourism is a pillar of the local economy and they won’t bother visitors. That was what the guide told us; I’m just repeating it. As for whether there is risk and how much, that’s something you’ll need to judge for yourself.

According to the guide, before the ceasefire, Lalibela had been under rebel control for six months. During our three-and-a-half-day stay, the whole town felt peaceful and safe. The drive from the airport to town takes a little over twenty minutes, and the place feels like it doesn’t really have taxis.

Above is a village near the airport from the descent; below is the airport.

Rock Churches

Now that’s done—let’s talk about the main attraction of this Ethiopia trip: the rock churches. In 1978, based on heritage nomination criteria, the rock churches of Lalibela were approved by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee as a cultural heritage site and inscribed on the World Heritage List.

Let’s just copy from Baidu Encyclopedia.

“Lalibela is a town in northern Ethiopia, and a holy city of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Lalibela began accepting the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian faith in the 4th century. After Jerusalem was occupied by Muslims, Lalibela was, for a time, promoted as a new city of Jerusalem. Legend says that in the 12th century, the seventh king of Ethiopia, Lalibela, who was also a priest, received a revelation in a dream: ‘Build a new Jerusalem in Ethiopia, and require that the church be carved from one whole piece of rock.’ So, based on this vision, Lalibela used about 20,000 workers and took 24 years on a 2,600-meter-high rocky plateau in northern Ethiopia to carve out 11 rock churches. People call this place Lalibela, and it is known as the ‘Wonder of Africa.’ Since then, Lalibela has become a holy place for Ethiopians.”

First, a photo. This is the most famous St. George Church; it has no overhang shelter, so it’s the most photogenic. Pay attention to the drainage hole on top.

Aside from Axum, Lalibela is the most important holy city. Since most pilgrims cannot make the long trip to Jerusalem, coming to Lalibela is treated as equivalent to going there, and it brings merit to future generations.

These 11 churches are divided into two groups: one representing heavenly Jerusalem and one representing earthly Jerusalem. A stream between them represents the Jordan River. They are built along the mountain contours and have good drainage systems. There are passages connecting each church. When you walk through the dark tunnels, it’s hard not to be moved by the fact that, using simple tools, ancient people carved multi-story-level churches into the mountain, complete with columns, windows, sculptures, and reinforcement ribs.

These churches were basically carved downward from the top of the mountain. To enter, you have to walk down through narrow gaps. They are covered with carpets inside, but you can clearly feel the rough, uneven rock beneath them.

In terms of construction, these churches can be grouped into three types: fully freestanding churches, where you can walk around the entire building at the base; semi-freestanding churches, where the back is attached to the rock but most of the structure stands independently; and fully rock-cut churches, which have only one entrance on the front and are somewhat similar to cave dwellings in Shaanxi. The most famous and the most photogenic, with no obstructions, is St. George’s Church. It has a carved cross at the top, the rock is slightly dark red, and with lichen on it, it looks stunning. (photo above)

What struck me most is that these churches are still in use. We happened to go on a Sunday, and morning prayers lasted more than three hours. By the way, the staff often carry a stick with a crescent-shaped wooden top. Besides other uses, during prayer it can be tucked under the armpit to support the body and help with rest.

We arrived as the prayer was nearing the end. All over the hills, people with families came in, wearing white clothing or wrapping themselves in white cloth; many carried Bibles. Our guide’s Bible was kept in a very ornate leather case.

People were chanting in rhythm with the choir while kneeling toward the stone churches, a truly impressive scene. I would really like to visit during their religious festival in January; the number of worshippers is likely even larger then.

Because these stone churches are small and cannot hold many people, most worshippers stay on the slopes outside until prayers finish. They then descend through a narrow crack in the rock into the churches. Some people even toss offerings straight down into the area below. Shoes must be removed before entering, and there are shoes everywhere on the ground. Worried we might lose ours, we brought our own plastic bag in our bag to carry our shoes inside. If you want, the guide can also arrange someone to watch your shoes in exchange for a small tip.

The church below is the only one with a stone column on the outside. The one above is also a fully freestanding church, and you can walk all the way around it.

Inside each church, there is a curtain separating the inner area. A replica of the ark is behind the curtain, and only the priest can go in; regular worshippers cannot.

Some churches have murals on their walls or courtyards, and some still preserve the tools used to build the churches. But it still feels unreal that such a large complex of churches could be built in only twenty years. Even today, carving a single stone by hand is hard enough, let alone carving out a three- to four-story building from solid rock on a mountain. According to locals, angels helped them build it.

One church is quite special. It has a cross-shaped window in the wall. If you shoot from a certain angle, the photo has an interesting blue effect. On the right is our guide, Ayalew Setegn, WhatsApp +251-91-2844474—give him a shout, if you like.

In the next photo, the priest pulled out almost all of his personal collection for us to see.

The photo below shows an embedded church. The next one shows one church with a second floor carved inside it. It’s all carved out of hard rock.

Rock-hewn church drainage system: it had just rained heavily, yet there was no standing water anywhere. It felt amazing.

Here are a few final photos to give everyone more of a feel for Lalibela’s rock-hewn churches. Some are entirely inside the rock.

There are tunnels connecting the churches to each other. Lalibela is truly unique, and it left a strong impression on me. If you have the chance, you should go.

Local life

Market

Saturday is market day here. People arrive on mules from all directions to sell home-grown goods. Tomatoes and chili peppers are quite small—maybe because of the hilly terrain. The area seems to produce a lot of honey, and many people are selling it from buckets. The market is fairly lively. So, it’s better to schedule your trip for Saturday and Sunday—then you can roam the market and attend Sunday morning prayers. If your schedule is tight, two days is enough for this place.

The photo below is a distant smartphone shot of people in town; it’s a bit blurry.

Restaurant

The guide took us to a restaurant, Kana Restaurant and Bar. The interior decor is very Ethiopian, and the food was good.

Hotel

Before traveling, I first booked a family-style guesthouse, a double room. Because I didn’t know the local situation well and was busy before departure, I simply used Google Maps to find a place that seemed closest to St George's Church. Later, because a classmate joined our trip, we needed to add one more bed. I called and emailed the guesthouse before takeoff, but no one answered. We planned to decide once we arrived. When we got to Lalibela and showed the guesthouse name to our guide, he didn’t recognize it either. The guesthouse still did not answer when he called, and as we drove through town, it finally dawned on me that it wasn’t the guide trying to scam us—the address simply was not specific. In this hilly area, a place that looks closest on a map can end up across a ravine. Since the prepaid amount was not much anyway, we gave up on it and asked the guide to recommend another place. To our surprise, the one he chose was the nicest hotel in town. Every afternoon we sat on the second-floor balcony, listening to the rain, birdwatching, and reading, enjoying the coolness of the African climate—it was very comfortable. The walk to the rock churches from the hotel was also short.

This guesthouse is Tabor Hotel Lalibela, Phone: +251 91 148 0136

We booked a triple room for a little over $20 per day, very cheap. There were only three guests staying at the hotel, and we basically ate at the hotel every day. The chef made very tasty bread and vegetable soup. Each time before meals, they placed many bougainvillea fallen petals on the table, which felt very warm and pleasant. In my observation, this hotel is likely the most beautiful one in town. I won’t say it’s the best, but we stayed very comfortably. The only drawback was that the shower pressure was a bit low.

Rainy-season Ethiopia is quite comfortable. Many guesthouses had lots of bougainvillea, which felt nice.

Climate

Although Ethiopia is in Africa, when we visited in early July it had just entered the rainy season, and the daily temperature was only 13-20°C, which felt very comfortable. When I left home, it was 40°C; I never imagined I was going to Africa to cool down, which was a bit of a surprise to me. As for the rain, it doesn’t pour lightly all day long. It usually comes as a sudden, heavy shower and then clears up after a while. It might happen once a day, or several times in a day, but after it rains it can be sunny again, and it stays very cool. We spent mornings visiting churches and afternoons on the hotel’s upstairs floor reading and looking at flowers, which was very pleasant. What’s even more surprising is that once the rain passes, you can’t see traces of water right away; everything dries up quickly. It’s probably because this is a highland area, and the water flows downhill, even below the mountain. So the streets don’t have standing water and the roads aren’t muddy. If you visit the north to see the salt lake and caldera this season, the temperatures are probably quite hot there. All this water eventually flows into the Blue Nile, then into the Nile. At present, because Ethiopia is building a dam, relations with downstream Egypt are still strained.

Additional notes

I’d like to add a few important points I didn’t mention earlier.

Guide and cost

I usually don’t hire a guide when I travel—I normally plan everything myself. For this Ethiopia trip, most online information was limited, and on top of that, the war there had just ended. Since I was also traveling with relatives, I thought it was safer to hire a guide.The guide was actually a guy from TripAdvisor who answered one of my questions, and then he kept chasing me with a quote. Later I realized it was him, and I didn’t bother contacting anyone else myself. In the end, he connected us with a local guide.

The guide was actually pretty good. He had a guide license, gave a serious explanation, and didn’t force us to tip. When kids followed us asking for money, he would also help us politely decline. He came with a driver in a brand-new nine-seat van to pick us up and drop us off each day.

Those churches were not far apart—walking was possible—but the constant uphills and downhills were tiring, so having a vehicle made things much easier. If you walk there, kids will usually follow you to ask for money, and adults may start small talk and then try to get you to sponsor a few books. Of course, those are tactics, but they can affect the travel experience. Even though my relatives donated at each church, and we usually bought things from the kids selling goods, I generally don’t give money to people who just follow along doing nothing.

Another benefit of having a guide is that, because there are few tourists, many churches are often locked. Without a guide, you wouldn’t know where to find the priest to have them opened, and if you can’t get inside you can’t feel the mystery of the ancient churches. The 11 churches are linked by cracks in the rock, trails, and tunnels, so if you go alone you’d have no clue about the route. More importantly, the guide’s commentary gives these ancient churches stories, so when visiting this place, I still recommend taking a guide.

The guide’s fee was finally negotiated to $100 per person, for a total of $300 for three people. It included three full days plus two half days: airport pickup, Saturday market visit, and Sunday morning prayers. The itinerary was very relaxed—basically out in the morning, back to the hotel to rest in the afternoon.

The five-day pass for all 11 churches has doubled this year to $100 per person. That is already very expensive—more than the Great Pyramid, the Great Wall, and the Taj Mahal.

Yellow Card

This happened as we were leaving Ethiopia. We were relieved that the trip to Ethiopia had gone smoothly when a bolt came out of nowhere: the check-in counter told us we couldn’t board because we didn’t have a Yellow Card, the vaccination card for yellow fever. Before coming to Ethiopia, I checked online and learned it wasn’t needed to enter, but we didn’t expect it to be required on departure. The reason was that Egypt requires it for flights from Ethiopia. We were all taken aback.

Fortunately, there was a Chinese-owned company in Ethiopia at the time. They immediately gave us a contact and told us that after 9:00 we could ask their staff to take us to get the Yellow Card. But the plane was about to depart, so we weren’t going to make it.

Then it suddenly hit us—we could skip entering Egypt and go directly to Jordan. Jordan does not require the Yellow Card when flying from Ethiopia. Originally, we were also supposed to go from Egypt to Jordan two days later, but with a transfer of over 24 hours, the transfer desk still wouldn’t let us board. So we hurriedly bought a same-day ticket from Cairo to Jordan on our phones, canceled the original booking, and each old ticket cost us a few hundred RMB. Once the counter approved it, we ran with our luggage to the gate and finally left Ethiopia successfully. Luckily, hotels in Egypt here can be refunded for free, otherwise the loss would have been much bigger.

When we landed in Cairo, there were indeed people in white coats, but no inspection was done. They probably just checked whether anyone looked unwell, and after a while they stopped caring.

When you run into trouble while traveling, don’t panic. Try to work around the problem. If you stay calm, you may find a solution. This was also a lesson: for future trips to Africa, check all vaccine requirements carefully.

Afterword

I always believe there are more good people in the world. At Addis ADD airport, when we were exhausted by visa issues and didn’t know what to do, that unfamiliar Indian gentleman kept encouraging us, telling us not to panic. He also bought a box of cut watermelon for my relative and exchanged some cash for us at a black-market rate so we could use it for a ride after leaving the airport. He later even invited us to his restaurant (he does aluminum-alloy business between Ethiopia, Dubai, and China and has an Indian restaurant in Addis).

Traveling, you’ll keep running into people like this, and they make the journey warm.

When we couldn’t board because we didn’t have the Yellow Card, it was that Chinese couple who helped us, contacting their relatives and helping us find them. Their help brought us a lot of reassurance. Even though we ultimately never got the Yellow Card, we are truly grateful for their kindness.

That is what travel is really about—not only seeing scenery on the road, but also meeting people from different backgrounds. Little stories like these enrich life.

Finally, one more recommendation: the AMEX Platinum Business credit card, which has rich sign-up rewards and many benefits, and is suitable for people who travel.