Travel Guide Ankober

It's hard to imagine that this modest little town, balanced on the edge of the high plateau at 2,400 m, was, from the second half of the 18th century, the capital of the Choa kings. Ankober, also known as Gorobela, is an Amhara town 40 km east of Debre Birham, at an altitude of 2,465 m above sea level. It was here that Menelik's grandfather, the Negus Sahle Selassie (1813-1847), firmly established the foundations of the Choan dynasty that would enable his grandson to take power over the whole of Ethiopia... and later found Addis Ababa. The last remnants of its former grandeur can be found below the town: a two-hundred-year-old church and, a little further on, the ruins of a castle perched on a rocky outcrop. For the record, it was here that Marseillais photographer and explorer Jules Borelli first met Arthur Rimbaud in 1887! The region is also home to the endemic Ankober serin. The market is held here on Tuesdays and Saturdays.