By telling us your country of residence we are able to provide you with the most relevant travel insurance information.
Please note that not all content is translated or available to residents of all countries. Contact us for full details.
Shares
The sun scorches me as I sit perched atop the edge of a mesa looking into the valley below. The land is sectioned into plots of farmland, where sorghum, wheat, and barley grow tall. Beyond the farms, a winding road leads to the small town of Lalibela. I had arrived to the remote highlands of Ethiopia’s Amhara region a few days’ prior, a mountainous locale only accessible by foot. Few places in this world feel uninterrupted by the development of the modern age; culture, language, and food have remained essentially unchanged over the past two thousand years. “Shall we continue?” Rasta, my guide for the week, interrupts my thoughts. “We can stop for lunch in the next village.” So we continue to walk, Rasta, with his thick dreads bouncing along his back, leading the way. After an hour of walking through fragrant fields of thyme, among olive and juniper trees, a handful of straw-roofed tukul huts rise from the emptiness. Rasta greets an older woman with mocha-colored skin dressed in a long, blue-flowered skirt. “Salam!” she takes my hand, a smile reflecting in her eyes. “Mariam,” she announces, touching her chest, and welcomes us into her home. I stoop down to enter. The hut is windowless and the only opening aside from the door is a hole at the top of the roof. My eyes work to adjust to the dark, smoky room. A fire blazes in a pit in the center of the home. The mother, father, their daughters and grandsons sit around the fire. Introductions are made with a mix of gestures, Rasta’s translations, and my few Amharic words. Mariam soon motions to a coffee pot, inviting me to partake in an Ethiopian coffee ceremony. “Do you drink coffee in your country?” Rasta asks. “In Ethiopia, we drink coffee many times a day.” How can I explain a severe caffeine intolerance in simple English, especially in a country where coffee flows as freely as water? So I simply smile. “Yes, coffee is very popular. But it is not like coffee in Ethiopia.” In Ethiopia, the alleged birthplace of coffee, coffee is prepared ceremoniously. There is an intricacy in each meticulous step. First, one of the daughters lights a small plate of incense. The velvety, aromatic plumes of smoke linger in the air, cutting through the sharp odor of manure and farm animals. Mariam pours tan-colored beans onto a metal pan over the fire. I am entrusted with the job of roasting the beans. I turn them over the blazing fire while the heat gradually darkens their skins and awakens their rich, chocolaty-scent. I try to grind the beans with a mortar and pestle, a task Mariam quickly takes over. Once the beans are ground to a fine dust, they are mixed with water into an elegant silver pot. Mariam’s daughter filters the coffee in and out of the pot three times before placing it on the fire. At long last, the coffee is poured in a long stream into tiny cups, with a dash of salt added, and passed around the room. I tentatively sip the smooth, earthy liquid, hesitant to drink too much, given the inexplicable psychoactive reaction I have to caffeine. However, when offered coffee in Ethiopia, accept the coffee. Of course all eyes are on the farangi drinking her coffee, eager to see how she likes it. Before too long, I’ve emptied my tiny cup of coffee, which is immediately refilled. I set my second cup of coffee down to help make Ethiopia’s traditional bread, injera. I pour a thick batter in a circular motion on a pan over the fire in an attempt to mimic Miriam’s perfectly-shaped circular injera. We pass around bowls of richly spiced vegetable stew, warm injera, and cups of thick, bitter sorghum beer. Limited by the barrier of language, we exchange smiles and gestures; a sufficient communication over the shared experience of food and drink. By late afternoon, Rasta and I step back into the bright Ethiopian sun. With a full, satisfied stomach and a blurry mind from three cups of coffee, I continue to walk into the mountains, eager for what the the highlands of Amhara will reveal next.