During the 2004 field campaign for my African wild olive research, we had a little side project called the Tigray Rock Climbing Challenge. Rock climbing and bird watching under the Ethiopian sun (the actual field work consisted of timed bird species counts for our paper later published in Biodiversity and Conservation) – I admit research can not easily get any better. We even published a climbing topo for our favorite site, the Waseya cracks.
Other and better climbers have followed. One of these is Majka Burhardt, a writer, climber and guide living in Boulder, Colorado, who discovered the Ethiopian mountains while writing about coffee. She relates her Ethiopian climbing experiences in a great looking coffee table book, Vertical Ethiopia.
Vertical Ethiopia :: Majka Burhart 2008 :: (11 page excerpt, PDF)
For the vertically inclined and Africa lovers alike, Vertical Ethiopia is great travel and adventure literature. It literally gives you a feel of Abyssinian rock.
Wow! Tigray looks amazing, both as a climbing site, and for birdwatching.
Combining climbing or hiking with birdwatching is great, though I do this at a much lower, and very amateur, level.