Leaving Ethiopia
So I’ve been meaning to write this for a while.. to write something about how absolutely fucking exceptional it feels to be back in Africa. Unfortunately, I put it off until my day at the airport in between Ethiopia and Somaliland, and for anyone who knows much about flying in sub-Saharan Africa, it isn’t always the most low stress of times…. my flight “didn’t exist” for a while in all of the computers, and then turned up, scheduled for 10:40, instead of the 8:30 listed on my ticket. Yeah it could be worse, but it sure makes me resent waking up at 5:45 to catch this “early morning” flight.
I suppose the first indications hould have been that it’s an international flight leaving from the domestic terminal. I’ve taken a few of these and they never seem to end that well.
Anyway, Ethiopia has been amazing. I don’t know if it s a difference in the culture here or the fact that I”m a different kind of traveller than I was when I first came to the continent four years ago, but things are going really, really, easily. Public transport has been fine, although I did make the mistake of getting trapped in the rain my first day here (I’ll upload pictures of this somewhat hilarious incident when internet is good enough to make that worthwhile), and getting a pretty nasty sunburn that I am still trying to shake, unfortunate being that I am headed to the Gulf of Aden to soak up the warmth for a few days. But what I think matters the most is this:
Addis is pretty much the friendliest, and certainly safest, African capital city I have ever been in. Perhaps its size helps, it’s only 3 million people, so a city like Nairobi sort of pales in comparison, even more so if we count the north African cities like Cairo. But I didn’t take a single bus or share-taxi ride here without someone being genuinelly interested in talking, hearing about my trip, and hearing my impressions of their City, something that certainly wasn’t always the case when I was in Kenya or Uganda.
I really want to come back here and do a bit more exploring…. I’ve even been thinking about it for this summer, although I have Myanmar and Thailand planned and am pretty excited about the prospects of that trip as well. Perhaps the following summer?
Anyway, Addis is awesome. Now to eat a shady omelitte from a street vendor in front of the airport and wait for my alleged flight.
Andrew
