After Marieke and Jon left for Lalibela on their very early bus, Cheryl and I had a lazy morning, enjoying the superb buffet breakfast at our hotel and got a free ride to the airport with their airport shuttle at 10:30am. We still arrived way too early for our 12:30 flight. After a very short flight and a short wait, we found our very enthusiastic shuttle driver to take us to our fanciest hotel yet- a huge room with the comfiest beds ever. This turned out great, as there isn’t a whole lot to see in Addis, so we made the most of our room for the next 2.5 nights.
As we were here for Ethiopian Christmas, we had done some research to find out what would be going on, but after walking to the cathedral and sports ground and finding nothing, we opted instead for a quiet day, punctuated by a very nice and hilarious coffee ceremony that our hotel put on. It was supposed to be for the guests, I guess, but it had more of the feeling of being for the staff, likely who were working in Addis away from their families, and we got to be props for them. This feeling was reinforced when we went up to the bar to grab a drink but found only the staff, who invited us to join them for more coffee and cake. We went down to the other bar for a beer after.
We did do the touristy thing by checking out the National museum, home to the famous “Lucy” skeleton (or model anyway), with Ethiopia being home to so much human history. Other than that, we rode the relatively new skytrain, secured me a bus ticket to Harar, and drank a lot of coffee and juice. After a fast paced tour of the country, it was nice to have a lot of downtime.
Our last night Cheryl had to leave for the airport at 10:30pm, and I had a bus at 4:30am, but was woken up at 1:30am by the phone ringing in my room. I was very confused. The receptionist asked if I was coming down, so I asked what time it was, thinking maybe something had happened to my phone. When she responded “1:30am”, and I confirmed that was Western, not Ethiopian time, I was even more confused. I told her I was leaving at 4:30am, not 1:30am. She soon apologized and I went back to sleep for a couple of hours. I couldn’t fault her, as it was confusing having one person leaving at 10:30 for the airport and another at 4:30am for the bus station, and the hotel was giving us free rides to them both. Great service.
My bus was a real coach, my first in Ethiopia, so I didn’t mind the 11 hour ride so much. I slept a lot of it. My friend Gary from the Congo Nile Trail in Rwanda was already there, so I walked to the hotel he had reserved me a room and soon there were 5 of us out for dinner, as he had met others at a hostel in Addis.
We spent the next day exploring the city with a great guide, who showed off the history of the city and the melding of the Indian, Somalian, Arab and Ethiopian cultures that existed in the architecture, and most importantly for me, the food. While I was a little over Ethiopian staples by now, all in all the food has been the best in East Africa so far. Plus the coffee and sparkling water. And cheap (when not overcharged of course).
My last day in Harar I was by myself, so I went for a hike with a local guide and hibernated the rest of the day, avoiding the intense attention and harassment I experienced without the others (they had all gone back to Addis to get buses to the north as they were just starting their trip). I grabbed another early bus back to Addis, which only took 10 hours this time, and spent my last night at the one hostel in town. Back to Nairobi!
