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Africa » Ethiopia » Amhara Region » Metema
March 15th 2009
Published: April 24th 2009
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The journey to the border with Ethiopia is much simpler and shorter than I expect, and it is a pleasant surprise to arrive there as early as mid-afternoon. Sadly, after 3 weeks of 99%!h(MISSING)onest treatment in Sudan, my defences are ill-prepared for the onslaught of a pair of Ethiopian hustlers (detailed in the Dull but possibly useful info section). My mood is darkened by the scams that I sidestep (and would no doubt have been darker if I'd spotted all of them), not to mention the fact that I will have to spend a night in the boiling, airless border town of Metema before I can catch a bus out.

After my experience with the scammers, I walk away from their cluster of hotels, plodding sweatily down the road in a town where I know the whereabouts of nothing, know no Amharic, and feel disinclined to trust anyone. It's a bad start to a new country. However I'm also weak with thirst, and when an English-speaking chap asks me what I am looking for, I mime sleeping, and he then leads me to a place where I am offered a room for B25 (just over $2). The room is a concrete cell with a bed, two chairs, a shuttered window and a door, and the promise of a shower across a broken stone courtyard. I accept and thank the man, expecting he will ask for a commission, but he simply walks off and I am left wondering just which of the two sides of Ethiopian hospitality that I've seen is the real one.

I strip off my clothes and walk gingerly across the uneven courtyard wearing only my towel, the muffled laughter from the nearby lounging women ignored as I simply want to wash the accumulated sweat off my body. Then again, how often do they get to see some pasty white guy with brown forearms and face picking his way daintily across their property? Ironically, the shower is the hottest I've had since Egypt, with the relentless sun having raised it to a temperature that does nothing to cool me off. I lie on the bed after returning to the room, with the door and window wide open and my towel covering my modesty, and watch miserably as sweat pools on my chest. A few flies torment me with their tickling, and occasionally a large hornet-like insect gets me flailing wildly with my T-shirt.

I rise later, the sun having dropped in the sky but the atmosphere still stifling, and don my clothes to go in search of a drink. Despite not having eaten since dinner yesterday, I have no appetite and am satisfied by a bottle of fizzy apple juice. I'm now in a country where I can drink alcohol again, but I have no wish to and, in my dehydrated state, it would be bad news anyway. After my drink, I go for a walk up and down the main (only?) street of Metema, meeting many of the locals via a handshake or the usual name/country/job questions. The children in particular seem very excited, and they all point at me and wave while shouting what sounds like "You! You!", though I wonder if that's just a homophone for "Pasty white guy" in Amharic. Again, I seem to be the only whitie in town though this place must see more than its fair share of foreign tourists heading to/from Sudan. Many of the women here are obviously not Muslim, and several say hello and shake my hand, a novelty for me after male-dominated Sudan where I didn't have a single casual chat with a woman. I'm already regretting the conclusions I'd jumped to after meeting the scammers.

I visit the "bus station" next, whose location I guess at by virtue of the fact that it is the section of the road where four buses are parked. A few English speakers approach, but they only want to help. I am pointed to the ticket seller and purchase a ticket to Gonder. The departure time is quoted as 11 o'clock, however this is in an interesting Ethiopian system where 6AM as a non-Ethiopian would understand it translates to 12 o'clock as an Ethiopian would - hence 11 o'clock is actually 5AM in my money.

Back at the hotel I am hailed by three young Ethiopian students from Addis Ababa. Their English is poor, however their perception of their English isn't, and they confidently utter sentences of gibberish whose meaning I can only guess at. One thing that does come through is that chicken here is apparently only eaten by rich people. Various other guests and locals come over, and their questions are translated loosely into English, which I hazard responses to. One of the women from the hotel owner's family shakes my hand shyly - there is some discussion, much laughter, and the gist of the translation appears to be that I am welcome to share her room for the night if I so wish. I finally crack when one of the students asks me for money. The smiling and nodding and general bonhomie in the face of an insurmountable language barrier does not come naturally to me, plus it's been a long day and this has magnified the awkwardness of the situation. My general rule with cash handouts to strangers is that anyone under 60 who isn't crippled doesn't qualify, so I thank them for their conversation then head for my room. Lights-out is at 9PM.

Of course, no-one else goes to bed at such a ridiculously early time and there is much toing and froing around the hotel, people talking, as well as music wafting through the sultry night air. There is no breeze in my room and a desperate look at my thermometer confirms that it is 35C even at this time. The minutes drag and my mind goes back to the last time I had felt like this - in Don Khon in Laos, 2 years ago almost to the day. However in Metema I haven't yet filled a pair of Jockeys with diarrhoea, so I'm thankful for small mercies.

Sleep comes reluctantly and only briefly.

Dull but possibly useful info
i. A taxi from the centre of Kassala to the bus station should cost SP7.
ii. The bus from Kassala to Gedaref was supposed to leave at 8AM. I don't know the company name but it was a large pink bus - rubbish legroom but at least the interior was cool (temperature). It cost SP15 and took 2 hours 20 minutes.
iii. I then took a boksi across town to where the minibuses to Gallabat (the Sudanese border town) depart from. I paid SP5 for this, but I think this was partly due to a foreigner fare and partly due to sitting in the front seat. It took about 20 minutes.
iv. The minibus to Gallabat cost SP10 and took 2 hours 15 minutes. I don't know how many of them there are per day but mine left at about 11:45AM.
v. At the border, you need to visit 3 Sudanese offices before the Ethiopian one - I've no idea what each of the Sudanese ones does, but they all have official-looking signs outside (in Arabic only), with the first one about 100m back on the right hand side from where the minibus drops you.
vi. At the border, you will no doubt be approached by two Ethiopian scammers, David and Johannes (John), who will give you some twaddle about being there to help travellers. They will show you the 3 Sudanese offices and the Ethiopian one, followed by customs (essentially a guy at the side of the road who rifles half-heartedly through your luggage). They will then arrange a tuk tuk to their hotel (Peace and Love Hotel) - and then ask for commission for all their help.
vii. They will tell you (incorrectly) that you will get better money rates for your SP and $ with them than in Gonder. Note that in Ethiopia there is a black market rate which is better than bank rates, however the rate that David/Johannes (or one of their cronies) gives is worse than even the bank rate in Gonder. Having looked on Yahoo before I left Khartoum, I'd seen the official rate was 11.1, which was what David/Johannes gave me, so I assumed that was fine - however the rate on the black market is 12 and banks in Gonder were offering 11.3.
viii. Be very careful of the rate when you change your SP to Ethiopian Birr (B). Since most travellers only know - at best - the $ rates for these currencies, the mental arithmetic involved can get a little more complicated when you convert from one to the other. The first rate that David/Johannes gave me for converting SP to B was a third of what it should have been (currently there are roughly SP2 to the $, and B12 to the $, so you should get roughly B6 for each SP you convert). Naturally they claimed this was a simple arithmetic error.
ix. Most single rooms in Metema are B25 per night. I was quoted B100 by one of David/Johannes' chums. Don't stay at either the Peace and Love Hotel or any of the ones next to it as they are similarly overpriced. Carry on down the street for another 100 yards or so then ask there. Be warned that all the accommodation is basic.
x. You will need B25 for your bed, B31 for your bus ticket to Gonder, and some B for food/drink - I would advise that you don't change more than roughly B100 worth of money, as that will get you to Gonder where you can get better rates for your $.
xi. Metema is a truly awful little town but be heartened by the fact that Gonder is a vast improvement - you just have to avoid going insane on the 7+ hour cramped bus to get there :-)

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