Day 5 Lalibela

In the morning of our second day in Lalibela I became even more happier, the weather was beautiful as usual, temperature is usually around 20-25°C during daytime and pleasantly cool in the nights. This makes the highland more or less free of malaria. We went on a walking tour to the monastery of Ashetan Maryam, set at 3150 m on top of the highest peak surrounding Lalibela with panoramic views of the town and countryside. In the monastery the priest posed for me in about 15 minutes. The pictures came out as some of my best pictures ever, I was close to heaven.
In the afternoon, we continued our included visit with the second group of churches in the center of Lalibela. This time we walked through caves and carved out tunnels that led between the churches. I felt a bit like Indiana Jones!
In the evening we went to most photogenic churches of them all - the Church of Saint George. This church had no ugly roof attached to it so you could fully appreciate this fantastic wonder of the world. I have been to Petra in Jordan and that is fantastic as well, but here they have also dug themselves in to the rock from above and constructed the church of a solid block of stone. When the priest had looked the gate an left I was the only ones at the sight, I sat on the cliff edge and watched the sunset, the only noise I could hear was from the nearby priest-school where a priest and his students where chanting, not very beautifully, more like a cheepish sound (you can hear an example here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6FHqgS2Mic), but still the moment was magic. High on myself and my self-experience I went to eat dinner with the other. Haunted from the memories of the dance moves from the night before most guys went to bed early.