Holiday in Ethiopia - Part 1

Hello my loyal readers,

I am happy to report that I have returned from Ethiopia no worse for the wear. Actually, I feel refreshed and ready to dominate my last five weeks of lessons in Sana'a.

As for my trip to Addis, it was amazing. Caution, I don't have any crazy stories about adventures in Africa, because for the most part I just enjoyed the simple things which are denied in daily life in Yemen. Like drinking wine and beer, eating pizza and burgers and looking and talking to women. Little things like this that I hadn't realized how much I missed them until I got to Addis.

I arrived in Addis on Sunday morning, after getting up at 4:30am and heading to the airport for my flight. The night before we had played in a soccer tournament at the British Club in Sana'a, called the Lion and Jambiyya Club, on a lit tennis court. We got second, the damn Italians outclassed us. I didn't get back till late from that, so I only had about 3 hours of sleep before heading to the airport. Anyway, we (Ryan and I) had no problems in our travels and after having a proper cup of coffee at Bole International Airport, took a taxi to the Le Gare Hotel. Luckily, as it would turn out, this hotel was full so we went over to the Baro Hotel, which was described by Lonely Planet as a hot spot for thrifty travelers. Turns out that this decision turned out to be clutch in us having an amazing trip. There were no rooms in the hotel available till 8pm, so we left our bags at the front desk and headed out for a walk around town guided by some friendly locals who wait outside the hotel for visitors. There names were Yonis and Papi, and were both high schoolers who hung out around the hotel and practiced there English with the travelers. They took us to Pizza Corner, just what I wanted!!, where we had a couple beers and a big pizza. Now this doesn't sound exciting, but when you haven't had anything like this for almost two months, it is quite fulfilling. We spent most of the afternoon walking around with them until retiring for a nap on the padded benches on the hotel's "patio". Later in the evening we met a Ethiopian guy (his name eludes me) who was from the Hammer tribe down south and had actually made a documentary about his tribe. He was waiting for his visa from England, where he would be heading to work with National Geographic for 6 months, pretty awesome. He took us out to a restaurant near by where we had burgers and drank local beer (Jambo, St. George, Dashen). From the restaurant we went to a bar called the Blue Nile and listened to a great mix of music (Ethiopian, reggae, and Western) while drink more and more. Plus we laughed about all the prostitutes walking around the place trying to show their stuff, although most of them were quite unattractive. In Addis prostitution is a pretty big business but there will be more on that later. After consuming copious amounts of beer (at least I'm being honest), we headed back to the hotel and hung out with a bunch of the travelers who were sitting on the patio having a good time. At the hotel there was a little kitchen with food and drinks, so most of the travelers spent their nights fraternizing with others on the patio.

Now one of the key aspects of this trip being so great was the people, so now I'll introduce the cast of characters we hung out with and their stories:
1) Ana (31yr) and Jez (34yr)- Ana (English) was a doctor who had been working in Johannesburg as a doctor for 10months and her boyfriend Jez (Canadian, lived in England) was a musician/dj. These two were definitely the life of the party and a lot of fun to hang out with. They had bought an old Mercedes, put an awesome sound system in it and were traveling from JoBurg, South Africa all the way home to England by car. When we met them in Addis, they had just spontaneously got married the day before on a whim by a Christian monk who spoke no English. From Addis they were heading to Djibouti City where they were getting on a cargo ship and sailing to Aden, Yemen (we should see them again in Sana'a). From Aden they are planning to drive up the coast along the Red Sea through the Middle East, into Turkey and then across Europe home. Now if that isn't an inspiring and awesome trip, I don't know what is. When we met them they had been having a great time, with no problems, except for spending an exorbitant amount of money.
2) Tom and Esther- Tom was a English guy who had just finished up a 4 month stint working the NGO "Save the Children" in Kenya. When it was over he headed up towards Ethiopia but couldn't get across the border b/c they didn't grant visas at the border, you have to get them from the embassy. While at the border time he met Jez and Ana, and somehow allowed them to convince him to try and smuggle himself across the border. So, with two sketchy Kenyans he met, at night he ran across the border and actually met up with Jez and Ana in a small border town in Ethiopia successfully. Unfortunately, he still needed to get a visa if he wanted to ever leave Ethiopia, so he went to get one in Addis and was arrested. He was let go but had to report to court where he got a 3,000birr fine and was asked to leave the country in 7 days. Crazy stuff. Along with him was Ester (Dutch), a girl who was teaching in Southern Ethiopia and had randomly run into Ana, Jez and Tom. Her and Tom hit it off and she had been staying at her hotel with him since he had been in Addis.

3) Emily, who was a 26yr old Irish chick. She had taken a year off of work and decided to travel Africa solo. She also started in South Africa. When we met her she had just spent 6 weeks traveling around Uganda. From Ethiopia she was flying to Egypt and then traveling through the north of the Middle East (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria), before heading into Turkey and through Europe back to Ireland.

4) Sara- Same age as Ryan and I, had went to Wesleyan for two years and then decided to take time off. Well, it turned into two years of traveling Asia, the M.E. and Africa. She had learned both Arabic and French along her travels and had been all over, including Yemen where she plans to live at some point. She was wicked into religion/spiritualism and was converting to Islam. She had a very different view pertaining to Islam and the M.E. than would be expected from a Western girl.

5) Tons of other people, but I've identified the main characters in my stay. The cool thing is we now know at least 3 people who are planning on coming to Sana'a at some point in the near future, so I'm looking forward to showing them around.

Thus, this is the reason we were so lucky for picking the Baro Hotel. The hotel was also great b/c it was 10$ a night and provided us with a bed, shower, personal bathroom and the little restaurant. The only sketchy thing about it was that it also served as a bit of a brothel. During our stay there you would constantly see Ethiopian "couples" coming in and out, only staying for an hour or two if you know what I mean. If this wasn't evidence enough of some ficky fick going on, there were about 3 packets of condoms provided in the rooms, hint, hint. So as I slipped into bed each not I tried to think happy thoughts, far away from the reality of what my bed may have been priorly used for, but I'm guessing there was a reason my bed dipped down big time in the middle.

That wraps up my first day in Addis. My trip will have to be done in installments because there is so much to write. For my fellow runners, I did see a billboard with Geb on it while I was driving in and impressed a few people with my knowledge of Ethiopian athletes. Until next time take care all.

Good luck at SCSU today.

Also I will be attending University of Chicago next year. Driscoll and Gwyth, you'll have to Amtrak it down to the city for some runs on the Lakefront.

Rich