Heritage Plaza Hotel Harar

... and honey tasted. We're now in Harar, which is another holy city. There is old and new city. New city is just a "typical" African city, though there seems to be A LOT more begging here compared to the other places. The old city is a muslim city with big walls surrounding it. Last night we all got to feed wild Hyenas, yes real Hyenas, meat on a stick...from our mouths. It was crazy. When I get to a faster computer maybe I will try and upload some. A lot of ...

... cleans and scours the soul like fear, removing psychological debris and detritus long caked on and ground in, leaving you whiter if no brighter. The bus doesn't actually leave at five of course, but at some signal in the vast subconscious, (a cock's crow maybe, or the opening of a gate?) when they all, like a flock of birds ready to fly, decide to make a move for the exit at the same time and they all position their jockeys and begin ...

... of meat at a time on the end of a stick and the hyena come up and grab it from the stick. The men actually put the stick, which is maybe six inches long, in their mouths and feed the hyena from their mouths. I was the first person they asked to feed the hyena. I wasn't about to feed it from my mouth though. An outstretched arm is good enough for me! Tomorrow I'm leaving on an 8 day tour of the Lower Omo ...

... side. One of the main reasons harar is famous is for the hyena feeding by the men at the city walls. We really could have done with hiring a taxi for the time so we could really see what we were doing and so we could take good photos... the hyenas were huge and very well fed so were not a danger. I even fed one by putting a bit of meat at the end of a stick!!! There were not many places to eat or drink in the town , but a new restaurant Fresh Touch was good.

... me I must come to immigration. He took my passport and put an entry stamp on my Ethiopian visa. He didn't even look at my Djibouti visa! After 4 or 5 more hours everyone had finished passing through customs and rebordered the train. It was mostly a pleasant ride on train through northeastern Ethiopia and I enjoyed looking out the door at the landscape. I arrived in Dire Dawa late in the ...

... with/without shower were 50/35 birr. I chose "with" but later realized that the entire hotel lacked running water, you had to dip from a large pail. (Water routinely goes on and off all over Ethiopia, but it seems a bit much to rent someone a room "with shower" if water never comes out of it). Johannes gamely led me through the walled city for a couple of hours, declining my suggestions to rest as his limp became more pronounced. He asked for a 5-birr ...

... wanted 50. Services providers have developed a variety of responses that have proven effective in extracting larger fees: feigned surprise, amused puzzlement, outright bewilderment, indignation, even occasionally anger and threats. My guy went straight to indignation and stayed there. He eventually took the 5, but asking for 50 isn't a bad strategy. If you ask for 5, you'll never get more than 5; if you ask for 50 you may get 10 or 20, and once ...

... were asking an exoberant fee equivalent of a bus drivers salary for 2 weeks ($15) and again, we didn't think that was right. So backpacks on again, we trooped across town following the lads to the 2nd private house. It was a looooong trek in the midday sun and we were more than exhausted when we got to the house, to find that there were no rooms... Disillusioned, we ditched the lads and decided ...

... scatter to get out of the path of learner drivers as they made wide circles on the red ground, kicking up dust. The cars are little Beetles - I've not seen them anywhere else in the country. Maybe they are special learning cars? There were a load of vultures in the trees parallel with the window. We spent a good few minutes trying to get pictures of them - as with most birds, they are camera shy and often choose to fly off at the ...

... the woman resolved it - she stepped out of the cab and said we should go without her. Initially we objected but she reasoned that she couldn't leave without him and we shouldn't be late on account of them. We thanked her and left her on the curb. Antoneh better have turned up quickly with a good excuse - we had vouched for him and convinced the woman to take him as her guide. I hope he has not betrayed that trust. As it turned out, giving us ...