Extreme Addis Ababa

... be requested at Khartoum (Sudan).<br><br>Mission completed!<br><br>Next stopover: Karthoum in Sudan. Route: Addis Ababa, Gonder, Metema/Quallabat (Border Ethiopia to Sudan), Gedaref, Khartoum. Time: 1 Week<br><br>By today, the travel up north to Europe is not entirely clear or decided: The experiences of many travelers coming from north about Egypt has been ALL so bad, that ...

... one male and one female, that they look cute together, they suggest that I should snap up the thirteen y.o. girl with her hand outstretched. The girl immediately comes over closer and strokes my... arm-hairs. They ask where I'm from, wondering If I'm Chinese. I guess it's not obvious with my baseball cap and sunglasses on. I respond that I'm American, lifting my glasses and showing my eyes. That seems to quell any further ...

... to man but they certainly have not invested in relationship building with me.  I have subsequently upgraded and am doing just fine. The only draw back is that this is the time when the orthodox Christians are fasting so can you believe THERE IS NO MEAT - even fish is considered meat because fish bleeds apparently.  Never really being intimately involved with fish I haven't noticed the blood - I mean one does not really do medium rare fish does one - apart from sushi ...

... airport and you want to go out to the city? But why? How can you do that - you have a plane to catch in 5 hours! I swear it took several minuted to explain what we want to do. The kind man, who really wanted to help us, couldn't understand at the beginning what we want to do. It didn't make sense to him. The guy went to the passport control, and talked to the lady who check the foreign passports while entering Ethiopia. It took a little while until ...

... feel about that. From what I've gathered, up until very recent times, the tribes of this area that has become Ethiopia were hunter gatherers and farmers. This is the Cradle of Humanity, humans have existed here for millions of years without aid from other countries. So why do they need it now ? Money and wealth are Western concepts and so poverty, the lack of money and wealth, must also be a Western concept. The West has introduced the needs and desires that weren't there ...

... hangovers, sunburn and me panicing about my scar so we headed back to stone town via some *******ing police, will came out to meet us and we all just chilled out and ate! The next day (last full day in zanzi) we went to prison island, which we thought is where you swim with turtles, we planned to leave at 2, and didnt do too bad at a 4.30 departure on a little orange boat with 2 rasta mates called saidi and dulla (or if your me and forget..dalladalla ...

... macchiatos. Yes, the one saving grace about Addis is the delicious coffees and lattes you can get, thanks to the Italians. It's all top quality, and ridiculously cheap. They also left quite a legacy of good pizza and pastas, and some of the buildings have art-deco type designs, all very pleasing to the eye. Business-wise, we accomplished quite a bit today. After picking up our Egyptian visas and dropping off the passports at the Sudanese Embassy for Sudan visa applications ...

... plates. The funny thing was our 31 year old Brit, Jeremy, grossed out the tribal natives by exhibiting his tongue stud, eyelid piercing and arm tattooes. Of course many of the natives maintained some of their traditional ways so they could charge for every ...

... He insists that he only offers technical expertise on occasion. It was quite impressive. Three or four grow rooms, from 100 - 400 square feet in size, were constructed out of poles and scraps. The roof and walls were mainly made of tarps or old bags, with some corrugated metal added. The shelves, also made of poles tied or nailed together, were full of blocks of mushroom mycelium either fruiting or ...

The total plane ride from SFO to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia took around 18+ hours. Okay...so after being stuck on the plane for that long I was really tired and very anxious to get off. Even before I got off the plane I felt the love for the country. As soon as we landed everyone on the plane clapped and was saying "eee lil lil lil" sorta like Middle Eastern tribal calling, signifying happiness and joy. I was glad to be home. My best friend ...