Ethiopia holiday, tailormade reviewed by Colin Luke
A five hour hike, there and back, to visit Debre Maryam Korkor, a rock hewn church in Eastern Tigray, perched on a wide ledge 2000 feet up at an altitiude of 8000 feet. The climb required a lot of rock climbing and we are both around seventy years old, but our guides could not have been more encouraging or helpful and with their help we were thrilled to climb this cliff and see the church and the spectacular landscape all around.
We do not want international style hotels but at our age do require a minimum standard of comfort. Everywhere we stayed was clean and comfortable and the food was surprisingly good especially at the Simien Mountain Lodge.
In towns or on rare tarmac roads, vans are adequate but with so many dirt roads, do ask for 4x4 vehicles, not least for comfort.
Our excellent Ethiopian tour operator told us that over 40 people benefited from our visit. Tourism is important for the economy of Ethiopia and there is little evidence of it being detrimental in any significant way. Everyone we met or had dealings with were open and friendly and often keen to communicate in English.
It was a splendid holiday very well organised by the operator. The company is run by a delightful man, who answered all our questions most professionally and on meeting turned out to be a most interesting man. Small problems were quickly dealt with and nothing marred our very happy experience. The guides employed locally were all excellent. The weather in February could not have been better.
Operator comments
