On my way!!!
Trip Start
Feb 20, 2007
1
38
Trip End
Jun 2007
Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia
Thursday, February 22, 2007
I had to spend the night in Heathrow which was fairly uncomfortable but I managed a few hours sleep before getting up at half four to check in. The flight to Frankfurt was delayed, which meant I just made it onto my flight to Addis, a fortune my backpack did not share. I was told it would be put on the next flight. A minor setback, but not the end of the world.
The flight here was incredible. Starting with a passage over the snow capped Austrian and Italian Alps, over the med, and then over the expanses of Egyptian and Sudanese desert. I knew how long the Sahara stretched for, but the sight of hundred of kilometers of reddish yellow sand, with no sign of civilization whatsoever was mind blowing.
We landed for an hour in Khartoum, which appeared to be a huge village built in the desert, with occasional roads and sandy paths everywhere else. The sun set while we were there so I missed the views of Northern Ethiopia, which I would have loved to have seen.
In Addis Ababa I had to queue for about an hour to get my visa, and then for another hour to report that my bag was not there. I was told it will arrive the day after tomorrow, a slight inconvenience, as I had hoped to move on before then. They gave me about $100 for my troubles, so it's not all bad!
I managed to find myself a taxi easily enough and he drove me to my hotel in the Piazza area. He threatened to drop me 100m before it as he said he was worried there were "teef" there, which I eventually understood to be "thieves". In retrospect it was clearly a ploy to get a tip out of me, but I got him to drop me at the door for the agreed price.
So I got myself into a simple enough room, clean, but shared with a few cockroaches. Addis Ababa is 2500m above sea level, so the climate is quite cool, even chilly at night. I wrapped myself up in bed and went to sleep, after a few hours contemplating the adventure that lies ahead, accommpanied by the sounds of drunken men shouting at the Barca-Liverpool game which was being shown in a bar next door.
