Day Trip to Melka Kunture, Adadi Mariam and Tiya

After breakfast, we will head southwest towards Jimmy, to take a turn to the route to Butajira. It will lead us to one of the biggest Neolithic stations in Ethiopia – Melka Kunture. It is located near the gorge, which flows the river Auasz in the vicinity of the city of Melka Awash. The museum exhibits tools and utilitarian objects discovered there. Some of them can be seen in National Museum in Addis Ababa.

Then, we will follow the same route towards the city of Butarija, to take a turn to the gravel road, near which the Rock Temple Adadi Mariam is located. It was established at the same time as rock temples in Lalibela – in the XIII century. It is told that king Lalibela ordered building a place to pray on the road to Mount Ziquala.

The last point of our trip will be a visit to Tiya. There are rock grave steles created around 800 years ago. It is a graveyard, on which buried were many people of both sexes from 18 to 30 years of age. There were for sure leaders of their tribes, and what is interesting, they were buried in fetal positions. Tyia is one of the places in Ethiopia included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

We leave Tiya to go back to Addis Ababa. There will be 90 kilometers to go, which should not take more than 1,5 hours