Stairway to heaven - Led Zeppelin (1971)

There, where monks live like eagles.

A great climb up red and orange rocks to reach the nests of the monks conserving their believes in hidden churches carved in the stone on the tip of glorious mountains is another experience of a life time.Churches and monasteries. Priests and devoted followers hold on to their rhythm, to the many crosses and many ceremonies. A world that lives in the power of the spirit.

It is not an easy trek. You have to wear good shoes with good rubber soles, light shirt and shorts. Have a scarf to protect your head from the sun and a good sun cream for your body.
When your car stops at the feet of the high tall rocky mountain you do not believe you will climb all that high.  "From where?"   - "How do I get through that flat, vertical face of the mountain?" - "I won’t be able to make it all the way up".  You are already at 2,000mt above sea level at the start and that mountain is way up in the sky reaching for few, small, faded clouds. While starting your walk up and thinking all this, you find yourself entering a narrow and cool passage between a crack of the enormous rock. There you climb as if there were stairs; each stone and rock on the ground is so smoothly levigated by the feet of the monks who sometimes go and visit the ones secured in the rock-churches and caves. The view comes open again, a new wide rock is flat on the ground like a table on a tip. You think this is it. I made it. No, way!  There is still much to climb. Now you have to use your feet, your hands, your body to go up. You need not to look down, it is creepy!

Reaching out for Mariam Korkor

Once you make the vertical rock, a nice cool passage carved in the rock leads you to another big doom to climb.  You think this will never end, but at this stage your eager is stronger than your legs and you do not feel the pains any longer. I wore good Palladium shoes and this means a lot when you trek.

There is a nice big euphorbia candelabra staring at the sun and sky. Behind it, the church exquisitely carved in the rock. You enter the wooden door leaving your shoes behind and it is cool and mystic.

But that’s not it. The monk takes you over to the other side, there where your car stands thousands of meters below you and it seem like an ant near a Lilliputian tree. Now you are on the edge, no boundaries, nothing to help you grab, just thousands of meters up in the sky with monks and eagles.  This also is called paradise!

Monk at Mariam Korkor