Tiya lies some ninety kilometres south of Addis Ababa, on the high plateau of the Great Rift's northern edge, and it holds one of the strangest open-air museums in Africa. In a field beside a village, dozens of weathered stone pillars stand in clusters, some leaning, some upright, each carved with swords, symbols and abstract figures. They are stelae, grave markers raised several centuries ago, probably between the twelfth and fourteenth, by a culture whose name has been lost. UNESCO listed the site in 1980, and a custodian will usually walk you around and explain which carvings are thought to show warriors and which show something nobody has managed to read.
The country around it is farmland, gently rolling and busy with people. Teff and enset, the false banana that feeds much of southern Ethiopia, grow in the fields, and the villages are strings of low houses with tin or thatch roofs. Eucalyptus groves grow on the ridges, and the air at this altitude, comfortably above two thousand metres, is cool and clear. Women carry water and firewood along the verges, children wave from every corner, and every so often a herd of cattle will slowly cross the road with no regard for traffic.
For a rider, this is a day that needs patience and alertness. The road south from Addis through Mojo is asphalt and generally decent, but it is shared with minibuses, heavy lorries, donkey carts, goats and pedestrians, and the driving style is confident to the point of recklessness. Overtaking on blind bends is common. Daylight riding only, and watch for potholes after the rains, which fall mostly from June to September. Mojo, the nearest sizeable town on the main road, is the place to fuel, so start with a full tank from Addis, and do not count on every small village having petrol. A stop for coffee in a roadside café is a pleasure, since Ethiopia is where coffee began, and the ceremony of roasting, grinding and brewing it can last half an hour.
Bring cash in small notes for the entrance fee and any tip to the guide, and wear a hat, because the sun is strong. The light in the early morning, with mist on the fields and the stones cold and damp, is the best time to see the pillars and imagine who set them there.