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A taste of Addis Ababa

Friday April 04 2014

We got up at 5am to take the bus to Addis Ababa. The distance between Addis Ababa and Hawassa is 271 kilometres; time taken to get there by bus is about five hours.

The landscape transformed from nature interspersed with buildings, to chains of restaurants, eateries, and lodgings, and then office buildings and city life.

Traffic was practically non-existent due to the low number of private cars in the capital. Addis is a huge city. For about 30 minutes, we drove through what looked like the central business district before we got to the bus stage.

When we got to the city centre, we called our contact person who would get us accommodation and show us around the city. He told us to go towards the stadium. The stadium in Addis has all sorts of leather shops all around it.

We went to a restaurant across the road for a meal. The burgers were huge, and after we had eaten we called our contact again for further directions.

Many places in Addis are named after countries, for example Mexico and Bulgaria. I never figured out if this was because of the location of the embassies or just a diplomatic shout-out to people of the world. We would be staying in Bulgaria, in a house rented by AIESEC — an international student organisation — in Addis.

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The AU building is near Bulgaria and we stopped to see it. It is built in two parts; the lower part is circular, with a sphere surrounded by 270 degrees of buildings, and the outer ring looks like stadium seating. To one side of this structure is an imposing tower where the flags of African nations fly high.

After dropping off our bags, we went to Bole. According to our Internet research, Bole is the place to be for three young men looking to have a good time. We took a taxi to the last stop which was at a bridge close to the airport. We walked along the road taking in the sights. A church to our right had a large compound.

We also noticed a number of massage parlours offering 24-hour service. For weary travellers who had come nearly 2,000 kilometres on bad roads and uncomfortable buses, the massages looked tempting.

We were impressed by how wide the roads in the city are. Even though it was April, in Ethiopia Christmas was coming soon; here it is celebrated in early May. The malls and the roundabouts had been decked out in colourful lights.

We went to one of the massage parlours. The cost of a full body massage was 200 birr ($10.4). We were led into separate massage rooms. Mine was red and had a mattress with a pillow in the middle. There was soft Amharic music drifting through the room and light from a candle on the side. The scent filling the room came from an incense burner in the corner. The effect was instantly relaxing.

I was asked to take off my clothes and wait for the masseuse. She walked into the room and lit a fire under a little metallic crucible to warm the massage oil that she would use. She rubbed away all the tension that had accumulated in my body.

Afterwards, we went for dinner and then to the beer garden. The beer garden in Addis brews its own drink. They have dark and light beer, sold for 140 birr ($7.3). We sat on benches outdoors and made friends with Ethiopian girls who were there with a man from Yemen.

They suggested we go to the Stockholm bar as that was the only place with any action on a Tuesday night in April. At Stockholm bar, the beers were expensive. We soon left and made our way back to Bulgaria.

After trying to give the taxi driver directions, we promptly got lost. The taxi driver left us some distance from our house, but on foot things looked familiar and we got there.

On the morning of December 31 by the Gregorian calendar, which is April 24 by the Ge’ez calendar used in Ethiopia, we wanted to walk around the city centre and see the ethnological museum, the national museum, and the Holy Trinity Cathedral; all beautiful buildings with history and significance for the Ethiopian people.

Before coming on the trip I had read up on the stone churches of Lalibella to the north. The churches are hewn out of rock with stone altars, pulpits, doors, windows, and even the rooms. We would not get to see them.

We left the house and, for the first time in our lives, had injera for breakfast. We bought a bottle of the local gin and started our New Year’s Eve celebrations. Even the liquor in Ethiopia tastes spicy, as if it has chillies added to it sometime in the production process.

We did not see a single monument, did not visit a museum, and did not pray in any church. Instead we talked to a young Ethiopian about the state of politics in the country. He told us about the federal nature of the government, and that it was made of states with different constitutions.

Then it was dinner time. There were some other Kenyans in the group and they said they wanted to eat downtown. What we should have explained to the Ethiopian who took us was that in Kenya when someone says they want to go downtown for anything, they mean they want to go into the part of town with low prices. Instead he took us to a restaurant called Downtown; an expensive place. We decided to celebrate New Year’s Eve there.

We found some people who were going to a club called Champions. There seems to be a social independence among women in Ethiopia. There were groups of beautiful women all around the club.

For much of the night I was looking around until my eyes hurt.

As the New Year drew closer, the DJ played songs that had been hits during the year. The year turned and everyone cheered; we partied until around 3am and went home. The next day we would begin our return trip to Kenya.

NEXT WEEK: The return journey

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