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.
