14-15 DECEMBER: ETHIOPIA

14/15 December 2011

ETHIOPIA - Country number 25 – ETHIOPIA

ADDIS ABABA

“faranji, faranji”

Very late posting June 2015

 

A very efficient flight from Nairobi to Addis Ababa with Ethiopian Air – two hours including a nice meal with red wine ahhhhh. I am seated next to a Kenyan chap of Indian origin who claims that all Ethiopians are descended from India – “look at their hair, look at their eyes. You ask them, why you look like Indian?” Very informative, NOT

Landing at Addis, I’m asked for my Yellow Fever card which I haven’t shown since West Africa, but all is in order and immigration was a walk in the park – US$20 for a 30 day visa on arrival. ATMs in the terminal, money changers open and only one woman touting for the taxis! WOW this is different already! I chat with an Irishman, who works for a fruit juice company here – he offers to share a taxi with me and that saves me a big hassle as first attempts at saying “Mr Martins Cosy Place” was being interpreted as “crazy place?” And as it’s on the corner of Cameroon St (a name nobody has ever heard of, because the streets were only recently renamed after African countries) and Mike Leyland Rd (travel all over the countryside, ask the Leyland’s, ask the Leyland’s! Aussie in-joke). The driver is on his phone obviously asking his friends where the place is, while all the time reassuring us, “I know where it is.” We eventually find the place tucked down a tiny lane – like I said, without Michael insisting that “it’s around here somewhere” I am sure I would still have been driving around now. At the lodge, there is only an elderly man on site who ushers me to a very large room with 3 beds – when I try to check if there is a smaller room, he rings someone who offers me the room for a double price – 220Birr = about $12. And there is hot water here which is heaven after my two days of travel. Soon I’m tucked up in bed before waking up freezing cold! Brrrrr I forgot the altitude here and quickly find my thermals to resume a lovely sleep. Next morning talking to others over fab coffee, they tell me it can drop below freezing around the Simien Mountains – do I really want to go THERE??  This trio have ridden motorbikes down through Europe, Syria, Egypt, Sudan and now Ethiopia. We talk motorbikes for a while then with map in hand I walk up Cameroon Rd to the junction of Haile Gebreselassie (one of their famous marathon runners) Rd.

 Here is a big and very busy Orthodox church which deserves some investigation – mostly women who are all bowing and kissing in front of Gabriel – it’s his ‘day’ today according to Lily who gets me up to speed on what is happening here. I promise her that next time I will remember my scarf before visiting and she is very pleased with that, gives me her number and tells me she would like to take me to visit another Orthodox church that is very popular. Walking into town here is no end to the street kids begging, selling tissues and what nots to the popular cry of “faranji, faranji”. I find Churchill Ave and Ethiopian Airlines and on entering am given a number for the queue! Whoa I am definitely not in Africa any more. Getting served I give my plan of travel with dates and receive the itinerary to check before confirming five flights for a paltry sum, pay with credit card and all SO EFFICIENTLY. Next I go looking for a sim card and get led by a young bloke to a store where the price bidding of 200 birr, then 100 birr sounds suspicious so I give him a miss, lose the young bloke and find another store where the price is 60 Birr with two photos, to register the card.

Lunch nearby at Dashen Traditional restaurant where I dine out on my first Ethipian ‘fasting food’ meal. It is so delicious with spicy lentils, beans, vegies and a slightly sour injera looking like a dirty towel but really very edible!  My first flight is tomorrow and covers what would have been a 12 hour bus ride in 35 minutes! My plans include a mix of flights to cover the very long distances on bad roads alternated with bus trips on the not so long or scenic areas, for the next couple of weeks to get around the north of the country without having to rush about. Even though I don’t have enough time to fit in the south I will at least manage to get to the far east of the country. With the rest of the day to check out Addis I find the weather to be mild but the sun is very intense so I am happy to have my umbrella to use as a mobile shade.

Checking out a couple of monuments including the Lion of Judah, a symbol of Ethiopian monarchy, this was stolen by the Italians and finally returned in 1960 and the Derg Monument which was erected during Ethiopia’s flirtation with communism, complete with red star, hammer and sickle.

I look for Hope Enterprises walking up Churchill Ave who sell meal tickets that I can give out to homeless kids who can then redeem it for a meal at the centre. At eight birr each I find I’ve bought 64 meal tickets – the eight I wanted were actually a book of eight! So after one day, I will still have plenty to give out on my return trips back to Addis. 

Walking further north to the Piazza and up the hill I eventually find St Georges Cathedral where Emperor Haille Selassie was crowned. The church only opens early mornings but they have a small museum that was a great introduction to the bits and bobs used for the Orthodox religious pageantry here: prayer sticks, umbrellas, holy books, robes, crowns and crosses. Walking around, my hennaed hands are attracting many compliments and looks – however the priest at St George’s Church didn’t like them because “you are beautiful enough” but I am sure that is because a lot of people think it is permanent. Back to the piazza which is really vibrant with most hole-in-the-wall cafes packed with coffee drinkers. Walking back I cannot get myself understood on where I want to go, very frustrating as I have the map right but not the connecting transport. I end up taking a taxi the rest of the way to Cozy Place and as it is nearly ‘peak season’, spend an hour telephoning places to stay up north. Even here I am trying to confirm a room for my return and it seems a little difficult – I think I must be asking the wrong person each time. lol

Next day I chat with a couple of travellers who are ever so grateful to be back in Addis after their travels up north, due to the difficulties they continually encountered, and their advice was to take the tours offered in Bahir Dar. After ‘checking out’ from Mr Martin’s Cozy Place, I visit the National Museum to check out a replica of Lucy, the world’s oldest hominid excavated here in Ethiopia in 1974. There is also a skull, Homo Sapiens Idaltu (elder in Afar language) which was a fantastic display of the ancestor to all modern humans due to its larger brain, domed skull and higher forehead than earlier finds. Discovered in the Afar Region in 1997, it is estimated to be 160 thousand years old!! Then there are various Emperors’ thrones, robes, crowns and weapons.

 Second floor has great Ethiopian Art including originals African Heritage by Afeworke Tekle and another, Genital Mutilation by Abebe Zelelew, two of Ethiopia’s famous modern artists along with centuries old religious panels.


 
  


Afterwards I find it again, very difficult to get the minibus back today – all signs are in Aramaic but eventually I get myself to the general neighbourhood and onto a minibus that goes in the completely wrong direction. Jumping off, I get a taxi that needs someone else to explain to him where I want to go. But he kindly writes it down in Aramaic for next time, phew. Another fab lunch of fasting food then off to the airport to fly to Bahir Dar, where I find the domestic security checks here are the most detailed I have had for quite a while! Chatting with Joanna, who is studying in Addis and going home for the holidays to meet up with her family who live at Bahir Dar, because dad lectures at the uni there. Soon we are all on board, cleared for take- off, taxiing down the run way, speeding up for take-off then slowing down to come to a complete stop? We taxi back to the terminal due to “a mechanical problem” and listen to the Christmas musak – Let it Snow by Bing Crosby and Feed the World by Band Aid (wasn’t that for the famine here in in Ethiopia?). Eventually we’re told the problem won’t be fixed quickly, so we’ll have to change planes – so onto a bus while they ready another plane because the departure lounge is filling for the next flight. Eventually we’re got another plane so crew, luggage and folk are transferred on board and we try again, landing safely in Bahir Dar 35 uneventful minutes later. Phew.

FACT: Ethiopia is very certainly very different to the rest of Africa, and not just because most women have their own hair either. They greet each other with a meeting of opposite shoulders and the dancing is unlike anything I have seen before. Dancing in most of Africa requires that you shake your ‘booty’ for all it is worth, but here in Ethiopia they have a very unique style – shaking or shrugging your shoulders, at a great speed. Watching the music clips is funny as the shoulder shrugging is really very energetic and accompanied by much head nodding and even complete head circles sometimes. I find it really fascinating to watch.