Ethiopia's northern historic circuit is one of Africa's great overlooked routes, its rock-hewn churches and high mountain trails matched by almost nowhere else.
Lalibela's eleven churches, carved directly down into volcanic rock rather than built up from it, are still active places of worship rather than museum pieces — arrive for the early morning service if you can, when white-robed pilgrims fill the trenches and stairways between the churches and the chanting carries across the whole complex. Hire a local guide rather than exploring alone; the churches connect through a genuinely confusing warren of tunnels and passages that make far more sense with someone who knows the layout.
North to Gondar, once Ethiopia's imperial capital, where a compound of stone castles built between the 1600s and 1700s gives the city the odd, incongruous nickname of the 'Camelot of Africa'. It's a smaller, easier stop than Lalibela — a day is generally enough — before heading into the mountains.
The Simien Mountains are the reason to build in extra days: a trekking route along escarpments that drop thousands of feet to the plains below, where troops of gelada monkeys graze on the grassy plateau in numbers that can run into the hundreds. They're remarkably unbothered by hikers, grooming and foraging within a few metres of the trail, which makes for some of the most relaxed wildlife encounters anywhere on the continent. Pack for genuine cold at altitude — nights on the plateau drop close to freezing even though you're only a few degrees off the equator.
