At his feet lies a bottle of Jack Daniels

Lalibela, a name in the form of Liana. A mish-mash of "l" and "a", a haunting melancholy on the map of Africa which seems to whisper: "come to me, all there, just to Lalibela. Before becoming the capital of the Kingdom of Zagwe North Ethiopia, Lalibela was the name and the dream of an emperor. The legend says that a sovereign poisoned by his half-brother went to the gates of paradise. God he announced that his hour had not yet come. He had to return to Earth to build in Ethiopia a new Jerusalem. Other versions say that this same King returned from Judea in 1200 with the crazy idea of mountainside build a copy of the Holy City. It would thus save the Orthodox faithful of his Kingdom a perilous journey to Jerusalem. The King thus began to transpose all the sacred places of the old and the New Testament in a small village perched over 2 500 metres above the plateaus of Africa. This stream would become his Jordan, this Hill would be the Mount of olives... Starts a huge architectural firm, a project without equal in history of Africa and probably of mankind. Thousands of slaves and worshippers draw mountain kicked of the dozens of churches and monasteries burin, enormous masses cut from rock, identified the stone to the gavel. Lalibela was born in a generation "in a land where nothing had ever happened and where nothing should happen", note in 1970 the Italian writer Giorgio Manganelli in his trip to Africa. The night in small pubs of the city, talking still miracle by drinking beer St. George. Described cathedrals carved in one night by a divine force. But in the orange light of the morning, before Bet Gabriel, Golgotha Bet or Bet Giyorgis, it feels especially the strength of men, an incomparable power transcended by faith.

Profile of a priest meditating on a bible sitting even stone, small clouds of ochre dust floating on the cliffs, distant echoes of prayer, Annunciation color of Earth on a book by goat skin, ecstatic gaze of a faithful kissing a cross gold... Lalibela is a brutal mystical experience. She confronts a Christianity majestic and raw form, from which our stained glass Windows, our sculptures of our paintings in chiaroscuro and our European organs. Here, it requests on the bare stone, to the rhythm of percussion and the "yu yu" believers. The hands in cadence, slamming the jerky ringing of the bells violently evoke the nails driven into the flesh of Christ. Isolated in 45-minute track, Yemrehanna Kristos is a different Church, a building of mud and wood in a lava cave. In silence just scrambled the locusts, the smell of straw mingles with the wax from the candles. In the glow of a flashlight is a huge pile of human bones. About 10,000 corpses. Pilgrims come to die here there are a few hundred years mingle with the workers and anonymous craftsmen of this sacred monument.

The holidays of Easter, it spans the faithful elongated under white sheets, our eyes meet eyes like, exhausted from a long fast. They have noticed barely, immersed in the Vertigo of prayer and hunger. "Child, I have known this place, overgrown with weeds and churches deserted virtually, explains this priest of 91 years old." But for eighty years, I think that nothing has changed. The landscape is changing, the rituals remain the same. "At his feet lies a bottle of Jack Daniels. Holy water, he said. "May you live still ninety ten years, my father." "I already feel that God calls me", he replied, smiling. And it moves away to small not.

Lalibela crystallizes all the force and originality of Ethiopia, huge countries in black Africa whose civilization seems to have for cultural reference the Mediterranean, the world of the bible and caravans. To the North, Ethiopia verges on the Red Sea and the port of Djibouti. The majestic obelisks of Axum city refer us to ancient Egypt, the universe of the Nile. The palaces of Addis Ababa, Gondar or Mek'ele almost evoke a Vienna lost in the Sahara. To the South, the immense Lake Turkana opens on Bantu African and immense spaces of the Kenya. Along the way, it intersects Sudanese truckers, refugees from Eritrea waiting for a passport to anywhere. And then there is the Chinese for thousands of itinerant workers from paving the Ethiopian roads cheaply. "You be surprised to find us there, asks Zheng, a young foreman came Hubei SIPs a warm soda in the dust of its construction.". Now we are everywhere in the monde.

Women here have the elegance of the nomads. A regular face, almost clear eyes. Imperial and strong as stone churches. Peasant Tigray, singers Bahr Dahr, student of Mek'ele, the daughters of the Queen of Sheba are all the same approach. Slow without being nonchalant, with this small movement of the wrist unique and incredibly valuable. To Lalibela, everybody knows the Sisters of the Lovely bar. In this modest shack of Tin and planks, it serves the best coffee in the world, authentic arabica. Beautiful Zion left clothes lolita to a traditional white cotton tunic. Is that fans the flames with a CD box empty, ancient incense and cardamom terrace. "You're French." Call me miss. "Her older sister, another all as beautiful as the youngest Miss, quickly roll a pancake of various spices. Then, without leaving you eyes, it is the food to your lips. The hot voice of Astere Aweke feule in the sono. The hand is soft and quiet, with just enough authority to open his mouth without thinking. Zion a pepper at your fingertips, and gold in the sloes. Shakespeare wrote that his Juliet was "a rich jewel in the ear of an Ethiopian." On red, defeated. Zion broke out of a girl laugh. African siren song: "come to me, just all there, up to Lalibela.".