Ancient cradle of Ethiopia

Little Tsegaye presses his face against the glass display case. 'Is that really Lucy?' he asks. No, the skeleton in the National Museum in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, that so fascinates Tsegaye, is a copy. The remains of Lucy, who lived around three million years ago, are locked up in a safe in the museum. Lucy is the oldest known human, and was discovered in Ethiopia, which may have been the cradle of mankind. The first written descriptions of the history and culture of Ethiopia, often known as Abyssinia, were put down more than 3,000 years ago. Travellers visiting the country usually start their trip in the capital, partly to acclimatise to the altitude, which is mostly around 2,500 metres. Addis Ababa began to develop at the beginning of this century when the then emperor, Menelik II, chose it as his royal seat, attracted by the local hot springs. The city consists of a jumble of mud-built houses with roofs of corrugated iron, interspersed with the occasional high-rise buildings, and modern shops and hotels. The oldest hotel in town is the Finfine, built by a Menelik prince over hot springs which supply the bathrooms with hot water. The Finfine is an ideal place to try Ethiopia's national dishes, injera and wot. Injera is a flat bread made with yeast and wot a spicy vegetable-and-meat dish into which the bread is dunked. For relaxation after a visit to the mercato, the market, the Finfine also offers the traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony in which raw coffee beans are roasted on a charcoal stove and then brewed. The mercato is probably the largest concentration of market space in Africa. Things not available here are not available anywhere in Ethiopia. Addis Ababa is Africa's political centre. It is headquarters of the Organisation of African Unity, for instance. The founders chose Addis for their base in 1963 because Ethiopia was never a colony. The Ethiopian highland is the roof of Africa. Many parts along the Rift Valley, which slices north to south through the whole of East Africa, are more than 4,000m high. Yet Ethiopia also embraces the lowest areas of the continent, not far from where Lucy was found. The inhospitable Denakil Valley, 116m beneath sea level, is a salt desert where daytime temperatures average around 50 degrees Celsius. In the hard to penetrate south of Ethiopia, many tribes still live the way their ancestors did. These include the Mursi, famous for the disc worn to stretch the lower lip; the Sumer and the Karo with their decorated skin; the Hamer, whose women smear their hair with butter and mud to create long, hanging ringlets; and the Konzo, who live in fortress-style villages and carve mysterious and charming likenesses of their dead out of upright chunks of wood. Ethiopians proudly trace the founding of their state back to the visit of the legendary Queen of Sheba to Israel's King Solomon. The queen's son, Menelik, born to her shortly after her return, is regarded as the forefather of the Ethiopian imperial dynasty. The last emperor, Haile Selassie, who was dethroned in 1974, was convinced that he was the 225th direct descendant in Menelik's line. The Queen of Sheba governed her kingdom from Yeha. The ruins of the 2,500-year-old temple of the moon are a must for those interested in history. An ideal jumping-off point for the whole 'historical route' through northern Ethiopia is Axum, a town that was established around 500 years after the decline of Yeha. Historians suspect that Axum was a flourishing trading nation with Egypt, Arabia, Persia, India and Ceylon. Modern Axum is a muddle of low, corrugated-iron-roofed buildings. The centre is dominated by stelae, enormous obelisks. It remains a mystery how the ancient Axumites managed to erect them. Why the stelae were put there is another riddle lost in time. Historians believe that Axumite rulers had them made as memorials to themselves and that they may have served a pre-Christian cult. All the obelisks, many of which incorporate an altar complete with a channel to carry away sacrificial blood, are turned towards the rising sun. For Ethiopia's Orthodox Christians, Axum is the country's most sacred town. Legend has it that, as an adult, Menelik also travelled to Jerusalem to get to know his father, Solomon. Before leaving for home, he removed the Ark of the Covenant in which the tablets of stone on which Moses had once carved the Ten Commandments were held. Since then, Ethiopia is said to have possessed the Ark, which is always kept in different parts of the country - at present it is said to be in Axum. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has been a considerable influence on the culture of the country. This is nowhere so obvious as in Lalibela, nearly 300 kilometres south of Axum. Lalibela was founded in the 12th century. Its 13 churches are an architectural rarity: they have been carved into the rocky landscape. Many of them are connected with each other via subterranean passages. It is said that the founder, King Lalibela, carved out one of the 13 churches overnight, helped by angels. Most of the impressive rock churches are surrounded by metal frameworks, a temporary measure to protect them from acid rain. Gondar is the third royal city on the historical route. The early European travellers described the palace complex as the 'Camelot of Africa'. The founder, King Fasil, who had the town built at the beginning of the 17th century, consulted foreign building experts for advice. One of Ethiopia's most beautiful churches, Debra Berhan Selassie (Light of the Trinity), in Gondar, was built on the orders of his grandson Issayu. Just 35km to the south of Gondar is Lake Tana, Ethiopia's largest interconnected stretch of water, which is the source of the Blue Nile. About 30km upstream is one of the most grandiose natural wonders of Africa, Tis Issat (smoking water). This is where the Nile, around 400m wide, tumbles down a 45m rocky chasm. The force with which the water hits the bottom creates spray which is carried through the air up to one km away. Wherever it creates permanent dampness there is luxuriant rainforest. Those interested can trace the source of the Nile in Lake Tana by boat. Other rewarding trips are to the numerous monastery islands in Lake Tana, where monks have been withdrawing from the world for centuries. On one of the Tana islands - only accessible to men - are kept the mummified remains of some of Ethiopia's rulers since the 13th century, including Fasil of Gondar. Despite the important influence of Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity on the country's history and culture, about 40 per cent of the population is Muslim. Harar, in the east, is the fourth-most holy town in the Islamic world. It was a trading centre with links which reached as far as India. Until the end of the last century, Harar was a strictly guarded city-state, scarcely accessible to foreigners. One of the first Europeans to live there for a while was the French writer Arthur Rimbaud, who wrote many of his erotic poems there - and became a successful merchant.