Full Day trip to Adadi Mariam Tiya and Melka Kunture

Full Day trip to Adadi Mariam Tiya and Melka Kunture

visit three important historical sites in one day on this day trip from Addis Ababa—a great choice for exploring important places on a time budget. Travel straight from the capital to important sites including the Adadi Mariam rock-hewn churches, the UNESCO-listed Tiya archaeological site, An hour from Addis, just over the Awash River, is the Melka Kunture prehistoric site, where many stone tools and fossils, dating back 1.8 million years, have been found. Examples are displayed in four tukuls (huts), including tools used by the Homo erectus who once inhabited the area, and there’s also an open excavation site down a sometimes muddy path. It’s modest but interesting. Find it a couple of kilometres west of Awash Melka town., all with the benefit of a guide to provide insight into each attraction as you go. This small-group tour is limited to just six people so you can ask your guide plenty of questions.

We pick you from your hotel after breakfast and leave Addis Ababa to the south through the fertile rolling hills. After about an hour drive we arrive at the prehistoric site of Melka Kunture. Half an hour further south the rock-hewn church of Adadi Maryam is found, build in the same style as the famous contemporaries in Lalibela. Somewhere in the area we enjoy a picnic lunch we brought from Addis Ababa.

The stelae of TiyaFrom Adadi Maryam it is about an hour (45 km) drive to Tiya where mysterious stelae are found, most probably grave markers. From Tiya it is about 1,5 hour (85 km) back to Addis Ababa where we drop you at your hotel late afternoon.