Dreamscapes Travel & Lifestyle

Ethiopian Airlines flies direct Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from Toronto to Addis Ababa with a short stop in Rome. From Addis Ababa, Ethiopian offers daily flights to Lalibela via gondar, and three times weekly via Bahir Dar. For travel information, a good start is the Bradt guidebook Ethiopia, by Philip Briggs. For more information on Lalibela Hudad, go to lalibelahudad.com. Thanks to a new road, about 70 per cent of the trek from Lalibela to the Hudad can now be covered by vehicle. Our recommendation: Walk it, if you can. travel planner MaGICal MoMENTs This is the lalibela hudad, hudad meaning "big farm" in amharic. It is a one-time grazing common of 10 hectares purportedly christened by King lalibela himself. Nine hundred years later, a honeymooning addis ababa hotelier came across it while hiking with his new bride. "We spent three magical nights in this beautiful place," Mesfin Haileselassie says from Addis. "And the idea of creating a mountain eco-lodge easily came to mind." We, too, will spend three magical nights here in one of the Hudad's five tukuls, a tra- ditional round, thatch-roofed stone hut plastered with straw and mud. No electricity, no plumbing, no running water, no refrigera- tion, no heating. Our first evening, we sit by a fire, wrapped in blankets, out- side the stone dining hut. We are served a traditional fasting (meaning meatless) platter, prepared, as are all meals on the mountain, over a charcoal or eucalyptus fire. Dinner consists of dollops of various wots—stews of sometimes spicy black, red and yellow lentils and vegetables—on injera, the ubiquitous Ethiopian pancake made from tef, an iron-rich cereal grass. after dinner, a handful of local men, recruited by the hudad, materializes out of the dark. They sit and stoke the fire and share the local news: Tonight, there are vague rumours of a sheep-hun- gry leopard somewhere on the mountain. afterward, in an ages- old ritual of hospitality and humility inspired by Christ's washing of his disciples' feet, they subject our weary legs to a vigorous toes- to-knees massage. a local charmer named ato Kasaw spins his way through a lengthy a cappella ballad, which includes several ad- libbed verses poking affectionate fun at the ferenji visitors. later, outside our tukul, the night sky hangs like a cosmic chan- delier. The stars are so in-your-face you have to suppress an urge to duck a careless kick in the head from orion. Inside, under a breath- taking weight of thick blankets, we sleep the sleep of the dead. In the morning, we have breakfast beneath a bright blue sky. We sip our coffee and watch in silence as eagles paraglide in search of lizards sunning on the rocks. They swoosh so close over our heads you can track their eagle eyes, you can hear them slicing through the air. Thick-billed ravens offer sarcastic commentary from a wary distance. one translation for lalibela is honey-eater, and everywhere on the hudad the bushes buzz with honey bees. one night, we hold our flashlights from a safe distance as some of the staff, their heads wrapped in scarves, steal a comb oozing with rich, dark honey for all of us to share. Ground level we have largely to ourselves, except for a single cow and a troop of so-called gelada "baboons," which aren't really baboons, but large, shaggy grass-eating monkeys with demonic red eyes and bright red, hourglass-shaped patches like team logos on their chests. The big males, their leonine manes fluttering in the breeze, stuff their faces with grass, while nonchalantly keeping tabs on their brood and on us, sitting quietly in the grass 10 metres away. The geladas and the bees are on to something here. and so are we. top: Our chef prepares the Ethiopian staple, injera, on an open fire. david Mcdonald bottom: Our tukul is a traditional stone hut with a thatched roof. Ruth zowdu 48 W i n t e r 2 0 1 4 / 2 0 1 5

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