Ethiopia

We're back home in Sana'a with plenty of stories from Ethiopia. Our only complaint from the whole trip is that the food is terrible. Normally we love Ethiopian food however some of the dives that we ate in were frightening and much of the food tasted like soap. Nearly all of us got sick (beer might have had something to do with that). We arrived in Addis Ababa in the evening of the 10th and crammed into a 1960's cab, bound for the Piazza neighborhood to get a hotel for the night. We found a nice little hostel above a restaurant, where we proceeded to drink our first beer in 2 months (oh, how you were missed). Dinner from the first night, a sample of traditional Ethiopian lentils:

After dinner we found a cute bar playing early '90s American pop music, and later in the night stumbled into a nearby bar, which we assumed was a dance club but incidentally turned out to be more of a brothel. After witnessing a pimp and his buddies beat up a young prostitute at the "club", we took our cue and headed back to the hostel for our first bed-buggy night.

The following morning we hired a driver and car to take us up north. We considered taking the bus, which would have been considerably cheaper, but as the buses are filled to about twice the safe capacity, and as the trip would take twice as long, we opted for the luxury of driver and private car. Split between 5 people, this luxury cost just $20 per day (per person).

Our next 8 days were spent in a 1980s Toyota Land Cruiser that had two bench seats in the back (which served nicely as beds for napping). We spent the majority of the trip driving north to Lalibela, and returned to Addis via the Awash region in the east (thereby completing a large, 8-day loop). Although we didn't actually cover a huge area, the roads were really rough and we spent many 9-hour days in the car going 40 km / hour the entire time. In light of these bad road conditions, we were especially happy to have opted for a car over the bus.

Nate, playing tour guide, and driving the beast.

We left Sana'a to see other lifestyles, however we just couldn't get away from qat, which is really cheap in Ethiopia of much better quality than that grown in Yemen (supposedly the President of Yemen only chews Ethiopian qat). Many long hours in the Cruiser were spent listening to our iPods and chewing qat, a lovely way to take in the Ethiopian countryside.

In Gondar we were able to visit a bar featuring traditional Ethiopian dance--Fernanda and I really took down the house with our own take on the shoulder shaking. We also took a tour of the series of castles which make Gondar famous, all built on a single compound by successive ruling kings during the 17th - 19th centuries. Gondar is also where I 1) ate uncooked vegetables, and 2) broke the bed with my knee in an acrobatic leap during the middle of the night from the bed the bathroom (where I then remained until sunrise).

After visiting Gondar, we headed up to Lalibela, which is known as the Petra of Africa. Lalibela boasts a dozen rock-hewn churches, constructed during the 12th century (each church is carved out of a single rock). The pictured church shows how they are subterranean (and massive!). UNESCO is currently constructing covers over the series of churches to protect them from further erosion from rain.

A monk, perched on a rock, showing off for us at one church.

After Lalibela we headed southeast to towards Dire Dawa (Awash region). Our guide prefaced our trip east (which took us pretty close to Djibouti) by telling us that the government is scared of the tribes in the east, and that if he were to hit a camel on the road he would be shot (and if someone else in a white car like ours were to hit a camel, we might be mistaken as the guilty party...and shot). This region boasted not only nomadic tribes of camel herders with AK-47s, but also a village that doubled as a black-market of stolen goods (Fergus bought a brand-new VDC player for $10). Our car held up the entire drive, until we got to the Awash region (shortly after passing a dead camel on the road), and we got a flat. No problem, except the jack was broken (our guide managed to fix it with a rock....?)

The main purpose of driving east, however, was not to buy stolen electronics, but to visit Awash National Park:

Although the park is sort of a joke of a nature reserve (they had one lion in 12' -wide cage, and then some monkies...our guide book said the park was good, however, for bird-watchers), we were required to hire a scout to accompany us on our "safari." Nate was excited, however, at the prospect of taking pictures with the scout's gun.

Morgan & Fernanda in Awash National Park.

After Awash we spent our last night of the tour in Kombucha, which is home to the St. George beer factory. After closing down the factory (you can't beat 20-cent bottled beers!!), our tour guide (who had also been taking full advantage of the cheap ales) took us on a little bar-hopping adventure. We have no idea who this man is, but he spent the better part of an hour dancing with Nate. And see the picture in the background? Every single bar in Ethiopia is plastered in these erotic posters (or maybe we just went to the really seedy bars?) -- what a difference from Yemen!

We returned to Addis and spent one last night in the big city before heading back to Sana'a. Our trip was amazing. Difficult at times (witnessing the prostitution of young girls, the poverty and death...and using the toilets which made Yemeni bathrooms look like they belonged in the Hilton), but I think we were all forced out of our comfort zones, which is how travel should be.