On many of its thirty seven islands, Lake Tana in Northern Ethiopia is well known for its ancient churches and monasteries where tropical vegetation covers the volcanic cone that protrudes like an island from the largest inland lake of the Ethiopian Highlands.

Dega Stefanos lies in the middle of the lake and contains one of the country’s most important monasteries. On the summit, framed by walls and hidden under great trees, stands the monastery of Holy Stefanos. In a small treasury various mummies are preserved in glazed wooden coffins in which the remains of five emperors of various dynasties lie at rest.

South of Lake Tana in the Zeghie Peninsula is a romantic natural landscape. The monastery church of Uhra Kidane Mehret is a circular building with the walls of its external, covered thoroughfare, adorned by contemporary wall paintings. The history of the hidden island monastery is long and, most notably, includes the hostilities of the Oromo Tribe in the land of the Shoa.

The local people of Woyoto still use papyrus boats and live as in the past when the first Christian missionaries founded the island monastery.

Tana Hayik, atmospheric and with a fine religious past!