Gondar, and Addis Ababa....a tale of Love and Heartbreak

---

Well the plan was for us (Tati and myself) to be ready and leave at 7-30 to get a minibus to Gondar, so that we could do some stuff that day; 'knock knock'......'KNOCK KNOCK"...it's 7-45 and Tati is pounding at my door to wake me up. 'Bugger'. Eventually I scrape myself out of bed, get dressed, and find Tati talking to the hotel manager and Daniel (who I forgot to mention in my last blog, he's a self trained comedian who basically does impressions of different Nationalities abilities to speak English...he is quite entertaining). After breakfast, and Tati saying goodbye to the hundreds of staff she had befriended we were off to the bus station; luckily for me we got caught half way there (lucky for me as Bob is very heavy) by a tout, and we were soon packed onto a minibus.....at 40Birr, not bad for 3 hours traveling; unfortunately Tati asked a local (damn her been able to speak Amharic) how much they had paid and we soon found out we had paid 10 Birr to much. She then proceeded to call the conductor person a 'stupid Habeesha' (derogatory term for Ethiopian local); at which point I was threatened and told to control my woman...that little bit of sexism didn't please her lol Oh well the journey went well in the end...and she approves of my taste in music, apart from Elton John which she found rather hilarious that young person listens to him...oh yeh and I also found out Tati worked as a German Postwomen, ah the thing we have in common.
Eventually we arrived in Gondar, it took 4 hours; from the bus station, using Tati's guidebook (which is so much better than mine) we trekked the 1km to our hotel of choice. Unfortunetly we found that it had been closed by the government and turned into a Dashen Bank, so we moved next door to the Yihah....which frankly was a poohole, shown by the fact that the shower (with very infrequent water supply) plug hole also doubled as the toilet. We just basically bummed around Gondar that day, drinking coca, and sampling the juice at Sofa Juice Bar; that is until we got set upon by numerous touts selling trips to the Simien Mountains. We agreed a trip with Peter for 350Birr, only to find ourselves switching to another tout (who said he was 16, but looked about 10...and had an incredibly funny voice) who offered us it for 250 Birr; now it is important I stress at this point he promised a trip to the Simien Mountains.
Anyway, through the first tout Peter, we had discovered some Germans were staying at the Government run hotel on the hill...the Goha...and Tati thought that they might be her friends. So off we went to the Goha, via a shortcut shown to us by our 16yr old tout which was straight up the side of the hill (a proper trek), where we discovered that in fact Tati's friends wern't here....at this point a she got quite worried as apparently they were meant to be in Bahar Dar the day before we left. Anyway we put this behind us and sampled the dinner, well we shared one 3 course meal; Tati had the salad starter, and I had the main course and the desert (which was just a single banana). It was quite entertaining as the waitress refused to bring us the main course until the starter had being finished....though she gave in after we explained what we were doing...though she didn't look pleased. Oh yeh whilst we were waiting Tati made friends with a 'gogga' (Afrikaans word for bug basically....I forgot to mention she spoke Afrikaans....so basically the conversation all day had been a gutter mix of (mostly) English, German, and Afrikaans). The trip back down the road (2km) from the Goha to town was very interesting as it was pitch black and a totally unlighted road; fortunately I became the hero as I remembered the light on my phone (god bless Sony Ericsson's) was very strong...so we eventually got back to our hotel safely after having walked through, what Tati called, 'the Ghetto of Gondar'. Today, and tonight, I realized how amazing it was that we just clicked...it was like we had known each other for ages,
The next morning, despite being told we would set off at 6-30am, we were awoken at 5am by our tout telling us it's 'a very long way'. So after quickly getting dressed, and stuffing the banana's we had bought the day before into Tati's bag with all our valuables we were off. And to be fair it started well, the minibus we were in was ok..and everyone seemed to know what they were doing; unfortunately it all soon went Pete Tong when we just stopped on the side of the road and were told - 'You hike here'. Tati replied 'this isn't the Simien Mountains', and to be fair it was just a a hill like any hill in Ethiopia not the Simien Mountain Game Reserve. The tout thought he was very clever and replied - 'It's LIKE the Simien Mountains'. Tati did not like this and got quite angry, until she was called 'a stupid bitch' and the tout then refused to speak to her lol Eventually after 2 hours of driving back, stopping, and shouting at everyone we got back to Gondar...and the cheeky gits wanted us to pay. We eventually agreed to pay for petrol, but a reasonable price couldn't be agreed on this so off to the Police Station we went; where it was decided that we pay 100Birr to the driver for petrol and lost earning and leave it at that. So we payed, walked out the police station and had the 100 thrown back in our face by the tout who said 'it isnt enough'; we then found him waiting at out hotel where he started threatening us...'pay 350 or a kill you'. This was never a serious issue as he was about 4ft 5, but all the same I had Tati's rather large flick knife constantly in my hand...what I would have done if anything had kicked off I have no idea. Anyway, after getting rid of them we decided to move hotels...to the Quara, a more upmarket hotel (120 Birr a night), with 2 armed guards outside just in case the tout was stupid enough to try anything. Unfortunetly, despite the upping in price, the water supply (and therefore working nature of the toilets) was very infrequent here as well. Quite a fun little adventure to be fair...made a little annoying by the fact tha the banana's in the bag had got crushed and now all my IPOD buttons are incredibly sticky...and if you lick them they taste of banana.
The rest of the day we spent looking round the Castles, which are absolutely amazing....not due to size, or design, or anything like that, but just how surreal they look with the African backdrop all around them. They are a mixture of numerous different European and Arabic designs; but just look so out of place, they look like they should be sat atop a hill in England or Europe not in Ethiopia. Whilst this history lark was very interesting to me, Tati amused herself by collecting these weird pod things that were falling off the tree's....Veruchte (Crazy) Deutsche. After the Castles we went to the Cattle market, where Tati got offered a large goat for 400Birr; which in all fairness would have been a very good buy, and as a vegetarian she was clearly considering saving this animal from it's obvious fate as part of someones Easter celebration feast...I on the other hand wandered off and bought a grade 12 school history book so I could learn more about Ethiopia.
The night came, and Tati's friends turned up...and for some reason I spurned the offer of joining them for dinner, so I spent a lonely evening amusing myself by watching a proper English couple questioning the size and taste of everything on the Quara's resturaunt menu to a bemused Amharic speaking waitress who merely nodded and said 'Beef'. Eventually Tati returned and we retired to bed at about 12....only to find that sleep was impossible due to the constant chanting in aid of it being Easter Sunday. So, through sleep deprived logic, I decided I should stop hiding my feeling for Tati and make a move; and I did....and it worked, but being a gentleman that is all I will say, but I will stress that Tati 'isn't like that'. The morning was brilliant, it's being so long since I have had someone to act couply with; unfortunately Tati, as she later explained, knew this was going to end in tears and became rather cold. So a bad day followed, full of arguing and storming off (on my part aswell), although I did eat burger the size of a dinner plate (which only cost 15birr) at the Blue House Restaurant. Eventually, after I retired to the bar in an attempt to drink myself into a stupor (which failed as I hate the taste of Dashen Beer) we agreed everything was Eshi (Amharic for ok/no worries..basically Hakuna Matata). The evening was filled with being taken out to see the nightlife of Gondar by a Ethiopian dance choreographer, that Tati had met after storming off at one point; he took us to a restaurant, and treated us to a meal...and then we went to a nightclub. I must admit being the only white man in a crowd of a hundred black is quite scary, but it was actually quite fun..up until right before we left when Tati got grabbed and I was threatened with bodily harm by a massive man...we escaped alive though; and maybe it was the beer, maybe it was my irresistible charm, whatever it was we made up and went back to how we were before the arguing in the morning.
That morning I decided I was coming back to Addis with Tati to see her off on her plane...also selfishly because sleeping alone seemed a little boring at this point. So we sat outside the hotel at 4am waiting for the minibus to Addis we were promised would turn up, but didn't...one to Axum (my previously planned destination) did however...but I spurned it in order to get the two day bus to Addis. It was a nice journey to be fair, made even better by the beautiful German sleeping on my shoulder, but also just the general atmosphere...I love African Bus journeys; my only issue with the buses being that the people don't seem to understand that turning the speakers to full volume so that the music being played is distorted into static doesn't actually sound better...oh yeh and the window thing...god it gets hot...but as someone said to me 'Smile....it's Africa'. Eventually after 12hours we stopped in a transit town (as buses don't travel at night...a good idea seeing as the roads are narrow, terrible, and generally next to a 500ft drop) where, because of the storm, there was no electricity...so after a friend Tati made on the bus showed us where to buy some candles, we retired to bed at 8pm a good plan as we had to get up 5am; which we did, and after 4 hours traveling arrived in the Merkato bus station..a large and scary place. We eventually got a minibus taxi to the piazza, only to find that Tati's hotel of choice (the Taitu - the oldest (and heavily discounted) hotel in Ethiopia) was fully booked; so I finally took Adam's (guy from Cairo) advice and tried out the National Hotel....which in Tati's words 'was a shithole'; we eventually moved to the Gedaro Hotel in Aware District. Which was amazing compared to some of the crap I have stayed in lately....although there was still no water when I wanted a shower. However this was made up by our room having a tv which had the cricket news, and a channel which showed crappy movies lol
The next two day spent in Addis were just filled with wandering around doing odd jobs. The first day I booked a local flight with Ethiopia airlines from Lalibela to Axum (40min flight instead of 2 day bus journey) for 40 quid as I was so far behind my schedule; and from then the most exciting thing we did was have a amazing dinner at Elephant Walk...a very trendy restaurant on Bole road full of rich Ethiopians and ferenji...and a drink at the Freezone Bar...again trendy. The next day was slightly more eventful...I went to the Sheraton, where Tati refused to come in on the morale grounds that they waste more money and water on their gardens than most villages have in a year, to take some money out of the only ATM in Addis (apart from Hilton) which takes foreign cards...and we also visted the Merkato....the biggest Market in Africa, a fairly intimidating place. It wasn't that bad to be fair, everyone seemed really nice, apart from a couple of boys who grabbed Tati (I was ready to kill them)...fortunately (for me lol) a man who had appointed himself our tout scared them away peacefully. I bought my bus ticket for the next morning to Lalibela and Tati dragged us around every shop through her love of shopping (joking lol) as she looked for spices to take back so she could cook Ethiopian fare in Germany. After that we returned to our hotel, went to bed at 8ish (watching a terrible movie called 'They') in the realization that this was our last night together...heartbreaking.
continued in the next installment as I am very hungry. There is 4 more pictures to go this blog...but the internet is being gay so I will probably have to put them on from Kenya...as I am probably off by bus to Moyale tomorow.

---

Comments

[Leo]

sounds like your having an awesome time soooooo much to read, im stuck at uni loads of exams, might travel on the inter rail in Europe over the summer