Tue 4 Feb 2014 (27 Tir 2006) to Addis Ababa

Tue 4 Feb 2014 (27 Tir 2006) to Addis Ababa Enough of intercity busses for now. The slog from Lalibela to Addis Ababa is 2 days, and will not add to our scenic memory. Today is flight day for us. The airport is 23 km from town, a 70 birr minibus ride that takes 25-30 minutes. We have asked for a minibus to be at the hotel. Peter has asked for his own bus to be at the hotel and invited us along. We are packed and out on the streets at 6:30 AM looking for breakfast. Carol is walking gingerly, hoping her hip will warm up. Everything is quiet. Nothing is open. We see people sleeping in the street. We wander in on the BluLal restaurant. They are cleaning up from the night before. They have cartons and cartons of empty beer bottles, but no breakfast. We see boys carrying large baskets and bowls of bread from within the neighborhoods. They are making the restaurant deliveries. Each establishment gets its allotted share of rolls. Finally, our neighborhood coffee/fuul house opens. At this hour, they have bread and the "donuts" we saw previously. We order two "donuts" and two coffees. Alas: the "donuts" are just ordinary baked/fried bread which no special flavor or sweetness. Rest easy, Krispy Kreme. We are back at the hotel at 7:45. Peter is there and his bus is there, ready to go. We run to the room, grab our bags and Osprey backpack covers, return the room key, and go quickly to the bus. We are on, but Mike suddenly can't find the lock to his Osprey. He retraces his steps. No lock/no luck. Off we go. We are have a 10:40 AM 40 minute flight. Ethiopian Airlines absurdly requests that we be at the airport 2 hours early for this domestic trip. There is no reason for this. Lalibela Airport handles maybe 4 flights a day. We could get there 20 minutes before and be accommodated. Still, the bus is here, and off we go. The Swiss lady is not on our bus, but she is only 15 minutes behind us. We passengers advance through security. Our RFID-protected passport sleeves cause some burps, and Mike has to take off his watch to satisfy the metal detectors. There are several souvenir and tchotchke shops in the waiting area. Chinese tourists waiting for the Axum and the Addis planes stock up on tee shirts and you-name-it. One even wants to buy a carved stool. All-too-soon, we enter a sterile pre-flight room. No TV, no music, no food and (why? why?) nothing to buy during our 1 hour plus pre-boarding wait. Ethiopian surprise! We have assigned seats on our intercity buses. Our flight tickets say 14A, 14B. We get on the plane and it is "open seating." Carol and Mike end up in different rows. Carol sits next to a silent man who busies himself with an in-flight magazine. Mike sits next to a French geologist who is tracking the movements of the Rift Valley. This is a very large international effort, involving placing very sophisticated expensive tracking instruments throughout the Rift Valley, and hiring local Afar people to make sure the equipment doesn't get damaged by weather, critters or humans(he says the standard rate is 300-500 birr a month just to guard one instrument). He adds that these measurements will tell us whether the Ethiopian Rift Valley will be like the Red Sea in 10 million or 50 million years. Mike tells him that he was in Adipazari, Turkey, 19 days before the 1999 huge earthquake. The Frenchman says that the next earthquake in that series will be to the west of Adipazari and will be much bigger. This means that Istanbul could be the center of an 8+ Richter scale earthquake in the near future. The geologist points out that many of the travel expenses for which he needs reimbursement are dated according to the Ethiopian calendar: "2006." He is constantly explaining at work that his receipts are not 7 years old. Mike, Carol, Peter, and the Swiss lady land. She is flying on to Harar, and so has a 4 hour layover in the Addis airport. The three of us collect our luggage and proceed to find a taxi to Piassa. Arriving passengers are like fish in a barrel for airport taxi drivers. Much bargaining takes place to get the fare to 210 birr (divisible by 3, which the driver-requested 230 birr was not). Finally, one driver accedes, and we are off. We are again staying at Taitu Hotel. We arrive about 1-ish and are given an old historic room in the main building, on the second floor, for $32 a night. This room has 12-foot ceilings. It also has character out the wazoo, with huge wooden furniture and a dated bathroom the size of our previous digs. We settle in and eat the vegan buffet (65 birr) at the hotel restaurant. That afternoon we spend a good deal of time on the internet, together and separately. While Mike inputs drafts down the street, Carol doubles back to Taitu and spends some time on the terrace speaking with two older female tourists from Australia and Belgium. The Aussie woman must have been quite a hellion in her younger days, acquiring travel companions to visit places solo women couldn't easily access. The Belgian reports that she also experienced headache and fatigue in Gonder, even without having traveled to the even higher altitudes of the Simien mountains. It's nice to find peers who are still active and on the go. During computer breaks, Mike spends some more time talking to Peter, who is staying at Baro Hotel the next street over. Peter, like most of the Piassa backpacker tourists, comes to the Taitu restaurant and garden terrace to relax. Peter related his passport story. As a young man, he followed the Magic Bus/hippie path to India. There, he eventually ran out of money. He attached himself to a Buddhist temple, where he was fed and given a place to sleep. Eventually, Peter found his worldly possessions unnecessary, etc, etc. One day he burned his passport for warmth. Such enlightenment. Several years later, Peter was ready to return to Europe, so he reported his passport stolen, got a replacement passport, crossed a few borders to get some stamps in the passport, and with some companions made his way overland back to Europe. Now Peter is an antiquarian book seller in Frankfurt. Carol's conclusion - a most charming fabulist and a most diverting storyteller. The Lalibela-bound young woman tourist we meet at the bus depot in Gashena was also in the Taitu garden. Paths overlap on the backpacker circuit. She and Peter are both interested in visiting Arba Minch. Details to follow, perhaps. For dinner in Addis, Mike and Carol return to KG Corner next door to Taitu. And to bed. Curiosities: Women's hair is one of the glories of "habesha" (Abyssinian) beauty. In the Tigrai, we have seen some interesting styles. One involves cornrows straight back to just over the top of the head, with hair then loose behind. What makes this interesting is a wispy-thin tight braid that is drawn from both sides to meet in the middle of the forehead, where it is joined by a similar itsy-bitsy braid from the front of the scalp. Hard to explain, but really neat. Other women have a somewhat bouffant pouf of hair on the top and sides. Many (older) Christian women have faint blue cross tattoos on their foreheads and faces. Of course, all of this is frequently covered by the netela shawl or a Islamic scarf.