20 October 2023
Words and images by As the first rays of morning light streak across the frozen gorse and heather, and in the heavens, 100,000 stars fade from view, a sudden movement catches my eye. A large creature with a reputation as dark as the moorland night moves with unnerving speed and silence over this bleak, high-altitude landscape. Pausing for just a second, it turns its head toward me and I catch a fleeting glimpse of sharp ears, hard eyes, and a bushy tail dipped in black, and then the ghost of the highlands turns and continues its silent race against the rising daylight. My encounter with a wolf is over.I’m on the mountainous plateau of northern Ethiopia. Rearing up above me like a giant arrowhead is Mount Abuna Yosef (4,260 metres), the biggest mountain in the vicinity and the sixth biggest in Ethiopia. Looking the other way, downwards and off the escarpment, I can just about make out the holy town and major Orthodox Christian pilgrimage centre of Lalibela, where 11 spectacular churches were carved into solid rock during the 12th century with the help, so the legend goes, of a team of angels. Although my reasons for coming to this far corner of Ethiopia aren’t religious, there’s a certain element of pilgrimage to my journey. I’m here to search for the elusive Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis). It’s a creature so rare that some might say that you have more chance of spying an angel.