Lalibela

Currency

The birr was floated in 2024 and has moved a long way since, so check the rate the week you travel rather than trusting a guidebook. Change at a bank in Addis on the way through — Lalibela has few options and worse rates — and keep the receipt, which you need to change back.

ATMs & cards

A handful of machines in town, frequently out of cash or out of order, and foreign cards fail as often as they work. Bring dollars or euros in cash from Addis and change them, and carry enough for the church entry ticket, the guide and the hotel.

Bring dollars or euros in cash and keep the exchange receipt, which you need to change birr back on the way out.

Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.

Safety

This needs saying plainly. Lalibela sits in Amhara, where the conflict between federal forces and Fano militia continues and where most Western governments — the US among them — advise against all travel. The town itself has been calm and has been receiving visitors, the flights run daily, and tour operators work there normally. The practical position is that people do go, fly in and out, use licensed guides and do not travel overland — but the advisory stands, your insurance will follow it, and this is a decision to make with current information rather than this page.

Our own assessment, not a sourced index.

Entry & visa

Health & emergencies

Required to enter

• Yellow fever certificate, but only if you are arriving from a country where yellow fever is present

Worth having

• Routine vaccinations up to date
• Hepatitis A and typhoid
• Rabies for rural travel
• Malaria prophylaxis below 2,000m — Lalibela at 2,500m is largely above the mosquito line

Getting treated

Addis Ababa has private hospitals used by the diplomatic community; outside it, facilities are very limited and Lalibela has a small health centre only. Anything serious means a flight to Addis and probably beyond. Carry a full personal medical kit and insurance that will actually fly you out.

Altitude: Addis is at 2,350m and Lalibela at 2,500m, high enough that the first day should be a slow one. Malaria is a lowland risk rather than a highland one. Tap water is not drinkable and the standard traveller stomach complaint is close to universal — take rehydration salts.

Orientation, not medical advice. Entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history and where you have been — check with a travel clinic or your national health service four to six weeks before you go.

Food tip

Injera with a spread of wats — spiced stews eaten with the hands, no cutlery — and Wednesdays and Fridays are fasting days when everything served is vegan, which happens to be when Ethiopian food is at its best. Ethiopian coffee is a ceremony, takes half an hour, and is the correct way to spend it.

Getting around

• Fly in and fly out — Ethiopian Airlines runs daily from Addis, and this is the only way visitors should be arriving at present
• Walking — the churches are in two clusters in the middle of a small town, and everything is a short, steep walk
• Guides — a licensed guide is close to essential and is arranged at the ticket office; the churches make no sense without one
• Mule — how you reach Asheton Maryam up the mountain, and half a day well spent
• Do not travel by road in Amhara: the region is under a travel warning and the airport transfer is the exception, not a route

Internet speed

Broadband here runs at 10% of the global median of 128 Mbps.

Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured May 2026

Must-see

Things to do

• See Bete Giyorgis from above at first light, before the tour groups
• Attend a morning service — visitors are welcome, quietly, at the back
• Climb or ride up to Asheton Maryam for the view over the highlands
• Take the drive out to Yemrehanna Kristos, a church built inside a cave
• Sit through a full coffee ceremony
• Come for Genna on 7 January if you can handle the crowds — 100,000 pilgrims do

Nearby day trips

Say a few words

Amharic

• Helloሰላም (Selam)se-LAM
• How are you?ደህና ነህ? (Dehna neh?)DEH-na neh
• Thank youአመሰግናለሁ (Ameseginalehu)ah-me-seg-NA-le-hu
• Yes / Noአዎ / የለም (Awo / Yelem)AH-wo / YEL-em
• Excuse meይቅርታ (Yiqirta)yi-KIR-ta
• How much?ስንት ነው? (Sint new?)sint noo
• Enough / no moreበቃ (Beka)BEH-ka
• Deliciousጣፋጭ (Tafach)ta-FACH
• Goodbyeቻው (Chow)chow

Amharic has its own script, Ge’ez, which you will not learn in a week — but the greetings are easy and Ethiopians respond to them warmly. Note that the country runs on its own calendar, seven or eight years behind the Gregorian one, and its own clock, which starts counting at dawn: "three o’clock" means nine in the morning. Confirm times in both.

Religion

Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo

One of the oldest Christian traditions on earth, adopted in the fourth century and never Catholic or Protestant. Its practice is unlike anything in Europe: fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays and for long stretches of the year, services that begin before dawn and are sung rather than spoken, and priests who carry hand crosses and drums. Lalibela is one of its great pilgrimage sites and the churches are working ones. Shoes come off at the door; women cover their hair. Islam arrived here even earlier than in most of the world and about a third of the country is Muslim.

Do's and don'ts

Do

• Eat with your right hand from the shared injera, and accept gursha — being fed a mouthful by your host — as the compliment it is
• Take shoes off before entering a church, and cover shoulders and hair inside one
• Greet with a handshake and a slight bow, and expect it to last longer than you are used to
• Learn the Ethiopian calendar exists — it runs seven or eight years behind and the clock starts at dawn, which will confuse every booking you make
• Sit through the coffee ceremony if it is offered; leaving before the third cup is rude

Don't

• Do not eat with the left hand or point the sole of a foot at anyone
• Do not photograph inside churches, at services or of priests without asking and usually paying
• Do not discuss the Tigray and Amhara conflicts with people you have just met
• Do not refuse food outright; take a little rather than nothing
• Do not use the term "Abyssinia" or assume Ethiopia was colonised — it was not, and the fact matters here