Lalibela – Day 2 of Timkat Festival – January 20, 2012

>Our first night in Lalibela, four of us had to share a room, as every hotel was overbooked in the town for the Timkat celebration.  Some of the hotels, including ours, had set up tents to handle the overflow.

The next morning, we got up and went out to the baptismal site at 5:30am to await the next phase of the festival (the cross in the middle of the field is full of water). As you can see beyond the cross, there are stands made out of bamboo for the observers of the event (I.e., the tourists). I am taking this photo from the stands on the opposite side of the field.

At about 6:15am, the procession was proceeding from the white tents of the previous day, where they had housed the tablets overnight, to the baptismal area. The deacons, in red/white robes…

…and the priests in ceremonial robes…

…gradually filled in the entire field…

…You can even see how the visitor stands have filled up, 4 or 5 deep…

Even the deacons wanted to catch this Kodak moment…

… And even the priest, who was leading the ceremony, snapped a few…

There was a ceremony with sermons, the priest welcomed the visitors through a translator, there was chanting, and a performance by the cantor priests in their black robes…

Then it was time for the high priest to bless the baptismal water, which he did at each of the four corners of the cross…

And then…….total chaos!!

Everyone ran towards the baptismal to make sure they were blessed with some of the water.

People willingly stood as close as they could and the people up front threw buckets of water into the crowd to try to “baptize” as many people as they could reach (including people in the stands!)

It reminded me of the water festival in Myanmar last year! This time I managed to only barely get wet.

After the ceremony (although there is more of the festival to come), we went to check out the southeast cluster of the rock churches, which has five of the 12 rock churches which we didn’t get to see yesterday.

One of the churches had these wonderful 15th century wall paintings….

From one of the churches to another, there is an underground tunnel that you take (for those of you who know me, yes, I went through the tunnel!!).

It is said that when you emerge from the tunnel, from the total darkness, you “see the light” and will go to heaven.

We then walked down to the last church…

….which is the smallest church, and “legend” is that it was built in one day by Lalibela’s wife, with the help of a group of angels…..

Then it was on to watch the last part of the Timkat festival, which is a procession of the tablets back to the individual churches…and we had a prime view from the top of the hill as the procession rounded the corner and started up towards the churches…

…the deacons stopped in several places and formed a circle to do some of their chanting…..

…and then along came the umbrellas, under which the tablets were being protected…

From here, they continued up the hill to deliver the tablets back to their respective churches. By the way, for the time that the tablets are out of the church, the priest for that church must fast until the tablets are returned.

What an experience seeing this two day festival!

But our day was not yet over. We proceeded to the Seven Olives restaurant for lunch where several in our group got the traditional Ethiopian food platter…

…and each person who ordered one, got enough for 3 or 4 people! The injera is the crepe-like thing underneath, and you tear bits of it off and scoop up the various foods with each torn off bit.

Then after an afternoon rest, and a very light dinner, we went off to a coffee bar where they do a traditional coffee ceremony, plus have music and dancing.

For the coffee ceremony, they burn incense, roast the coffee beans, then grind them with a pestle, then brew and serve coffee. Then the dancing began…

The dancers came into the audience to get people to dance with them. I was disappointed that Will from San Francisco was the only person from our group who got up to dance…

…except for me, of course :-). I actually got up twice!

There were specific steps to follow, and I called this one the monkey dance, as that was what it seemed you were doing. What fun! Then!!! — the day came to an end.

Tomorrow, off to the historical city of Axum.

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Location:Lalibela, Ethiopia

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1 Response to "Lalibela – Day 2 of Timkat Festival – January 20, 2012"

  1. imbuckets says:

    >Really awesome!!!!!!

  2. […] The remainder of the festival will continue tomorrow…. […]

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