Lalibela Diary: Bonjour Blue Eyes

I run into Blue Eyes exactly four times in dark, rainy Axum before we actually meet. First, at a museum, then while exploring tombs, then at a restaurant without electricity, and finally, at the airport. Each time, we size each other up warily. I assume he’s a snob and suspect he’s German; he thinks I am a snotty American (which, of course, is absolutely true). It doesn’t help matters when I motion him over to my table during a blackout and he completely ignores me. So when I see him at the airport, I regard him coolly – all Morticia Addams ‘n styles - and offer a cold little greeting to punish him for being such a snobby German. Be cool, P. Be cool.

That act lasts about 20 minutes. When he sits across the aisle from me on the plane to Lalibela, I am all over him like a slobbering lab puppy. Be my friend! Be my friend! I am practically licking his face and piddling with excitement, hoping he’ll keep me company for the next few days. While I’m not lonely, I do feel a bit starved for conversation, and this young man likes to talk.

I instantly like him. Blue Eyes is French and plain as a split rail fence, with an enormous grin and a goofy sense of humor (for a French person). Within minutes, we’re getting along like gangbusters and I convince him to stay at my hotel and split the cost of a guide who will help us get to some of the more remote places of interest.

During the next two and a half days, Blue Eyes and I are inseparable. We wander in awe among the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, barely escaping the Ominous Mesfin, a guide who desperately – and heartbreakingly - stalks us for a 3,000 Euro donation for his dental operation. We stumble across the skulls of religious pilgrims. We wake up at dawn to attend a church service, joining hundreds of figures clad in white as they recite incantations repeated over the last thousand years. We survive a baboon attack. We are invited to a coffee ceremony, and I drink his coffee and mine for good luck. We navigate Lalibela’s teeming market and drink honey wine with a room full of shepherds. We get funky on the dance floor with the neighborhood sex worker, and Blue Eyes dubs me “Dances with Prostitutes.” When we spar like an old married couple, Blue Eyes runs after me – uphill the entire way – and reenacts the baboon incident until I laugh and punch him.





Most of all, we talk – all day and into the night. It’s the kind of intimate, intense conversation that travel invites – stories of heartbreak and passion and grave disappointment, of adventure and boredom and crises of identity. We are both relieved to cut through the small talk and dive into each other’s lives. With admirable sensitivity and candor, he tells me about the woman he left to travel the world for a year, and about all of the agonies of missing her, of doubting himself, of feeling lost. I tell him about the Dermonster, about Fauxhawk and Kiwi and my enduring fear about what will become of me.

Blue Eyes is good company. He amazes me and annoys me in turns. He says the most outrageous things and somehow gets away with them. And he knows me, I think, better than I know myself.

When it’s time for me to leave for Harar, we part ways having exchanged nothing more than a brief hug. Blue Eyes looks a bit forlorn.

“Au revoir, cherie,” he says. “See you in Addis.”