Traveller’s Guide: Ethiopia

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – There is a place, in the searing deserts of north-east Ethiopia, where you can watch a new version of planet Earth being created. In 2005, over a period of just 10 days, a 60km-long, 8m-wide crack opened in the Earth’s surface. Scientists who witnessed it were astonished. Here, they told the world, were the labour pains indicating the birth of a new ocean and the beginning of an event that in a mere 10 million years would rip Africa in two.

The fact that Ethiopia is reshaping our planet should come as no surprise. After all, this corner of East Africa is often cited as the cradle of humanity. It was here that ancient hominids first stood upright. But Ethiopia’s contribution to Earth’s history extends much further; this is a country that has helped shape much of our culture. It is home to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, an even older Jewish one, and it is where the first Muslims found shelter when persecuted in their Arabian homeland. Ethiopia is also where the Ark of the Covenant, the biblical chest carried by Moses from Mount Sinai, can supposedly be found, inside a chapel in Axum.

Going back even further, Ethiopia is where the Queen of Sheba is said to have had her palace and where she gave birth to a son, fathered by King Solomon, who became the ancestor of all Ethiopian emperors right up to Haile Selassie. Read more on The Independent.