Travel article: Addis Abeba

 

Ethiopia, Abyssinia, the cradle of humanity has long attracted us and will be our last African destination.

 

Freshly arrived in Addis Ababa, we discover an alphabet that we do not know (the Amharic alphabet) and especially that we have traveled in time: we are in the year 2011- the Ethiopian calendar being based on the incarnation of Jesus and not his birth.

Cedric is 25 years old again and can’t be happier!

Time is not the same either. The counting of hours is not done from midnight but from 6 am. Thus, when the sun is at the zenith (noon), it is the 6th hour of the day, the first hour coinciding at about dawn, ie after the twelfth hour of night.

 

What make all our European knowledge useless;) will have to be careful when booking a bus! In practice they leave when they are full, for that the new system of time measurement has not changed anything, we must wait always wait!

 

Last thing to note that marked us immediately, Wednesday and Friday are "fasting days" and also many more periods during the year. Which makes the most religious person vegan half of the year. Outside of these days, it is very difficult to find vegetarian dishes.

 

We will test in the first evening the Injera (teff crepe) with Shiro, a sauce with peas and tomato, red. A little acid and lemony, we quickly understand that the next three weeks will be hard from a culinary point of view;)

 

If Addis Ababa will not leave us an unforgettable memory we will note the dynamism of the city. There are scaffoldings everywhere! (more or less stable, we are still in Africa).

 

To get around we jump into many taxis and when we ask about "taxi-meter" we are told "no, negotiation time!". The tone is given, we will negotiate hard!

We will visit the National Museum to meet our ancestor Lucy- a set of bones. The first hominid skeleton, more than 3.2 million years old, Lucy is important for our History. However we discover that much older and complete skeletons were discovered later but are less known as Toumai which is 7 million years old!

 

Finally a short tour to the Ethnological Museum to discover more about the history and the tribes of Ethiopia. Unfortunately the presentation and structure of the museum will not help us to learn more...We will have at least discovered the palace of Emperor Haile Selassie, rather tired.

 

In the evening, we attend a show of local dances and music. Many colors, swaying rhythms, we become a fan of Ethiopian music (and fortunately because we will hear some during our long hours of local bus!)

 

Two days in Addis Ababa that went quickly although for us it was just a step to organize our next steps.

 

Next destination: Lalibela, the Jerusalem of Africa!

 

Some recommendations:

# It is important to enter Ethiopia with Ethiopian Airlines to benefit from 50-75% discounts on domestic flights. It is very easy to book domestic flights from the offices of Ethiopian Airlines. First time buying a ticket not on internet, we told you that we have gone back in time;)

# Online Visa: $ 52 USD per person. Very quick to apply and even more to get confirmation!

# We stayed at Vamos Guest House for 700 birr per night. It's ok but not perfectly located. However, free transportation to and from the airport is convenient.

# Ethnological museum: 100 birr per person. Not really interesting.

# National museum: 10 birr per person. To meet our ancestors!

# we ate at Efoy a succulent pizza.

# show at Habesha 2000 with the young and rich of the Capital city . It's nice ! From 7pm.

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