Counted as a journalist, referring to a travel photographer, I described it as a professional traveler. It seems that the term "traveler" is more precise for the activity. This traveler-viajante-photographer, In the last of his photographic trips with Nomad photographic expeditions in Ethiopia, He toured from the south to the north to end in Lalibela, just known by the churches excavated in the rock and the primitive sanctuaries torn to the same ground. The legend says that Angel Gabriel himself helped lift them, With the media of the early thirteenth century, work clearly colossal.
Shuttle to Lalibela.- Or how to travel with three and a half wheels.
The arrival in Lalibela was a show itself. The little helix bombarder plane fulfilled and from the window , While enjoying the landscape, I observed how I hid the wheels in the fuselage when taking off. Something that had not enjoyed years. Pulling the photographic backpack - the important- and from the other, We arrive at the terminal, excessive word for the case, of the airport. After the door, right , Some rates aligned and parapeted tables behind the identifiers the travel guides. Left, The conveyor belt, oxidized, motionless. It is clear that my bags will be transported by hand.
The conveyor belt, oxidized, motionless
The poster, "Shuttle to Lalibela", Rimbombante Fast and modern bus advertisement, calm. Dragging the luggage, The passage reaches what the "Shuttle" calls in Lalibela, Passengers are heading to the back gate in which the bags are supposed to host to discover that it does not open. Nervous, Some throw the packages to the top of the bus where the driver is placed while the others decide to load them, along with people, inside the vehicle. The thing is more interesting than it seems: The abundant passage - both in size and in number - and the reduced space. I curl up, One of the bags on the legs and the other in a hole next to the bus ladder, glued, Very close to my seatmate.
We reach the city with three and a half wheels, which is not bad starting from the four initials. The driver had decided to continue without repairing that puncture that surprised us shortly after the airport exit. He drove the broken through the innumerable curves, Without major problem, which shows that in the first world we waited uselessly pneumatic… and buses.
Lalibela is at the top of a mountain, Uploading by Revirada Road. The area where the locals live is seen from the hotel exit, up there, in the distance. The hotel, one of the scarce in the area, It is decent, clean and, the most important, It is about twenty minutes walk from the first of the churches to which I go at dawn for photography sessions.
A young man's dream in Lalibela
We are twenty days after the start of the tourist season, what does the presence of foreigners much more visible. In fact, When leaving the hotel enclosure, You feel how they observe you. If you want to know who speaks English, just look at those who are sitting in the vicinity of hotels. Day after day these polyglots find you when you leave a church, around the hotel, When drinking coffee, -The famous and hard ethiopian coffee - in the scarce barucho on the way to the church hill., In season, The activity of the Angloplants is to establish contact and expect this incipient friendship to produce their fruits. These, If they arrive, They are progressive , scale variables, involvement and commitment.
A Lalibela, Despite omnipresent poverty, Mendicity is not appreciated. The Copta Church has a lot to do with it. It is usual to see how young people rebuke the first hint of harassment that can be interpreted as economic. What replaces -and it doesn't seem bad- Mendicity, It is a "friendly" persecution of the tourist who becomes difficult to enjoy the photographic loneliness of such beauty: Mamoush approaches you in English, It helps you solicitously, You close you close. On other occasions it is accompanied by two or three companions. El “How are you, where are you from” (What's up, where are you from?) It is the first form of contact - that I have already found in many countries - followed by the explanation of the vital circumstance. La De Mamoush, course.
They represent young people to the first hint of harassment that can be interpreted as economic
It is the same story that is repeated by all the young people who address you and not less certain: A poor family, very poor, A squeeze boy with a mentor who teaches him to learn English and future sleep, to become a tourist guide. Some even expect, Or so says, Study engineering (¡!) At the same University of Addis Abeba. From the unattended point of the universe in which we are, The distance that separates my interlocutor with his dream is, For the visitor, infinite; It is difficult to admit that it can still come true with all the help in the world.
The process of contribution to future sleep begins by accepting the gift they offer you: A simple medal, The memory of an object. COOKED EAST MARKETING TECHNIQUE. From there you already have a friend, a guide and confidant who finds the best way to practice English and, two by one, The possibility of capturing a mentor that progressively finances his school career . What follows is the mail they will ask you to facilitate yours. Unusual, the next day, You will have received an English message in which they communicate the joy for having - yes - yes, it's you- A new friend. Then the variants: An ethiopian/English dictionary that you buy from the bookstore-to-all through the area of ??the desert central street, The soccer ball that schoolboys need to follow their championship. .. It is interesting that nobody, never, ask for money to eat or survive.
Ever, say, He heard a lucky boy who came to find that dream mentor. The problem is that Ethiopia is one of the few countries with an unemployment rate superior to the Spanish.
The churches.- The faithful.
¡"Faranji", "Faranji"!, I hear that they whisper between them. It's the word to name abroad. The interior is reduced, With five faithful who are in the enclosure it is already difficult to move discreetly. And more with the camera, No toga or mantle to melt in the dark. This was such that the time did not come when your pupils adapted. Some candle, some occasional light for a window. The glow of the door when open.
I have not been in Jerusalem and I am not devotee from any saint, But I must admit that the fervor of the faithful in the copas churches was moving me, for authentic. I had the feeling of finding me out of time, In the twelfth century. Night with Luna, The hill that led to the church torn from the ground was manifested by the yellowish candles that the faithful carried when ascending to the Church.
We will be when others sleep, While the light begins to appear on the horizon
Officially these do not open until eight I think I remember, But by accident I discovered that from the 5:30 am, still at night, The first songs begin. For a travel photographer, It's time: we will be when others sleep, While the light begins to appear on the horizon. I was lucky to meet in Lalibela, In the church of San Gabriel, Without having prepared it, The very day of the saint's celebration. Feast little known to tourists and does not generate the massive influx that goes to the epiphany.
Bet in a strategic place in silence, respectfully, The white complexion chamber and Indiana Jones' outfit clearly pointed me out as the only tourist in the environment. Wrapped in his white robes, men and women climbed the slope that led to San Gabriel in silence. White figures marked the meanderings of the path up to the horizon. The more timid, to the meet me, entornaban face, covered by the toga. Some, more curious or determined, I stared into the eye, Without animosity, examining you as if I could discover what motivated the strange tourist, at five o'clock, In the middle of the night. Hours were made moments accompanied. The stage -for a skeptic that tried, parapeted after your camera, stay out, It was magical and emotional.
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