Last year, during a long trek through the remote northern highlands of Ethiopia, I came across what can fairly be described as one of the least-known and most inaccessible holy sites in the world. I was staying in a small village in Tigray, where an elderly monk curled his fingers over my forearm and explained about reaching the monastery of Abba Salama.
“It is high, high up. When you climb, you must not look down — do not look down!” “How do you climb it?” “Up the cliff by a chain.” He was gripping my arm tightly now. “You must pull yourself up by chains — they are like the chains of heaven!” The geography of northern Ethiopia lends itself to extreme monasticism. Gorges half a mile deep slice down through the uplands. In places the plateau survives as small, flat-topped islands — ambas — surrounded on all sides by sheer cliffs, perfect for a complete ascetic rejection of the world. I had already visited several amba monasteries, hauling myself up oxhide ropes, clambering through caves, through trap-doors and along narrow ledges; reaching them was like a rite in itself. But none of them quite prepared me for Abba Salama.
The next morning, the monk pointed at a gap in the mountains and we headed east, following a stony path between rows of euphorbia and agave. The low sun flickered between their spiky limbs. I had grown to love these early mornings, waving goodbye, setting off into crisp mountain air with shreds of mist — an unknown day before us. That morning, though, a faint nervousness descended on our small expedition: on Gabre-Mariam and Solomon and their two pack-donkeys and Hiluf, my Tigrayan guide. We walked in silence.
In the hot late morning, we entered a high valley. The first sight of the monastery of Abba Salama was innocent enough — a flash of corrugated-iron roof at the far end of the valley. But as we drew closer, so the land between fell away, until we were standing on the edge of a dizzying chasm. The monastery was a block of cliff-edged mountain connected to the main plateau by a broken isthmus. Even after weeks in the highlands, the scale of those cliffs was overwhelming.
Far off to one side, we could see a lone figure walking around the flat rim of the gorge. We watched his progress. Beneath him the rock was in shadow and fell hundreds of feet to the scree below. It took him a long time before he was standing before us. The wind flicked at the frosty tufts of hair behind his ears. He smiled when I told him I wanted to go up. He could take us.
This is what it entailed, reaching the monastery of Abba Salama. (Looking at my notes now brings it back: the writing is rushed and angular, the pages smudged with dust and sweat.) The monk led us down a ladder, across the narrow saddle of rock to the main cliff. A ledge ran around one side. There were no handholds but the ledge was a couple of feet wide. What made it perilous, what made you place each foot so carefully and press your hand to the cliff on one side, was an awareness of the vast space on the other side.
After 30 yards, there was a gap in the rock above and a short scramble up a ladder. You were now in a narrow chimney — a cliff behind and a cliff in front, and on either side a bird’s-eye view of the gorge below. The wind funnelled between the rocks. A ladder rose in front of you and you craned your neck and looked up. It was two ladders welded together, made from rust-brown iron. It began at a slight angle to the vertical but flexed until it was flush and sheer with the rock face.
You began to climb, one rung at a time. You were now halfway up the ladder and it was straight up and down. It was secured at the top with a wire and had a couple of inches’ play. It came away from the rock as you climbed — but that was okay because it had dug itself into the soft sandstone and you needed to pull it out from the cliff to get a toe- or hand-hold. You looked along the cliff-face. A couple of ravens were swaying in the wind. Their wings were stiff against the updraughts, their feathers back-blown. You unpeeled your hand from the ladder and reached up. One rung at a time, one at a time.
Then the ladder stopped. The summit was still some way up, still out of sight. To one side was the chain. It was three or four arms’ lengths away. Even by leaning you could not get close to it. You now had to leave the ladder. The wind was pressing at your ears. You had to traverse the cliff-face and make a grab for the chain. You stepped away from the firm hold of the ladder. You pressed your fingers into cracks in the rock. You reached the chain and gripped it. But then you had to remove your hands, one at a time, because they were so sweaty they were slipping down the links. You leant back and pulled yourself up the last twenty feet of cliff. And that was the worst part. Because this last section was overhanging.
()“THAT CHAIN gives me so much pleasure!” Abbaminata Gabre-Mariam Gabre-Mikhael was the monastery’s abbot and he was waiting at the top. His face wore a look of ageless calm. “Look at you — sweating so much. When I climb, I just put my faith in God.”
We were back on the flat. We followed a path beside a shabby plot of biscuit-coloured stalks. “That’s where we tried to grow barley, but the monkeys ate it all.”
He pointed out the huts of the dozen other monks, the grass shelters of his seminarians, the papyrus-rimmed well. He bent to run his fingers over the back of the monastery cat.
And I could think only of the strange sensation of coming on land after being at sea, with your legs weak beneath you and the impression of having landed in an alien element.
