Abune Yosef
Abune Yosef
4.5
What people are saying
Hking Abune Yosef
4.0 of 5 bubblesOct 2022
A second visit to Lalibela and I decided to venture into the mountains for a 3 day hike to the summit of Abune Yosef which is Ethiopia 4th highest mountain. I was staying at the Blue Nile Guest Lodge as recommended by my guide which is right in town. So my hike started right from my hotel. It was in October hence the surroundings were green and lush. It was very beautiful. The landscapes were a sight to behold, many hills and valleys. We also met many locals who were working in their farms or heading to the town and kids going to school. The kids were very friendly, saying hi and asking for writing pens. It might be useful to carry some with you as they are not bulky or heavy. The hike itself was moderate, we covered 50kms over the 3 days and a total elevation gain of around 2,200m. So no prior hiking experience required, just general fitness. The nights were a little chilly, so pack warmly for the evenings. We used a homestay as most mountain guest lodges had been closed due to covid (reduced tourists). Our host was a very friendly lady and her family. We ate and drank the same meals as the family and it was great. Of concern though is the open toilet situation that I found at the homestay. It may be good to ask the guide to put you up where there are established toilets as it's not common practice. You can also choose to include Asheton Maryam hike in the itinerary. If pressed on time you can do day trips to a view point or driver closer to the summit and hike up the summit, a 700m scramble from the road. I had two guides, Alex and Samuel. Very friendly guys who really were kind enough to laugh at my silly jokes and participate in fitness regimens in the wild that I was doing. I strongly recommend them when heading to Lalibela for the churches or the hikes. You can reach Alex on WhatsApp on +251912840048

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Abune Yosef Highland Trekking, Lalibela On the top hill of 7olives Hotel Ethiopia
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Amit
5 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Jan 2020 • Friends
We were trekking Abuna Yosef with Tazeb for 3 days on January 20. Tazeb arranged everything perfectly and according to the schedule (very nice local family that hosts us @ nights, transpiration, food, cook, porter and a storage of bananas in is bag in case you need a boost of energy :).
Tazeb is amazing person - hamble, honest, always smiling with good energy and willing to answer any question. He is highly familiar with the region, culture, local people, landscape and the animals along the trail.
I Highly recommend to contact Tazeb via WhatsApp (+251 92 022 7325). He is very responsive and very good English speaker - you won't regret it!
Written January 31, 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Margie G
Nairobi, Kenya38 contributions
4.0 of 5 bubbles
Oct 2022
A second visit to Lalibela and I decided to venture into the mountains for a 3 day hike to the summit of Abune Yosef which is Ethiopia 4th highest mountain.

I was staying at the Blue Nile Guest Lodge as recommended by my guide which is right in town. So my hike started right from my hotel.

It was in October hence the surroundings were green and lush. It was very beautiful. The landscapes were a sight to behold, many hills and valleys. We also met many locals who were working in their farms or heading to the town and kids going to school. The kids were very friendly, saying hi and asking for writing pens. It might be useful to carry some with you as they are not bulky or heavy.

The hike itself was moderate, we covered 50kms over the 3 days and a total elevation gain of around 2,200m. So no prior hiking experience required, just general fitness. The nights were a little chilly, so pack warmly for the evenings.

We used a homestay as most mountain guest lodges had been closed due to covid (reduced tourists). Our host was a very friendly lady and her family. We ate and drank the same meals as the family and it was great.

Of concern though is the open toilet situation that I found at the homestay. It may be good to ask the guide to put you up where there are established toilets as it's not common practice.

You can also choose to include Asheton Maryam hike in the itinerary. If pressed on time you can do day trips to a view point or driver closer to the summit and hike up the summit, a 700m scramble from the road.

I had two guides, Alex and Samuel. Very friendly guys who really were kind enough to laugh at my silly jokes and participate in fitness regimens in the wild that I was doing.

I strongly recommend them when heading to Lalibela for the churches or the hikes.

You can reach Alex on WhatsApp on +251912840048
Written November 10, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

sabine e
Berlin, Germany19 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Nov 2012 • Solo
Abune Yosepf is a beautiful, still not too much discovered -and therefore incredibly authentical- massif of highlands northeast of Lalibela.
Lalibela itself lies already inside the mountains of Lasta, with great views of the whole and seemingly endless world of peaks and valleys, but trekking up Abune Yoseph is even more breathtaking- and you are there ALONE, it's not like in the Simiens, where it's so overrun by tourists.
At an elevation between 3800-4284m you will be able to find at least 43 mammal species, including the ETHIOPIAN WOLF, LEOPARDS and hordes of GELADA BABOONS; around 221 bird species have been identified up there and: apart from this- standing on the edges of the massif makes you feel like standing on top of the world!
But what impressed me most was the rare possibility to experience a 'home-stay' with the local people, the highlanders of Ethiopia.
I've never seen ANYTHING like this and didn't believe this way of living still exists at this planet.
Seing how they live, how they manage to survive and being able to sit with them around the fires, talk with them, sharing their daily lifes is something I will NEVER EVER forget.
I milked a cow, prepared and baked injera, harvested crops, played with the children, even teached the kids in the locals school for an hour!
I slept in their traditional huts, shared their food and enjoyed their warm hospitality- the bonfire at night under the mighty, incredible close sky of Ethiopia with it's millions of stars and the clearly visible milky way almost brought me to tears.
altogether an U N B E L I E V A B L E experience which was only made possible by the help of Daniel Melese and his team from HIGHLAND TREKKING in Lalibela, who organized all very well and professionally.
I'm deeply grateful to have done that, it was for sure the absolute highlight of my Ethiopia trip!
highland trekking in Ethiopia, do it!
Written January 16, 2013
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

AJB
Basel, Switzerland18 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Apr 2015 • Solo
It was certanly the best experience I had in Ethiopia. The Guide, the porter, the cook,... simply everybody was very very friendly and always there for me. The landscape is beautiful and the sky at night is unforgetable, the trekking routes great and the dinner around the fire made every day perfect. The Ecotrekking around Lalibela is a quite new attraction, though not very well known, but I would put it in the same league as the rock hewn churches or any other big attraction, so an absolute must see in Ethiopia. The 5 days passed like 1 day.

The tour went through the highland villages, where life is completely different than anywhere else. People live in very simple housings, and with very little. They seam always happy, open and live a positive way of live. Their guest have their own room in a separet house.
Important to say is also, that with the little money spent, the people living in the remote areas can have a little better life. The food is all grown by the local people, and the accomodation is run by the locals, plus it creats important job opportunities for the community. Food is prepared seperatly for the visitors, so it's safe, and there is always bottled water.
I would even say if you have not seen this, you have not seen the real Ethiopia. Absolutely worth 5*!
Written May 28, 2015
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

paolo t
genova12 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Mar 2013 • Solo
In march 2013 I visited the famous city of Lalibela, but I couldn't imagine that so close to this town I will find a so nice piece of traditional Ethiopian rural life. Thanks to Abebe Tesfaw, my young guide born in Abune Yosef, I had the opportunity to discover it.
Obviously the landscape was incredibly nice, but I was more impressed by native people and their culture.
We started walking from Lalibela and by foot we crossed some little villages surrounded by fields. Abebe explained to me everything I asked to him about the people we met on the road and the cultivation we saw around us. It was so nice because people was so gentle with us, maybe because we were walking like them. I could even spend a little time with a farmer plowing his field with his two oxen: I've seen this many times in Ethiopia, but I couldn't stay so close to them before. Even the children who live near the road are not accustomed to dial with "white people": obviously they know the "farenji" (white people) because sometimes they see some of us on the road, but they were afraid of me because I stayed so close to them and was directly speaking to them....it was incredible.
Everytime we stopped on the road people came to see us, even when we had lunch or coffee or some "areke" (a sort of local gin). In the afternoon we rent a mule from a farmer in order to go faster and reach the village of Abune Yosef before night. When in the village we had dinner in Abebe's parents tukul: in this area traditional tukuls are divided in two different sides, one for the human beings, with the kitchen, the fire, beds....and a smaller one for the animals that are also useful in order to heat the tukul at night. Abebe, his father and me we slept in a little tukul in front of the main one: they slept on the floor, but for me they kindly provided a bed made from wood branches.
In the early morning we attended a nice ceremony in the old and incredibly nice church of the village, not too different from the churches I've visited in the Tana Lake's surrounding, with painted panels on the walls.
I can go on for a long time speaking about the nice landscapes you could admire, but I prefer to stop here because if you are really interested in knowing the real Ethiopian rural and cultural life what I sad it's enough....and it's at only a few hours by foot and by mule far from Lalibela!
Written June 7, 2013
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Vered343
Shoresh, Israel10 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Mar 2018 • Family
3 wonderful days in Abuna Yosef track with Tazeb Ebabu as a guide. Sleeping in a local village, hosted by Tazeb's friends. Amazing scenery, experiencing the rural landscape and culture of the high-land in Ethiopia, even saw baboons. Tazeb arranged everything for us, including donkeys to carry our bags, food, water, ride to the airport.
Tazeb Ebabu Molla +2519227325
Written March 31, 2018
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Finot-Tour-Ethiopia
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia128 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Feb 2015
Covering some 70 square kilometers of Afroalpine habitat and spectacular scenery, the Abune Yoseph Community Conservation Area (12°12’N, 39°12’E) is found north of the city of Lalibela in the Amhara National Regional State in the North Wollo Zone and Lalibela Woreda (district).

The Abune Yoseph massif, with a maximum altitude of 4,284m, is placed on the very extreme of the northeastern edge of the Ethiopian highlands. It is part of the northwestern highland massif surrounding and defining the upper Tekeze River, and is limited to the east by the fault escarpment of the Rift Valley depression. The ridge continues northwards to the Tigrean Plateau through lower systems and westwards to the Simien Mountains (4,600m), which is connected by a chain of lower mountain systems (1,000–2,000m).

Visitors with little time to go for trekking in National Parks can obtain a similar experience seeing Abune Yosef. It contains natural phenomena with areas of unique natural beauty and aesthetic importance. Visitors get village tours and wander the wildlife. Abuna Yosef is a prominent mountain near the eastern escarpment of the Ethiopian Highlands. At 4,260 metres (13,976 ft) it is the 6th tallest mountain in Ethiopia and the 19th highest of Africa. It is located in the Lasta massif in the Semien Wollo Zone of the Amhara Region.
Written July 17, 2015
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

jeremypern
Toulouse, France48 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Mar 2015 • Couples
Very good experience- a great three day community/eco trek with our organizer and guide Molla Kassaw who was sourced for us by fellow Lalibelan and Church Guide, Setegn Mekonnen; both chaps are highly recommended for their enthusiasm, friendliness and eagerness to make our experiences as fun as possible. The scenery, weather, and the community interfaces were more or less faultless, memorable and in some cases very touching.Full marks there.

Without being unduly critical, I felt that there were two areas where improvements can be easily made. The" eco" section was a bit thin , I suggest that the guides bone up on botany, birds, bees, creepy crawlies, and geology. Local knowledge of flora and fauna should be shared. The other is food. Copious though it was it lacked variety- injera/pasta and veg can be improved with imagination, herbs and spices.

I'd recommend this to anyone with an intelligent desire to join in with daily life in one of the worlds poorest places, but also possibly one of the most joyous. Your enjoyment will be much enhanced by a decent pair of boots and an ability to yomp cheerily for 8 hrs day at 3500m.
Written May 20, 2015
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Bamboozla
Toowoomba, Australia233 contributions
3.0 of 5 bubbles
Oct 2013
The views from the Highlands are breathtaking. It's quite unique to experience a different culture first hand up close and congratulations to the business for achieving this. I have 3 main suggestions to improve the experience- (1) our guide (seems from previous tripadvisor comments always to have been Daniel in the past but it was not Daniel for us!), although very keen and genuinely hard-trying, was clearly undertrained. His English was ok, but certainly below the level we expected given the price we paid and no where near as experienced as we had expected. In fact he was a novice. Can't fault the guide for being under-trained- the company should have trained him better. Porter was fantastic and became our guide also (due to guide's inexperience), the guide was just the middleman translator between us and the porter. (2) sleeping arrangements are not great. Tukul was very cold and a thin sleeping bag designed for conditions above 10 degrees did not suffice. We did not sleep well. Thin mattress on hard floor caused aches. No pillow one night. (3) food - very basic. Again we expected better quality for what we were paying. The same food was served each breakfast, lunch and supper (no variation) and it was cheap and simple (tinned, packaged food- no fresh vegetables for example). With some work this could become a great experience but as things currently run, we felt a bit stitched up by the unfavourable ratio of cost to service.
Written October 10, 2013
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Scott
4 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Jul 2019 • Friends
Went on a 3 day, 2 night trek to Abune Yosef with my friends - Tazeb was an incredible guide. He was prompt to respond to me via WhatsApp even with unreliable internet service. He took care of everything - got us a hotel for the night in Lalibela, set us up with a guide for a tour of the churches, coordinated all our travel around the city, and coordinated our housing and food during the trek.

When other trekking companies wouldn't allow us to do this trek because it was rainy season, Tazeb coordinated everything and it all went incredibly smoothly. He is a great guy and an incredible value. I would recommend Tazeb to anyone trying to do treks in the Lalibela area.
Written July 21, 2019
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

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