Addis Ababa

Well, we're almost done with our two days in Addis Ababa.  For some reason we can't get to our blog from this internet cafe so I'm hoping this email thing works.  As I'm sitting here I feel like I have nothing to write even though I feel like it's been a bit of a whirlwind here.  

Addis is very green and mountainous compared to Dakar and from up on Entoto mountain looking out it it looks a bit like areas outside Seattle...but up close that is definitely not the case because I don't remember the last time I ran into a donkey walking or driving around Seattle! =)  There are LOTS of donkeys here which makes sense with all the hills and mountains I guess. The weather is also much more like Seattle than Dakar and for most of the time here we've been wearing long pants and long sleeves...and rain coats because we got here at the beginning of the rainy season.  Today hasn't been too bad, just a few sprinkles, but yesterday there were a couple of good downpours!  The thing is when it rains here all the "sidewalks" get really muddy so our shoes and the bottoms of our pants are a mess from walking around the city today!

When we arrived on Tuesday night we had to stand in some pretty long lines to get a visa and go through customs.  We were happy to find that our hotel had a booth in the airport and the shuttle was very easy.  The Harmony hotel is very nice and probably like a 3 or 3.5 star hotel in the US.  One funny thing about the hotel is that the nightstand next to the bed has like 6 switches on it that control various lights around the room as well as a "do not disturb" light that comes on outside your room. =)  Weds morning we called this guy who's number we'd gotten from the hotel person at the airport to arrange a tour of the city.  It was not very cheap and ended up being like $60 but it was easier so we did it anyway.  First we stopped at the National Museum and saw some historical things including Lucy (no longer the oldest, but probably the most famous ancient homosapien).  There was a school field trip there at the same time and all the kids wanted to shake our hands and say hello which was cute.

Next we drove up to Entoto mountain and had some nice views of the city and surrounding area.  Lots of eucalyptus trees (not native...came from Australia) as well as some native evergreens.  There were lots of people walking up and down the mountain, many women carrying big loads of branches or leaves on their backs.  We asked about it but didn't really understand what it was or what it's used for.  The "rich farmers" use donkeys to carry their loads and some would have groups of like 8 donkeys headed up the mountains.  On Entoto mountain we saw another museum and Menelik II's old palace.  We saw the outside of many old churches and paid to go into one with floor to ceiling paintings that we will post pictures of at some point.  That same church had an older stone church that was carved out by hand many years ago.  Ethiopia has a long history of Christianity and is primarily Orthodox.  There are LOTS of churches here!  Our guide, Afework said there has been an increase in Islam but only about 47% of the population is Islamic and he said relations are very good.  On the way back to the hotel we drove by the merkato, the largest open air market in Africa; it was VERY busy and trafficky and we saw LOTS of market stalls.  Open market stalls are everywhere here like in Senegal, but not as much microcommerce with people carrying their goods and selling to the cars.  The funniest thing was that while we were driving through the market we saw a man wearing a Saint Louis University Billikens sweatshirt!  Oh, and in Ethiopia white people are called "ferengi" (sp?) and it's funny cuz they'll just call it out as you walk by.  

Today we had the option to have Afework drive us outside of the city but it was kind of expensive and we decided to just relax a bit and explore the city on our own a little more.  We worked out at the hotel gym this morning (Scooter, that's for you!) and checked out of the hotel but stored our bags with them.  We happened to run into Afework coming to get the rest of his money and he drove us to the Ethnological museum at Addis Ababa University.  It was a very nice museum actually and quite informative.  Then we decided to be very brave and walk back towards our hotel and only get a cab if we didn't recognize where we were. (No guidebook, printed map without the hotel marked, and very few street signs made this a little difficult!)  We finally made it to a place we recognized (after a couple of doubtful moments where we considered getting a taxi but didn't see one) and are killing a little time online and then headed back to the hotel to get our bags and head to the airport!  We're looking forward to Delhi and being somewhere we havea guidebook for!  

Oh a couple of random things before we go...  Ethiopia runs on a different time schedule...so when it's 6am they call it 0 hours and noon is 6.  Kind of strange!  And instead of a plethora of mangoes, here they have  million bananas; they are everywhere!!  The internet is cheap (like $1/hr) but there are people waiting and we need to get something to eat before we go!

Keep the comments coming!  And if you do text messaging, we can receive texts for free and it's just a nice connection to home.  We have to pay to send them though so sorry we can't respond! =)  (Thanks Marty, Jess & Denise for the text updates!)

-Mari & Michelle