Guided Day Trip to the UNESCO Heritage Site Tiya and Adadi Mariam

On the Viator website, the itinerary listed three places: Tiya, Adadi Mariam, and Melka Kunture. However, the tour only brought us to the first two locations, and when I asked about the third place, I was notified that the tour did NOT include that location at all. This was very frustrating, and I felt that this tour was misrepresented on Viator's website. Additionally, when we stopped for lunch in the town of Tiya, the guide was not familiar with places to eat, so he asked around to see where we should go. We told the guide we would rather just go back to Addis Ababa and skip lunch, but he insisted. The lunch place looked extremely sketchy, but we ate as requested. The next day I could not stop vomiting from food poisoning and felt miserable, and I attribute it to this lunch stop. In regards to the actual locations we visited, I thought Tiya was very interesting. It's a UNESCO World Heritage site of different funeral stelae that are hundreds of years old. The stelae each were carved with swords and other emblems that represented the important person who died, and I enjoyed walking around the small site and looking at each of the stones. The Adadi Mariam church was less interesting, but that is mainly because we had visited Lalibela a couple days prior, and this small church pales in comparison to anything you see in Lalibela. However, if you do not have time to visit Lalibela, it's a good site to see. The van ride felt exceptionally long, but it was comfortable and we were offered large water bottles as well. We were able to see a lot of the rural countryside along the way, which made for some good photo opportunities as well.

I thought the tour only covered the two attractions that were mentioned. This was also a full day of experiencing the Ethiopian culture and remote areas. Lunch was included and was a typical traditional Ethiopian meals and traditional coffee ceremony. Guides were excellent and very informative. Loved every minute of this full day.

Thanks to Teddy our guide and Hagos, an amazing driver through a lot of insane traffic! The Ethiopian countryside was beautiful, and the sites we visited were fascinating to see.