Ethiopia, Part Two

One thing I forgot to mention in my last update was our last night in Mekele. Girmay took us to a local club for some traditional dancing to finish off our Timkat celebrations. We all got up and had a bit of dance, shaking our shoulders in the traditional style. A little later in the evening a local singer came on who was very popular. People kept getting up and sticking money on his head. There seemed to be a bit of competition as to who would stick the most money on forehead. Afterwards a drunk Russian got up and started singing. He was part of a group of Russians who are here training Ethiopians to fly Migs. It was a bit surreal to see a Russian singing melancholy songs at an Ethiopian festival. I got up and stuck 1 birr note to head (worth about 7p) but was outdone by a local who went and stuck an even more worthless coin on his head.

From Mekele it was a two day bus journey to Lalibela. The main draw here is the rock hewn churches. They have been carved out of the rock in the ground, so that the rooves are at ground level and do look rather impressive, especially the chuch of Saint George. Lalibela was also notable for its lack of fruit and pastries. Thankfully there was beer in town though. From here it was another two days on a bus to Addis Ababa, still traveling with Nick. When we first got on the bus there was a massive scrum for seats and a bit of a crush on the bus. As someone squeezed past me something didn't feel right and I realised that my wallet had gone from my pocket. Luckily because the bus was so full the thief wasn't able to get off the bus. I accused him of taking my wallet and then found it still in his hand. I took it back from him and made sure everyone on the bus knew what he had been up to - ha ha!

On arrival in Addis I can't say I was too keen to get on a bus again in a hurry. I worked out that in the previous three weeks, seven days had been spent on buses. I had to sort out my Djibouti visa, which took a few days and needed a letter of recommendation the UK embassy again, at a cost of 40 quid (more than twice as much as the cost of visa). Before coming away I had always thought that one of the roles of an embassy was there to help out its citizens when they are abroad. I now realise that the British ones, at least, seem to be in the business of robbing there own citizens blind.

Other than spending lots of time running round embassies, I also ate well in Indian and Italian restaurants, drank plenty and watched a few games of Premiership football. The locals here are mad for the premiership. I they think televise more games here than they do at home and all the kids can tell you just about everyting you could ever want to know about the league. I've met a few guys who have heard of the mighty Watford.

After Addis I went to Harar and caught up with Nick, who had gone the day before, and Sean (South Africa) and Nave (Israel) who we first met in Addis. There isn't that much to do in Harar so we spent three days doing not a lot. There was a really nice German guy in town who is the brewmaster at the local brewery, which explained why the Harar beer is the best I have had since I've been away. He invited to the brewery and showed us round, then we all got pissed for free.

The real reason for coming to Harar is to see the hyena man, who feeds the hyenas every evening. We all took it turns to feed the hyenas. It was quite strange because they were quite timid and none of us were at all scared of feeding them. It was quite a surreal experience and I had to remind myself of what I had just done afterwards.

Harar pretty much spelt the end of my first journey in Ethiopia (I will be coming back after Eritrea). From here myself and Nick went to Djibouti. Most people have never heard of this place and there's not too much to say about. It's just a necessary stop for me to pick up an Eritrean visa and Nick to get a boat to Yemen. It was actually nice to get my Eritrean visa. The consul at the embassy was really pleased I had chosen to go to Eritrea and invited me for coffee and asked me to call back when I return from Eritrea - I think the UK embassies could learn something from this. I was planning to get a boat up to Eritrea, but got very disillusioned with idea very quickly and took the easy way out and bought myself a flight, said goodbye to Nick, my travel companion of the last month and flew off to Eritrea with my expectations high.

Ethiopia, Part One

Well it's been a little a while since I updated the blog and I've now left Ethiopia, temporarily at least and am in Djibouti where the internet is usable again - hurrah! Anyway here's part one of what I got up to Ethiopia.

My first port of call was Metema which is the border town between Sudan and Ethiopia. I don't have much good to say about the place, but had to stop here for a night before moving on the next day. Well the big highlight of Metema was having a beer for the first time in God know's long. It was also my first introduction to injera, a kind of sour pancakey type thing the locals eat served with undercooked goat meat. Well I wasn't too impressed but over the last few weeks injera has grown on me although I do avoid it most of the time. Metema was also memorable for when I woke in the middle of the night to find a rat chewing a hole in my backpack to get at my stash of peanut butter.

I was quite happy to leave Metema, and leaving meant my first introduction to the fun of getting buses in Ethiopia. It doesn't matter how long or short your bus journey in Ethiopia is or what town you catch a bus from, they always leave at 6am. And to be sure of getting a seat you quite often have to be at the bus station at 5am or earlier. Incidentally time works a bit differently in Ethiopia. The days starts at 6am so this for them is midnight, then 7am our time becomes 1am Ethiopian time etc. It can be a tad confusing at first, but you get used to it after a while. They also have thirteen months in the year here and on top of that the year in Ethiopia is actually 1998. So anyway I got to the bus station at 5am (or 11pm if your Ethiopain) and then spent a joyful couple of hours waiting for the bus driver to sell everyone tickets and load stuff on to the top the bus. It all took rather much longer than it needed to. Luckily a local guy looked after me and ensured I didn't get ripped off for my bus ticket. He had also helped me out the night before when some little brat tried to overcharge me for a hotel room and give me a bad exchange rate.

Anyway I finally arrived in Gondar, after the slowest bus journey ever, later that day. Gondar is overrun with kids on the street trying to sell you stuff or "help" you in some way or another, and I met quite a few of them as I looked for a hotel room. I was a bit tired and this was all a bit of a shock after the tranquility of Sudan. I finally got a hotel and after a bit of rest realised that actually the hassle wasn't that bad and some of the kids were actually quite funny and entertaining. I spent five days in Gondar not doing much in particular. I visited the castle and met up with the crazy cyclist Dan again.

I also met Nick (UK) and Carlos (Brazil) here. The three of us headed off together to do a trek in the Simien mountains. You need a scout kitted out with Kalashnikov to trek the mountains just in case a cheetah attacks. As well as this we had a guide, cook, and two muleteers making a rather large entourage of five people for just three trekkers. Now a lot of people's idea of Ethiopia (including mine until not long ago) is of war and famine and desert. The reality is surprisingly different. I'm not sure many people realise there are mountains in Ethiopia and the Simiens are very beautiful. I also got to see the Gelada baboons which for a monkey man such as myself was very exciting indeed.

After the Simiens Carlos went to back to Gondar and I continued round the "northern circuit" with Nick, next stop Axum to see the stelae. The Stelae date back 2000 years and yet they look very modern and don't seem to have aged at all - well the ones that haven't fallen over that is. There wasn't much else to do in Axum, except eat pastries and drink juice or beer, so the next day we continued on to Mekele.

We met a local guy, Girmay, on the bus to Mekele who runs an english school there. He became our guide for our time here - somewhat of a mixed blessing. Now there isn't that much to do in Mekele, except eat pastries and drink juice or beer, but myself and Nick managed to spend four days here. On the second day with Girmay's help we visited a couple of rock hewn churches in the area. One involved a climb up a rockface to get to it (it sounds more intrepid than it was). The priest showed us the church and some humans bones as well - not sure where they came from. The rest of our time was spent in Mekele where Girmay took to his school to meet the pupils and showed us around town and generally wouldn't leave us alone.

We spent the festival of Timkat with Girmay. We ate with his family and drank some kind of alcoholic beverage that resembled pond water, and then had coffee. It was good to spend Timkat with locals and Girmay was very kind to us, even buying myself and Nick a couple of quality Ethiopia wallets when we left.

From here it was onto to Lalibela and more rock hewn churches, but that is enough for now. I will endeavour to complete the story of Ethiopia in due course...