After about an hour of heavy going, I made it to the foot of the sheer rock face, and then skirted around the bottom looking for the only way up. After walking what seemed halfway around the cliff I stumbled across the way up and stood transfixed as I watched forty to fifty men, some who would have been well in to their sixties and seventies making their way down the fifty metre sheer cliff. Some of the men flew down, using only the thin rope made from goat skins, they did any modern day abseiler proud, leaning back so their body was perpendicul
ar with the cliff and walking and leaping backwards down to the bottom. A few of the less game ones tied themselves in to a harness (made of course from goatskin) and using the rope they were lowered down more slowly. After having seen the physical state of many of these men as they waited at the bottom I gave up any idea I had of wussing out and ambled over to where the ropes came down. Looking up I noticed that behind the small gate through which you entered there stood a gatekeeper dressed in his fancy robes. A kid on the ground befriended me, he told me to take my bag off, and to do the climb in bare feet. He then mentioned that it would cost me 100 Ethiopian Birr to get in and another 40 to be pulled up. (140 EB = $ 14) Now that doesn't sound like much money, except my daily budget for the six weeks spent in Ethiopia was $10, and the average Ethiopian earns about 500 Birr a month – yes per month. So 140 was quite a large sum. I checked my pockets to find that I had about 90Birr on me – I had been told it would cost me 50 to get in. I explained to the kid on the ground that was all I had, and he had a conversation with the gatekeeper, who then suddenly spouted some broken English - “Must pay 100, if not go away”. So I went and sat with the guys who had come down and ate my lunch whilst weighing up what I would do. Surely, I thought to myself if I impress upon him this is all the money I have he will let me in, it is a monastery after all.
So I return to the bottom of the ropes. Immediately he yells out,
“Give me 100 Birr.”
I explain that I only have 87 Birr
“Go away, you must pay”
At this point, probably due to the combination of having woken at 5am that morning, having spent 4 hours on a hot bus with Ethiopians refusing to open any windows whilst engaging in synchronised vomiting, then having walked around 11 kilometres and the rather irritating practice of Ethiopian Orthodox churches charging every time you even want to go near them, I confess to flying off the handle. I looked at the robed gatekeeper, and it made me wonder whether this was what it was like when we arrive at the pearly gates.
“Are you a church or a back ?” I yelled at him, but received no reply.
“What will you do if when you get to heaven it is like this – if you don't have enough money they won't let you in ? “
“No, give me 100” was his only reply, before he slipped behind the wall so I couldn't see him.
“Are you afraid ? Why are you hiding ?” I yelled up at the heavens, wondering whether even St Peter would be this tough.
“No”
I stood there and glared at him as sternly as possible but I think the distance and the superior position which he was in severely undermined the effectiveness of my stare. Eventually I walked away, sat down and had a twenty minute discussion with myself about whether I should give in and whether I really wanted to see the monastery anyway. Finally I decided that after all the effort to get there it would be a waste not to invest the extra dollar – I hunted around in my bag and found some extra money, I put everything I needed in my pockets, took off my shoes and headed over to the ropes. I decided that if sixty year olds could do it, so could I – and to save the extra four dollars I started climbing up the cliff without a harness. About 10 metres in the gatekeeper noticed and called out
“Give me 100 Birr”
Rather peeved by this point I found a resting place on the wall, and yelled back at him “I will give you your money, but how can I, there is no one here. Do you have any angels to send down to collect it ?”
After he appeared to recognise the practicality of the situation he stopped yelling and I got back to climbing. About halfway up my forearms were pounding, my hands were covered in sweat and my fingers were stuck in a grip refusing to straighten. I couldn't stop my hands from shaking. I kept going until I was about three quarters of the way up, but things were only getting worse. My hands were now shaking almost uncontrollably, my fingers and forearms were too tired to get a good grip on the rope, and I made the almost fatal mistake of looking down. I started thinking to myself, hmm you have put yourself at the risk of falling to a near certain death in order to save four bucks – nice work.
At this point the gatekeeper sensing perhaps that he could get the better of me started yelling at me to stop, and that he would get the harness. This was enough to give me the impetus to pull myself together, look up, ignore the soft voice in the back of my head telling me I couldn't do it, ignore the pain in my pain in my arms, and heave myself up the last part to the gate, and then scramble through to safety. And when I took my first step through the gate what was I greeted with – the gatekeeper demanding his 100Birr !!!
The place was in fact most impressive, like a little island oasis it was covered in green grass, with cows and goats wandering around. There were quite a number of houses, some very deep dams hewn out of the rock, and a couple of churches – one in the impressive monkey head style – made from a combination of stone and wood in alternating layers, with the stumps of the wooden beams sticking out like monkey heads. I wandered around for a while, admiring the incredible views, looking north I could see over the border in to Eritrea. I could see how this was the perfect place to hold out against the invading Arabs as they
swept across Ethiopia from the coastal plains, through the mountains and towards the southern cities – destroyi
ng all of the churches and monasteries on the way. Debre Damo was one of the few to hold out until the invaders were repelled.
I managed to wander in to the main church just as the chanting was drawing to a close, and the five or six priests wandered out of the secret part of the church and then did four or five laps of the church before heading back in to the part hidden by the curtain. I headed back towards the gate and the gatekeeper kept badgering me to give him more money – first for the climb up, then for having a camera, then for going down, and then in the end just for being.Unable to resist, I went and collected a few rocks and came back and made out to be paying him in rocks. Fortunately the way down was a lot easier than the way up, and I managed to make it without stopping.
So I return to the bottom of the ropes. Immediately he yells out,
“Give me 100 Birr.”
I explain that I only have 87 Birr
“Go away, you must pay”
At this point, probably due to the combination of having woken at 5am that morning, having spent 4 hours on a hot bus with Ethiopians refusing to open any windows whilst engaging in synchronised vomiting, then having walked around 11 kilometres and the rather irritating practice of Ethiopian Orthodox churches charging every time you even want to go near them, I confess to flying off the handle. I looked at the robed gatekeeper, and it made me wonder whether this was what it was like when we arrive at the pearly gates.
“Are you a church or a back ?” I yelled at him, but received no reply.
“What will you do if when you get to heaven it is like this – if you don't have enough money they won't let you in ? “
“No, give me 100” was his only reply, before he slipped behind the wall so I couldn't see him.
“Are you afraid ? Why are you hiding ?” I yelled up at the heavens, wondering whether even St Peter would be this tough.
“No”
I stood there and glared at him as sternly as possible but I think the distance and the superior position which he was in severely undermined the effectiveness of my stare. Eventually I walked away, sat down and had a twenty minute discussion with myself about whether I should give in and whether I really wanted to see the monastery anyway. Finally I decided that after all the effort to get there it would be a waste not to invest the extra dollar – I hunted around in my bag and found some extra money, I put everything I needed in my pockets, took off my shoes and headed over to the ropes. I decided that if sixty year olds could do it, so could I – and to save the extra four dollars I started climbing up the cliff without a harness. About 10 metres in the gatekeeper noticed and called out
“Give me 100 Birr”
Rather peeved by this point I found a resting place on the wall, and yelled back at him “I will give you your money, but how can I, there is no one here. Do you have any angels to send down to collect it ?”
After he appeared to recognise the practicality of the situation he stopped yelling and I got back to climbing. About halfway up my forearms were pounding, my hands were covered in sweat and my fingers were stuck in a grip refusing to straighten. I couldn't stop my hands from shaking. I kept going until I was about three quarters of the way up, but things were only getting worse. My hands were now shaking almost uncontrollably, my fingers and forearms were too tired to get a good grip on the rope, and I made the almost fatal mistake of looking down. I started thinking to myself, hmm you have put yourself at the risk of falling to a near certain death in order to save four bucks – nice work.
At this point the gatekeeper sensing perhaps that he could get the better of me started yelling at me to stop, and that he would get the harness. This was enough to give me the impetus to pull myself together, look up, ignore the soft voice in the back of my head telling me I couldn't do it, ignore the pain in my pain in my arms, and heave myself up the last part to the gate, and then scramble through to safety. And when I took my first step through the gate what was I greeted with – the gatekeeper demanding his 100Birr !!!
The place was in fact most impressive, like a little island oasis it was covered in green grass, with cows and goats wandering around. There were quite a number of houses, some very deep dams hewn out of the rock, and a couple of churches – one in the impressive monkey head style – made from a combination of stone and wood in alternating layers, with the stumps of the wooden beams sticking out like monkey heads. I wandered around for a while, admiring the incredible views, looking north I could see over the border in to Eritrea. I could see how this was the perfect place to hold out against the invading Arabs as they
swept across Ethiopia from the coastal plains, through the mountains and towards the southern cities – destroyi
ng all of the churches and monasteries on the way. Debre Damo was one of the few to hold out until the invaders were repelled.I managed to wander in to the main church just as the chanting was drawing to a close, and the five or six priests wandered out of the secret part of the church and then did four or five laps of the church before heading back in to the part hidden by the curtain. I headed back towards the gate and the gatekeeper kept badgering me to give him more money – first for the climb up, then for having a camera, then for going down, and then in the end just for being.Unable to resist, I went and collected a few rocks and came back and made out to be paying him in rocks. Fortunately the way down was a lot easier than the way up, and I managed to make it without stopping.
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