Addis Ababa

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Hello all!

Well, I made it to Addis Ababa after 24 hours of flights.
I have no luggage! It didn’t show up when I got here and then when I went to report it, they seemed very used to the problem and immediately gave me almost a hundred bucks in compensation. How odd. The problem is that there was no other Lufthansa flight coming in from Frankfurt until tonight (Monday) and I arrived on a Saturday night. Big bummer. I’m heading out there tonight in hopes of getting my suitcases and if I don’t I’ll really be screwed because we’ll be heading up into the north in a few days and this is not like Kenya where our local agent is amazing and takes care of all these things…flying your bags out to you. So the likely result is that I’ll be two weeks without luggage. Awesome. Pray, pray that they come tonight.
I’m staying at the Ibex Hotel until my group arrives tomorrow and I move to the group hotel, Hotel DeLeopol which will hopefully be a bit better. Not that the Ibex is SO bad, it’s just a little weird and run-down. My curtains are hanging by a thread and my room looks over the parking lot and a windowed corridor of the hotel which means anyone can see into my room all the time. Kind of weird. No bed bugs though. But definitely cockroaches. The night I arrived there was a very loud wedding going on downstairs in the restaurant, and there was another one last night. Very exciting. The staff is so friendly and at breakfast each day the girls come up to me one by one, examine my books and tell me how beautiful I am. I love this place!
On my first day in Addis I called up Alex, the taxi driver who’d driven me from the airport the night before and hired him for the whole day to take me around to all the sights I’d be going to with my group in the next couple of days. Alex is awesome. He speaks great English and knows a lot about his country’s history and he’s very proud to talk about it.
My camera died very early in the day so I only have a few photos, mostly of Lucy and the curtains in my room because they are funny. I’ll try to put them up today, but doubtful because the connection I’m on is very slow. Will try again at the other hotel on hopefully a better connection.
The real Lucy is on tour somewhere in the US, so you can only see a cast of her remains, which is still cool enough. After the National Museum we went to the amazing Ethnological Museum which has a fantastic display of Ethiopian musical instruments along with all kinds of other cool displays, with a modern art section upstairs.
Then we wandered around Menelik I’s palace up on Entoto Hill which is neat because it is made out of wood and thatch, really not like a palace at all, but I guess for it’s time it was. Next we went to the Holy Trinity Cathedral and saw the tombs of Haile Selassie and his wife who were reburied there in 1995 after his remains were finally found buried under Mengistu’s toilet in the palace. Rumour has it that he killed the emperor himself.
So…today I’m just getting everything ready for the group to arrive and hanging about the hotel. Later I might brave the giant Mercado, said to be Africa’s biggest market, but I’m not sure I’m in the right frame of mind to handle it alone. Needless to say I attract a lot of attention for being a white blond chick.
(SO hilarious…as I sit here writing this, a herd of goats walked by the internet café…wish I had batteries in my camera)
Well, love to all and I will hopefully update with photos and more later.
Miss you all. Xoxo.

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Comments

[Amy]

Traveling to Ethiopia
Are you planning on travelling to Lalibela or Axum while you are in Ehiopia? I am traveling there to adopt a child in the next few months and would like to travel (probably on my own) to these historic sites. Any advice?

[mittens]

great narrative
Tremendous ! Any recent updates?