addis ababa layover
Category: ethiopia
the ancient walled city of harar!
harar is one of the most fascinating places i have ever been. it is an ancient walled city in the far east of ethiopia with its own local language, and is said to be the fourth holiest site in islam. historically it was completely isolated from the outside world, and was infamously impenetrable by those from the west until someone sneaked in disguised as an arab merchant. the narrow cobble-stoned streets are filled with commerce and lounging men chewing qat.
the people of harar also have a remarkable symbiotic relationship with hyenas. rumor has it this began with townspeople leaving out porridge for the hyenas so they wouldn’t kill the livestock, and later tunnels were even built under the city walls so the hyenas could come in at night. two harari families have kept this tradition going by feeding the hyenas meat every night just outside the city. the location of this event is not well described, but i finally found it with the help of some local children who took me on a 15 minute walk out into the complete darkness. as the meat was brought out, we started hearing the howls of the encircling hyenas.
when they got close, they started eating the meat off sticks, and myself and two german anthropology students who were high on qat took turns feeding them. the next day, it was on to the city of jijiga, then to somaliland!
dire dawa to harar
i flew into an industrial city called dire dawa, built about 100 years ago to service the addis ababa to djibouti railway, which runs through it. i made a beeline in a very old, sputtering taxi to the minibus station, where i jumped in one headed to harar. along the route, absolutely everyone was chewing and carrying huge bundles of qat, a stimulant plant very prevalent in this part of the world.
at one point the minibus was pulled off to the side of the road by some local vigilantes, and everyone was told to get off. they tried to elicit a bribe for each of the many bundles of qat on the bus, which people tried to resist paying until fists started flying. then the police showed up, and there was more yelling and pushing, and it looked like the police ended up getting some of the bribe too. what do i know though, i was just standing there watching. never did i feel endangered. once all that was done, it was on to harar!
northern ethiopia roadtrip – axum to mekele
we hired a van to drive us from axum to mekele. we drove through the town of adwa, the site where the ethiopians defeated the italians, perhaps the most famous historical instance of successful african resistance of colonial power.
we also stopped at yeha, an ancient temple from before the time of christ, as well as a few monastaries along the route. at one, a priest showed us a 700 year old book, with pictures, still colorful, inside.
we stopped for lunch in adigrat, right on the border with eritrea, which split from ethiopia in 1998 after a deadly civil war. the border between ethiopia and eritrea is currently closed.
we stopped at another rock-hewn church in wukro, before leaving ann off in a small town north of mekele. we had planned this in advance, but i felt a bit bad leaving her alone. she was going to a lodge in the tigray countryside to see some more rock-hewn churches, while i continued on to somaliland. the problem was, the lodge was a few hours off the main road, and we didn’t yet know how she was going to get there, and the sun was already setting in this small, dusty town we barely knew the name of, where no one spoke english. we kissed goodbye and hoped for the best, and thankfully i found a few days later when she was back in a place with mobile service that she had made it!
i then got to mekele that night, and on the next place the neck morning: harar!
axum
we next flew north to the the ancient city of axum. this was the capital of the earliest ethiopian kingdom, and is also rumored to be the home of the biblical queen of sheba. it is famous for its ancient obelisks and tombs, and also believed by some to be the resting place of the ark of the covenant of old testament fame.
there is a field in town with multiple stellae/obelisks, which have stood for many centuries. many have also fallen down and are in varying states of disarray. one of the obelisks was taken by mussolini during the italian wartime occupation of ethiopia, and only returned to axum by the italians in 2005. there is a nice museum with a good overview of ethiopian history.
across the street from the stellae field is the oldest church in ethiopia, and a chapel which is said to house the ark of the covenant. one cannot look at it, due to the continuing belief that one would perish if this were to happen, so i cannot confirm its true presence in this location. the surrounding buildings are only accessible to men. a priest showed me some very impressive ancient mural which he will uncover for some cash.
the rest of axum was rather underwhelming. we stayed at a $12 hotel in which there was a bed. we went to a restaurant, ordered, waited two hours, and then were told “oh, the power is out, we can’t make any food right now.” if you have limited time in ethiopia this might be the place to skip. amazing history in axum though.
off the beaten path in amhara
from the moment we decided to visit ethiopia, we wanted to visit mikedes, a girl ann has sponsored through world vision. she lives in mersa, a little town in the amhara region about eight hours from the nearest airport. we figured we would arrange our transport there once in lalibela, and as things have a tendency to do in africa, that turned into a saga. we talked to a few travel fixer types in lalibela about our desires, and they all had many fanciful brochures and promises of luxury transport options. each of them basically had people following us around lalibela, asking us about our most recent plans for getting to the next town, and offering us different prices for jeeps, vans, etc. also comments about how the other guys wouldn’t come through. but when the time came to actually go, no one could come through. our guide addis in lalibela promised he could get us there by bus if he could come with, so we took the 5:30 am local bus with him from lalibela to weldia. it was an austere african journey, fjording streams and picking folks up every five minutes.
the folks from world vision met us at a hotel in weldia, about two hours after the agreed meeting time, but its all good. they had a van, and now things were official, so a guy from the government had to join us to keep an eye on us. so now we had three cooks in the kitchen – the world vision area director, the government minder, and our guide addis from lalibela. and as such, always three different views on what should happen next. we just sat back to see the turf war unfold!
before visiting our sponsor child, they insisted we see some world vision water projects in the area. then they took us to the local world vision office for a tour. apparently we were the only sponsors to ever have come to this place, and, they said, the first white people to visit the town in as long as they could remember. when they found out i was a physician they also brought us to a world vision-run local health clinic. then finally, we went to the mikedes’ house and met her and her father. her mother passed away so she cooks and keeps the house up for her and her father, who is a farmer. world vision allows her to attend school and pays for supplies, etc as well as food at school, which is great, as without that support she probably wouldn’t be able to attend school. they live in a mud hut with their ox outside, and we sat on their floor and drank some impeccably prepared ethiopian coffee and it was a really special time.
now that world vision could trust us, they offered to give us a ride all the way back to lalibela the next day. on the way we stopped for some kitfo, raw goat hamburger sprinkled with cayenne pepper. mmmmm!
lalibela!
lalibela’s iconic rock-hewn churches are the spiritual epicenter of ethiopian orthodoxy. ethiopia has ancient connections with the land of israel – the biblical queen of sheba is believed to have been from ethiopia. as such, christianity spread to ethiopia quite quickly as well. ethiopian orthodoxy is very unique, however, thanks to its relative isolation. there are dozens of churches carved out of the rock, and lalibela is referred to as the “new jeruslaem.” much of the churches’ architecture represent biblical motifs, such as moats to symbolize the jordan river, and pitch-black tunnel entrances to symbolize hell. the interior of the churches are cool and dark, with ancient rugs on the floor and icons on the walls. the locals wear white robes when going to the churches. we hired a guide named addis and spent 1.5 days exploring the churches, and it was fascinating.
the most iconic of lalibelas churches is st. georges. it is the shape of a cross, and hewn deep into the rock. the courtyard surrounding the church is accessible only by a single tunnel, and apparently recently some tourists were accidentally left down there when the tunnel was locked up for the night and had to spend the night!
the ben abeba restaurant on a mountain precipice on the outskirts of lalibela is modeled after a spaceship, perhaps an intentional juxtaposition of the future compared with lalibela’s strong connections to the past. they have great injera and local ethiopian wine, and while we were there we were interviewed on camera by a travel show on the ethiopian broadcasting service!
we stayed at the tukul village, a little cluster of tourist huts. we also went to the lalibela outdoor market, which was huge, and had every agrarian thing one could want. i went on a nighttime run, and soon became accompanied by a large group of local boys running with me.
we also hiked (all day) up a local mountain to a monastary called ashetan maryam. we were accompanied by some local boys who became our de-facto tour guides. on our way back down we stopped for some impromptu foosball, which is all the rage in lalibela these days.
lalibela is one of the greatest wonders of the world as far as i am concerned. it was an amazing place to visit!
ethiopia! – first stop, addis ababa
ann and i were able to go to ethiopia for about ten days, and it was amazing!
we spent the first day in addis ababa. we stayed at the bow hotel, which is run by an ethiopian-canadian geologist who used to live in calgary. the first order of business for me was to get a visa for somaliland, where i would visit later in the trip. i had read only sparse reports online about people traveling overland from ethiopia, and an advance visa is required when taking this route, so i hoped i’d be able to procure one, though reports on this were sparse as well. the somaliland embassy in addis has moved three times in the past three years, so we finally found it after arriving to the third location in a residential area. they let us right in, and it was basically a house where the ambassador’s family was living, with kids sitting on the opulent couches surfing facebook, etc. they took my passport and told me to come back in a week, but i incessantly insisted until they gave me the visa on the spot!
our next stop was world vision’s ethiopian headquarters to arrange a visit to a child ann has been sponsoring through world vision for a few years! we met with one of their directors and said we just wanted to visit, getting there (a town in central ethiopia called mersa) on our own. he really wanted to arrange all our transportation and our entire vacation for us but we finally got him to agree to just a visit, though it eventually still turned out to be a heavily supervised one. world vision ethiopia is a pretty impressive operation, with dozens of development projects around the country, and all very well organized with local staff.
next, we needed to buy some flights! in ethiopia, like some other countries, domestic flights are much cheaper if purchased at the airline office inside the country compared to online from abroad. luckily none were sold out!
we then walked around downtown, including the famously nice sheraton hotel, and got dinner in a pretty hip club on the sixth floor roof of a shopping center, before heading to the airport early the next morning for our flight to lalibela!
a day in addis ababa
didn’t sleep at the nairobi airport – too excited! flight left at 4:30 am, got to addis ababa, ethiopia at 6:30 am. after lots of waiting in lines finally got a visa. on the way out of the airport there was a huge traffic jam of people – turns out it was all caused by an ethiopian family who obviously had never experienced an escalator before and refused to get on it, so they were just standing at the top, debating what they should do next. all the banks were closed and the atm rejected me, so i decided to walk into addis.
i saw a huge orthodox church on the way in, so i walked in that direction. it was sunday morning, so there were thousands of worshipers there and spread out for about half a kilometer in front of the church – woman (all dressed in white clothes) on one side and men on the other. turns out this church is the largest in africa. ethiopia has a vibrant and very ancient orthodox tradition. found a better atm and got a ride to the huge meskel square, the center of addis ababa.
i started walking up the huge hill toward entoto mountain. many orthodox congregations were doing their thing, and they broadcast loud enough that everyone else has no choice but to follow along (although it would be easier if one spoke amharic). explored some fabulously nice hotels, like the sheraton addis. ethiopia’s richest billionaire decided to build the most opulent hotel imaginable in the middle of a huge slum. walked all the way up the hill past many, many churches and slums (it took me all morning) before stopping in to a little random restaurant to get some njera for lunch. its a sour blanket of dough that is made out of a grain called tef that grows only in ethiopia that you use to grab tasty meat sauces with your fingers. washed it down with the best coffee ever – they like it wonderfully strong! ethiopians also love to smoke out their restaurants/houses out with powerfully pungent incense. i was trying to walk all the way up the mountain, but i soon realized that it would take me all day, so i caved and got a taxi. the oldest church in ethiopia is at the top – along with a tremendous vista of addis ababa, a sprawling city of five million souls. took the taxi down again and eventually found out the “nice” guys driving it were actually liars and cheats – they demanded more money. we sat there and argued and for quite a while they wouldn’t let me out of the vehicle. this is one huge problem with africa – unless you know someone you can’t take them at their word. finally gave them all the money i had – it was a lot less than they wanted, and physically forced my way out of the vehicle (they were small guys).
i browsed the national museum, which has bones from the oldest human ever discovered. it started to pour – walked around downtown wet for what seemed like an infinity amongst the beggars and the goats to find a working atm so i could get a taxi back to the airport. a nice little boy (nice until he found out that his net worth wasn’t going to go up very much after hanging out with me – then he got pretty ugly) permanently attached himself to me for the last few hours, as i was starting to get too tired to tell every single person who tried to talk with me (every two seconds in addis) to buzz off.
it was a good day. fell asleep at the gate as the plane was boarding – luckily a nice guy from iran woke me up so i didn’t miss my plane. stopped in manama bahrain, then to kuwait.
trip to africa
when i was in grade 9, long before starting this blog, my family took a month-long trip to africa. my mother grew up in kenya and had lots of family around so there was a lot to see. we spent some time in and around nairobi, kenya, where a couple aunts and uncles lived at the time. we then took a little plane to mwanza, tanzania, on the shore of lake victoria, where another aunt and uncle lived. from there, we took an epic roadtrip across tanzania – through the serengeti national park and ngorongoro crater with our own vehicle for a private safari, to tarangire national park which is famous for its elephants, to moshi and arusha where another aunt and uncle lived, and to the coast at tanga, then up to mombasa, kenya, where we spent some time at the beach before returning to nairobi. we then flew up to ethiopia for 5 days where we visited another uncle and aunt. on the way home we stopped in amsterdam for a few days, where we visited the rijksmuseum and went to edam where we saw windmills and ate cheese.