Africa

Ethiopia

This article is from Angie Whitehead. Check her website at http://www.srilankaundiscovered.co.uk

Constantinople – Colombo  (via Yemen,Ethiopia,UAE)  December 2007/ January 2008

Ethiopia  (exchange rate 1 US$ = 9 birr; 1 GBP = 18 birr ; 1 Euro = 15 birr)

I bought my air ticket to Ethiopia in Sana and traveled from Sana to Addis Ababa with Ethiopian Airlines, which stopped on the way in Djibouti to pick up passengers (mainly French-speaking Europeans).  The visa cost US$20 and was issued at the airport.  It was around 10 pm when I found a taxi, which cost 80 birr to the town centre; every time it stopped at traffic lights boys banged on the windows, having spotted a foreigner.

  The Ras Hotel, recommended by Lonely Planet traveler Marilyn, gave me a dingy room with private bathroom  for 150 birr. (I later found that all hotel rooms in Ethiopia are dingy because the light bulbs are very low wattage).  Breakfast was included in the price, served in a pleasant restaurant overlooking the street by Aster, a waitress known to Marilyn (she asked for a present from her!) in company with African businessmen and some English people (identified by their laughing conversation).

My first task of the day was to book onward travel as this was Saturday and half day closing.  I went to Galaxy Travel next to the Ras Hotel and managed to get seats on flights for the historical circuit – no mean feat as Christmas holidays were upon us.  Ethiopians are very laid-back and the travel agency was unwilling to book hotels or send for the air tickets so I phoned from a call office to make reservations and tramped to Ethiopian Airlines to collect the tickets.  And so began my tour of Addis Ababa.  The city spreads out up a hill and there are Orthodox churches, parks (all closed), avenues with jacaranda trees, the university (I had a lemonade and do-nut for 6 birr in a student café), the National Museum (poorly labeled but containing the skeleton of Lucy, the supposed first human).  I reached the area known as Piazza and walked back down Winston Churchill Avenue past the Derg Monument to the hotel.  I had been walking nearly all day and seen about 4 white people (in the Piazza area).  After coping with a bathroom flood (standard practice for travelers) I had an early night before an early start the following day.

An early morning flight in a small plane took me north to Aksum, site of the ancient capital of Ethiopia.  The Africa Hotel picked me up, along with Susan from China and Briony from USA.   My room had a private bathroom and TV for 60 birr.  My new companions and I hired a van to visit the ruins of Yehe, a site contemporary with Marib in Yemen and Adwa, scene of a battle with the Italians.  Back in Aksum we toured the ruins of tombs, stelae and palaces (including that of the Queen of Sheba).  Everywhere we were besieged by sellers in that inimitable eastern way.  Ethiopia has tuk-tuks and next day we caught one into town to visit St Mary’s Church, the museum and the site of the Ark of the Covenant (you are not allowed to enter).  This is all a major pilgrimage site with lots of people in ragged clothes clutching bundles of twigs (very fashionable as house decoration in France)  and priests in rich robes, clutching parasols.  Aksum is a small town with spacious streets where sheep, goats and camels strut.  I spent the afternoon at a nearby hotel pool where the water was icy cold although the sun was warm.  This part of Ethiopia is at an altitude of around 3000 m which makes for warm days and cool nights of course. 

Christmas Day took me to Lalibela by plane in the company of Richard from Netherlands.  The planes are small and fly low so you can get good views of the mountain scenery – skies are clear as it’s the dry season.  A van took us to Lalibela town and the Alif Paradise Hotel – room with bathroom cost 80 birr and the nearby Roha Café provided meals.  Breakfast is usually eggs and flat bread with coffee or tea mixed with coffee.  For lunch and dinner the staple is injera, a sort of very large flat spongy bread on which dollops of curry-like sauce are placed.  These are flavoured with berbere, a chilli-like paste, and are wonderful on fasting days when they consist of vegetables but vile on non-fasting days when there are chunks of unsavoury meat in them. Spaghetti with tomato sauce is usually available also, in deference to the Italian influence in past times.  (This fasting routine is from Orthodox Christianity). 

Lalibela is a centre of early Christianity and the 14 th century churches are hewn from rock into the rock.  It takes a whole day to visit most of them and costs 200 birr entry fee for foreigners plus 200 birr for guide (I shared the cost of this with Richard).  Each church has a robed priest in charge who will read from a holy book in Amharic (these books are clearly very old).  Lalibela is built on a hill (or several hills) and the overall impression is of a collection of huts with corrugated tin roofs.  People appear to be quite poor, many with no footwear and ragged clothes and carrying the omnipresent water pots (it is the dry season and water is difficult to come by). 

My next destination was Bahir Dar, a large town on the southern shore of Lake Tana and reached, yet again, by small plane.  These are shuttle planes and only 4 people got off this time, including me.  We shared the cost of a taxi to town, which took us to the Hotel Ghion right on Lake Tana.  For 120 birr I had a large room with private bathroom and balcony albeit not overlooking the lake.  The area round Lake Tana looks lush and green, with overhanging trees and packs of pelicans prancing about. 

There is a café (Mango Park) where you can drink a macchiato coffee with the Ethiopian smart set and watch pelicans being fed.  Highlights of visiting Bahir Dahr were the boat trip to the monasteries on Lake Tana (round mud huts with corrugated iron roofs and religious painting on the walls inside) and the very source of the blue Nile (some bubbles in a reedy corner of the lake) and a minibus trip to the Blue Nile Falls (with some Lebanese girls and a Swedish man). 

After an hour’s trek passing ‘caravans’ of tribes people on their way to market in the opposite direction and fantastic views over the top of the Blue Nile Falls,  we forded a stream (helped by crowds of small boys) to reach the bottom of the Blue Nile Falls.  Climbing up from under the spray we took a boat across the river and regained our van.  Bahir Dar appears to be a crossover town for Christianity and Islam.  My room ‘benefited’ from the early morning call to prayer as it faced towards the mosque, yet right next door was an Orthodox Church (this also gave an early morning call to prayer so as not to be outdone). 

And so I returned to Addis Ababa, again by shuttle plane, this time arriving at midday and staying at the Wanza Hotel, much closer to the airport but not much cheaper in taxi fare.  This cost 80 birr for a room with bathroom.  Food was extra in the restaurant.  I met 2 other foreigners – an American and a New Zealander, both teachers (someone told me this is another term for ‘spy’

My second visit to Addis yielded one decorated Christmas Tree (25th December had passed unnoticed as the Ethiopian Christmas is celebrated on 6th January  - Epiphany) in a very small shopping mall (excitement!), a bookshop where I bought 3 English novels at  5 birr each, including a feminist novel written by Zoe Fairbairns (with whom I attended St Andrews University), an ex-London red double-decker bus parked outside a run-down looking museum (closed).  Stupidly I was prowling around the streets as sun-down approached and an air of menace seemed to appear; what looked like street-children (boys of around 10-14) kicked balls in my direction, a gang of youths hissed something and a man kindly advised me to get off the streets.  It reminded me of Paul Theroux’s book where he describes his African travels and the many people who say ‘bad men out there’. 

Comment :  Ethiopia is one of the most interesting countries I have visited .  It is poor but did not give the impression of being unmanageable and overcrowded as India does (it has a population of 78 million). Most places are dirty and dilapidated looking, housing being tin-roofed houses/shacks or huts with thatched roofs in rural areas.  Lack of water is a problem and in some areas food – I could not finish my injera and shiro (red sauce) at one café and the waiter took it and gave it to 3 waiting boys who gulped it down.   Crowds of men and boys are hanging about  everywhere, presumably unemployed, but few pester, as long as you keep moving.  Hotels are good value for the money paid but usually have poor plumbing, no mirror, dim light-bulbs and broken furniture  (once a broken window too).  There is little point in complaining as this is the norm. English is well spoken by people in tourism and even some people in the street and many signs are written in English as well as in Amharic.  Weather was fine and dry with day-time temperatures of around 24 deg C and nights of around 16  deg C. in December.  On 27th December news came on BBC World TV channel that Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated.  And then shortly after I arrived back in Sri Lanka war was declared again…

Onward to Sri Lanka via Sana and Sharjah

There being no same-day connecting flight from Addis Ababa via Sana to Sharjah I had to spend another 2 days in Sana.  My visa was not multiple entry so I was charged another US$ 30 for this pleasure  I stayed again at the Al Ikwa Hotel, where I spent New Year with a power cut.  The whole of Sana was affected but power was restored later in the evening in time to see in the new year with TV5, the French International TV channel (the main tourists in Yemen are French).  My Air Arabia flight  to Sharjah arrived mid afternoon so I had a long wait  for my 10.30 pm onward flight to Colombo.  Sharjah airport is very basic and the seats steely and  hard! Waiting passengers are mainly from the Indian sub-continent, whose people form the bulk of UAE’s population, not Gulf Arabs as you might think.