- Personally Planned by Nigisti
- Small Group Sizes
Custom-Built Itinerary
Custom-Built Itinerary
The Agame Mountains are one of my favorite corners of Tigray to share with guests who want to go beyond the well-known churches of Lalibela and Axum. This five-day trek begins with a short flight from Addis Ababa to Mekelle, then follows quiet highland trails through red sandstone country that most visitors to Ethiopia never see.
From Mekelle, you'll drive to Adigrat and on to Siheta, at 2,500 metres above sea level, stopping along the way at Al-Nejashi — believed to be the very first mosque built in Africa. Your first night on the trail is spent at a community-run guest house in Siheta, run by local Tigrayan families rather than a hotel chain.
The heart of the trek is the six-hour walk from Siheta to Shimbreti, at 2,800 metres, past the fourth-century rock-hewn church of Mariam Buzuhan. You'll ride a horse along part of the route, stop for coffee and conversation with the people who live along this trail, and spend a second night in another community guest house.
From Shimbreti, you'll hike down to Degamba before driving to Hawzien, where you'll climb to one of the region's legendary cliffside churches — Abune Yemata Guh, carved into a sheer rock face, or Abune Gebremichel.
On your final day, we'll decide together whether to hike up to Mariam Korkor or take the gentler walk to the monolithic church of Mariam Papaseit, before an easy stroll through the community and a cup of local coffee. From there, it's back to Mekelle for your evening flight home to Addis Ababa. This is trekking country built around slow discovery, not ticking boxes — and every guest house you stay in puts your money directly into the hands of the families who call these mountains home.
A curated list of the most popular travel packages based on different destinations.
