The Afar desert is unique and has nothing to do with other deserts like the Sahara, since instead of being invaded by the sand is full of salt, as it was once a huge lake, incredible as it may seem.
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Turmi is the hub, along with the fascinating Dimeka ethnic-cultural group of Hamer. Monday is market day and from early morning the roads that converge in Turmi are a hive of Hammer, Karo and Dassanech who come rushing to the square in which the market place.
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We passed the Imperial Citadel and headed to the northwest by road to Bahar Dar, we have come just 2 miles away when we saw a rectangular wall that hides inside a strange room. We crossed an old wooden gate where a friendly old man dozes seems to be the “keeper” of place, after a brief chat we entered the room, before our eyes has a small building “style Gondarino” which highlights a pair of two-storey towers at the foot of the building opens a pond or “pool” of about 3,000 square meters, are the famous baths of the Emperor Fasilides.
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The Konso area is south of Lake Chamo and when you approach one of their villages feel you’ve left behind the ancient Ethiopia and “wild” to return, to put it in some way to “civilization” and I can assure you This shock made me especially hard, I suddenly felt a terrible nostalgia for all that was left behind, after so many days sharing life experiences with people who wear fur, painted their bodies just to be beautiful, they lacerate the skin rites ancestral revere their elders, love their children, enjoy drinking the beer they produce (very rich and powerful of course but for unscrupulous unwise), they open “the door” of their huts narrándote enjoy your life, you get to a town where, if the huts are getting much more elaborate sometimes used as building material stone, something I had not seen since we left Arbaminch, people who live there wear Western clothes, yes, but check extremely torn and dirty, terrace farming practice, yes, but you can feel the hunger and misery, something I had not seen him for many days …
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We talked at length about the beauty of the monolithic churches of Lalibela and their obvious interest in art, history and religion.
But there is another Lalibela, it is a small town, located about 2,600 meters altitude at which live only about 12,000 inhabitants and that has nothing to do with the splendid group of churches that surround it.
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Ethiopia is an impressive country that not only has an incredible vegetation, but also contains an impressive and very characteristic fauna. Here you can find very rare species and even unique and, moreover, are completely different from what we’re used to seeing in our country.
The church of the XII-XIII centuries Bet Mariam (“house of Mary”) is among the churches (Bethel Maskal, “house of the cross’) and Danagel Bethel (” house of virgins “).
It is not too big a church but his rough front (fully monolithic), the decor and especially the paintings of the interior makes this temple one of the most brilliant of all the Lalibela.
Dedicated to Our Lady, which is particularly revered in Ethiopia, the church is more popular among the pilgrims. Some believe that these may be the first church built by Lalibela.
On the east side we can see two rows of three windows. According to what experts say, the top row represent the Holy Trinity, while the bottom is believed to represent the crucifixion of Jesus and the two sinners …
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Again we turn to the Legend to retrieve the episode that tells the origin of this church building and reads: Once the King Lalibela had almost completed the building of churches, was severely reprimanded by the pattern of Ethiopia in person (San Jorge) who appeared before the king riding on his white horse and wearing his shining armor.
To access the Mursi village from which you want to talk we had to move for several days on dusty gravel roads and through wild water gullies that formed suddenly and unexpectedly due to the overflow of rivers in the area, floods caused by incessant rains falls in previous days.
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Located between Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan, the Omo River valley is presented as a world traveler surprising, anchored in time. Away from any city, with an extreme climate, lies one of the wildest places in Africa where they live a nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes 15.
Mursi, Karo, Erbore, Hamer transform their bodies into real paintings in which strive to translate their particular concept of beauty.
