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Chapter 2: Lake Tana and the Blue Nile - The Source of the Mighty River From Addis, we flew to Bahir Dar, a laid-back city on the shores of Lake Tana, Ethiopia’s largest lake and the source of the Blue Nile River. A boat ride took us across the water to visit Ura Kidane Mehret, a monastic church founded in the 14th century. From the port, our guide — the head of the monastery — led us on a short walk to the church complex. The path was lined with beautifully patterned stones, some newly laid, others carefully repaired. The gentle rustle of leaves, the distant calls of birds, and the soft lapping of the lake against the shore set a serene backdrop for our journey. As we walked, our guide shared stories of the monastery’s history and the lives of the monks who had lived here for generations. Soon, we arrived at the circular church, just as a ceremony for a fasting holiday was underway. I saw vibrant scenes of worship — the rhythmic beating of drums, the haunting melodi...

Ethiopia: Axum, the Cradle of Ancient Civilization

Chapter 6: Axum, Cradle of Ancient Civilization After days of winding mountain roads, rugged landscapes, and stone castles that felt pulled straight out of legend, we finally reached Axum. This wasn’t just another stop on our Ethiopian journey—it felt like stepping directly into the heartbeat of history. Ethiopia calls itself the Land of Origins, and in Axum, I understood why. With more than 2,500 years of history, Axum was once the capital of an empire that traded with Rome, India, and Arabia. Its name alone carries the weight of myth, faith, and mystery. Most famously, Axum is believed to guard one of the greatest treasures in religious history: the Ark of the Covenant. The Church of St. Mary of Zion The Stelae of Axum Our first stop was the Stelae Fields, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. These towering granite obelisks are unlike anything I’ve seen before. Some stretch nearly 20 meters high, carved from a single piece of stone, their faces etched with windows and doors as tho...

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher: Photo Essay

The Holy Land: The Church of the Holy Sepulcher Seeing is believing! I saw the light from the flickering candles rising up into the dark and the natural light seeping through the dome to light the dark space. I was standing in line to see the tomb of Jesus Christ. The line to the Aedicule (the location of Christ's tomb) was long that I had a few moments to observe my surroundings and to reflect on the words "It's all about faith" that our guide unwittingly told me when I asked him about the authenticity of some relics early on in this pilgrimage. We were at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City of Jerusalem, the holiest Christian site in the world. It stood at the site where Jesus was crucified (Calvary) and the tomb where he was buried. Today, the church is shared by five Christian denominations: the Greek Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, the Armenian Orthodox, Egyptian Coptic and the Eastern Orthodox Church, thus the different chapels. The heart of...

The Banaue Rice Terraces: A Living Cultural Landscape

My interest in exploring the northern part of the Philippines started from looking at a piece of art at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, California. Among the display of ceramics and pottery engraved with gold and other decorative stuff, a wooden carving of a male figure squatting on a platform with the lower arms on top of each other, resting upon his knees, caught my eye. According to the docent, the wooden sculpture was called "Bului" which literally means "granary guardian" in the "Ifugao" tribe dialect. The carved wooden sculpture was set on a platform on top of another platform, a mortar. Our docent explained the significance of the wooden mortar (which was used with the pestle, to separate the husk from the rice, sort of rice mill) and linked the story to the Rice Terraces in the Cordillera Mountains of the Philippines built 2000 years ago by the “Ifugao” tribe. So two years and three hundred kilometers north of Manila later, we explo...

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