Illuminated by flickers of candlelight, an elderly pilgrim squats in the mud, reciting passages from a well-thumbed, leather-bound copy of the Old Testament.

Around him, figures swaddled in ghostly-white linens are stacked tightly together, covering every crack, crevice and precipice of Lalibela’s ancient rock-hewn churches. Having walked for days, the exhausted bodies lay stiller than corpses in a mortuary; but when sunlight spears the horizon in six hours’ time, heralding Ethiopia’s Christian Orthodox Christmas Day, this place will be very much alive.

Clasping a rock in one hand and a shield in the other, I take aim at enemy forces galloping over the hill. Yet despite all my might, the ammo fails to hit its target, so I cower in a corner, soon realising I’ve backed into a wall.

Although animated, the burly warriors projected by my virtual reality headset seem disturbingly real, and for 10 minutes I’m plunged into a war scene which could have been scripted for Game Of Thrones.