LAND OF ORIGINS
Cradle of humanity , homeland of the first Christians and gateway to the bowels of the Earth, this country in the Horn of Africa is exceptionally rich in human, cultural and natural resources.
From its capital, Addis Ababa, heading south is like stepping back millions of years, for it was in the Rift Valley , traversed by the Awash River, that the first hominids, companions of Lucy , arose . Tirelessly excavated by paleoanthropologists, it is far from having revealed all its secrets. Erected between the 10th and 2nd millennia BCE, some 160 megalithic sites continue to intrigue researchers. Traveling down the axis of the Great Rift Valley, one reaches the Omo Valley, home to numerous ethnic groups striving to preserve their age-old traditions , languages, and ways of life in symbiosis with nature, which were maintained until the 1960s by their relative isolation.
Let us leave behind the fertile lakes and hills for the northern highlands, the cradle of a three-thousand-year-old history, whose founding legend recounts that Menelik I, son of the Queen of Sheba and Solomon, transported the Ark of the Covenant to his capital, Axum… While Ethiopia is today one of the poorest and most devastated countries in the world , where one encounters a majority of small farmers and herders, its past splendor is manifested in its UNESCO World Heritage sites , such as the palaces of Gondar and the fabulous rock-hewn churches of Lalibela. Representing the largest Christian site in Africa, it is a place of pilgrimage for Ethiopians, who practice their faith as they adopted it in the 4th century . Not far from here rise the Simien Mountains, climbing to over 4000 meters, while crossing the Danakil Desert, located below sea level, provides access to the extraordinary multicolored acidic formations of the Dallol volcano and the lava lake of Erta Ale. The camel caravans that once harvested salt from this depression in the Afar region are now giving way to mining operations…
