Ethiopia - The Final Challenge

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Going Home

On the last morning I have a few hours to kill before I have to go to the airport. I have not yet seen a fridge magnet or a local football shirt anywhere so I set off into the center of Addis (by turning left out of the hotel!!) in search of these.

I think it's a sign that the Ethiopian tourist industry is only just starting that they haven't started making tacky fridge magnets yet. I think I do really well to eventually find one. I've wandered around a lot of shops and been led on wild goose chase by someone who tells me he knows where all the fridge magnets and football shirts are and it's always just around the next corner. I eventually get offered three identical fridge magnets in one shop - I think they must be the only fridge magnets in Ethiopia.

The search for the football shirt fails again though. I had been directed to one shirt for the national team which was very expensive and yet still not as XL as I am. Everyone thinks I'll find one near the football stadium. I wish I'd discovered the football stadium earlier - lots of small shops there, quite busy with lots of places to stop and have something to eat and drink and lots of table football. But no Ethiopian football shirts! I even spot what looks like the St. George team bus but the only football shirts I see are the usual Arsenal and Chelsea copies.

I've been walking around Addis for some time now and I'm beginning to get fed up. A meeting with some wannabe pickpockets near Churchill Avenue {It could well be the same ones we met a couple of weeks ago - they're still not very good!} and my mind is made up - I'm going to have to try and find a shirt on e-bay, I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon with a beer in the hotel bar!

The first part of the flight back was not as straight-forward as I'd hoped. The scene at the airport was fairly chaotic. There is a large number of young Ethiopian women who seem to be causing the chaos. There seems to be several groups of them rather than one large group and they are all on the same flight as me! I probably look ridiculous being very British and standing in a queue when all around is chaos.

There's a big fanfare as a brass band strikes up as we board the plane. It's not for me, though. It's for the World Cup which is just arriving in Ethiopia on another flight as I leave. It's going to all African countries before the finals in South Africa

On the plane the chaos continues. All of the women {and there's a lot of them} need to be shown to their seats. I realise that it's probably the first time they've flown but maybe they can't read? The Amharic language uses the same number system as us but they don't seem to be able to read the seat numbers on their boarding passes. That would explain a lot of the chaos at the check-in too. I'm intrigued to know who they all are and where they are going. I try to talk to the two women sat next to me but my three words of Amharic get me nowhere! It takes a long time to show everyone to their seat on a jumbo jet and we are late taking off.

The next flight from Dubai back to Gatwick was even stranger - I got to lie down!!!. There were so many empty seats on the plane {Emirates} that I managed to get three seats together and get some sleep so that when I arrived at Gatwick at 6a.m. I wasn't completely knackered.

And Finally.....

I had wanted to go to Ethiopia for a long time. Once I wasn't constrained by having to travel during school holidays this was the first trip I booked. I think it's unique history makes it a different place than other African countries and a very different kind of place to visit. I think the Ethiopians realise the potential they have from tourism but it is only recently, with their recent history of The Derg, famine and war, that they have been able to exploit it.

There are so many incredible things to see in Ethiopia. I was looking forward to Lalibela and Gondar in particular but I hadn't realised how much more there was that I didn't know about. With their tourism industry just starting, a lot of it is still quite difficult to get to. The airport and road at Lalibela have been built within the last ten years, before then the journey by road would have been hard work! I would have liked to have visited the Danakil Depression just for the sake of it while I was in Ethiopia, but that just wasn't going to happen on this trip!

After we left Addis Ababa the hotels we stayed in were probably the best available in each town but anyone only used to hotels in developed countries might be in for a shock and would have to change their expectations very quickly. We experienced power shortages in Addis and briefly in Axum and water restrictions in Axum.

Of course, the advantage of this for us is that, for nearly all the sites we went to, we were the only people there. So the message is - now is a great time to go if you don't mind "roughing it" a bit.

Ethiopians themselves are very concerned about how the rest of world sees them. They would want the outside world to associate Ethiopia with the ancient kingdom of Axum and the only African country not to be colonised, not with famine, civil wars and its presence next to the unfortunate Somalia.

The famine of 25 years ago seems to have left an image in the West that Ethiopia is somewhere where everyone is still starving. This is certainly not the case. The area we traveled in was the North of the country which was the area worst hit by the famine of 1984 - there was no evidence of severe water shortages or crop failures here. In Harar, where there are water shortages, we saw two lakes which are now just marshes but we also saw the pipeline being built to bring water from Dire Dawa to Harar. The warning that was issued by Oxfam a couple of months ago when they said that up to six million people are in danger concerns, I think, areas in the South of the country together with other parts of East Africa. Some of the people in our group continued on into the South of the country - it will be interesting to find out what impression they got of the South.

And, of course, Ethiopia has lots of water potentially available in the Blue Nile but using this would potentially bring them into conflict with Egypt.

The Ethiopians I spoke to were all keen to change that image they think the outside world has of them and they want to build the infrastructure so that they can exploit the tourist potential Ethiopia undoubtedly has.



Next stop: Gran Canaria and then Southern Africa

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Comments

[nick buchanan]

And finally ...
Turning *left* out of the hotel, Steve? Good plan ... ;-) Great 'and finally ...' write up. A good summary of a fascinating country, amazing culture, wonderfully welcoming people and an exciting future. I give it 5 years before we see them advertising their tourism on British TV. It's definitely a place to get to before it becomes too commercial! Top holiday, great photos, entertaining and informative write up ... looking forard to the next trip blogs! :-)

[WhereIsSteve]

Thanks, Nick. The Jerry Springer bit at the end is always the bit I find most difficult to write. That's been sitting on my computer for a few days while I struggled to finish it. I hope anyone else who's been to Ethiopia {or is thinking of going} will add their thoughts. And, yes, I have asked Santa for a map and a compass!