After Lusaka, our next stop was Zanzibar. That was the plan, and had been the plan for a while. But flights there were incredibly expensive. I was getting very discouraged while looking for flights back in South Luangwa (you’ll remember that I was fairly on edge about expenses while there…)

An interesting answer materialized. For a little more than the cheapest tickets available, Ethiopian Airlines had flights that connected through Addis Ababa. But Ethiopian will let you extend that layover period, and keep the flights at the same price. So we did that, giving ourselves two nights in Addis, for no extra cost. Our super expensive flights to Zanzibar just gave us a practically free trip to Ethiopia!

We got to our hotel somewhat late, so rather than go out for dinner, we opted for dinner at the hotel restaurant. And unlike you’d expect from a hotel, it was cheap and good! This boded well for our plan of “eat all the delicious Ethiopian food.”

One Day Isn’t Enough

We only had one full day in town, so it was going to be something of a whirlwind. Part one: we needed money. So we went to an ATM nearby which… wouldn’t give us money. Okay, no problem, not the first time that’s happened. There’s one over there, let’s go over to… okay it’s not giving us money either. Strike two… okay there’s a third one it’s… it’s just an ATM standing kind of in the middle of a parking lot, that’s weird and uncomfortable but if it’ll give us money… oh okay, it won’t.

Shit.

Fortunately, as the saying goes, fourth time is the charm, and we were holding some beautiful Birr of our own. Armed with these beauties, it was time for part two: get coffee.

Ethiopian Coffee

Ethiopia is widely regarded as having some of the best coffee in the world, and for good reason. Even the coffee the hotel had with breakfast was great. Obviously, we didn’t have long in town, so we decided to go to the coffee shop that everybody talks about, Tomoca.

Being so widely and highly regarded, my spidey sense told me this place would have good coffee, but you could probably get better. It’d probably be a little expensive, and a little touristy. But, with being there such a short time, it felt like the right choice.

It was definitely the right choice. Maybe you could find better coffee in Addis, but I can’t imagine what that would taste like. This coffee was excellent, and was quite cheap. Even better: it wasn’t touristy at all. The place was packed, and packed with Ethiopians. There wasn’t another white face in the room when we got there.

Tomoca is adorable, with no seats, just standing room only bars around the room. As I mentioned, it was packed, so we got our coffee, smushed ourselves into a small available place at one of the bars, and enjoyed our excellent drinks while taking in some people watching. Which was lovely, because…

Ethiopian People

…are the most beautiful people in the world! At the time of this writing, we’ve been to 39 countries on the trip now, so obviously I’m qualified to say this. They are just universally beautiful. The men are beautiful. The women are beautiful. I hear your Danish and your Austrians and such, and you’re not wrong, but I’ll go into battle any day with my Ethiopians and I will destroy you. In a beauty contest, of course.

A Tour With Zola

Whew… anyway, after getting all hot and bothered with our coffee, we headed back to the hotel to find a driver who could take us around to the sights. Our hotel hooked us up with a man named Zola, who for an inexpensive rate, offered to take us around to a few spots we wanted to see over the next few hours.

The first place we went was the Holy Trinity Cathedral. On top of, apparently, being the 2nd most important place of worship in the country, it is also where emperor Haile Salassie is buried. Unfortunately, when we got there, we found out there was an entrance fee of something like 200 ETB–$8 USD–per person. When $8 can get us each a couple meals, we decided that was a bit much, so we headed back to Zola to go on to stop two.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Stop two was the National Museum of Ethiopia, where admission was, at the other extreme, an almost criminally cheap 10 ETB (about $0.35). The museum opens up with some rather poor exhibits, but eventually you wind your way around to the star of the show: Lucy, the Australopithecus skeleton discovered not far from Addis Ababa, and one of the most important human ancestor fossils ever discovered. The entire paleontology exhibit is very good, but everyone is here to see Lucy.

The National Museum also contains an exciting art exhibit, full of painting and sculpture from Ethiopian artists. I thought the contemporary painting, especially, was quite striking. Like the art museum we browsed in Harare, Zimbabwe, it’s different than what I’m used to, and very exciting.

A Sobering History

For our next stop, we took a turn to the darker side of Ethiopian history, and had Zola take us to the Red Terror museum. This museum is a memorial to the hundreds of thousands of victims of the brief period of genocide in the 1970s known as the Red Terror.

In 1974, a military junta known as The Derg overthrew the empire of Haile Salassie, and in its place installed a one-party communist system. In the years that followed, as The Derg faced opposition both inside and outside the party, they undertook a hellish genocide that killed hundreds of thousands of “dissenters.”

The memorial is harrowing and haunting, full of awful photographs, stories, bloody clothes, and even skulls and bones of victims. It’s a chilling and important exhibit and is, commendably, free to visit, though Erika and I left a donation. It’s the kind of memorial that, sadly, most nations on earth could build and house, and in fact would not be the last such day of fun we would have on our trip!

The Food

We’d heard from multiple people that the food in Ethiopia wasn’t fantastic. “You can get better Ethiopian food in Washington DC,” we’d been told, and with how many Ethiopian immigrants are in DC and Silver Spring, that may actually be true. Nevertheless, Erika and I were still excited to see for ourselves.

And though we only had our one day, our experience was fantastic. The food we had was great! We, somewhat accidentally due to the language barrier, got a truly massive amount of food for lunch, and it was absolutely delicious.

The Culture

Lunch was so massive that, even late after dinner time, we still weren’t really hungry. Still, we very much wanted to check out some of the traditional culture on display at a place just two blocks from our hotel, Yod Abyssinia. It had been recommended, both online and by our hotel, and though we wondered if it might be a more touristy vision of Ethiopian culture, we still wanted to go.

Oh my heavens, it was not touristy at all. Not foreign tourists, at least. The place is a very large room, with tables and seating surrounding a stage where the entertainment was. And the place was PACKED. We didn’t think we’d find an open seat! A worker there, however, found us a couple chairs near the back and we took our seats, to take in the show.

The stage show, of music and dancing, was energetic and lively, and the crowd was into it. Sometimes between songs, the MC of sorts would deliver what I like to assume–with not being able to speak Amharic–were intensely ribald jokes.

We still weren’t hungry, but we did take the opportunity to try a couple bottles of tej. Tej is a honey wine made in Ethiopia. Somewhat bitter, somewhat sweet, heavy on alcohol, it was delicious. We both agreed another bottle would take the evening in a very different direction, so we stuck with just the two we had. Though we really wanted another.

Between the noise and the language barrier, we couldn’t really talk to the people seated around us. But we traded looks and smiles with them frequently, and it seemed clear to us that they were pretty tickled at a couple of white westerners coming in for the show, enjoying the local drink.

The whole experience was fantastic, and though we couldn’t understand a word of what was going on, we didn’t need to. The fun that everyone was having was infectious and we caught it too. Erika definitely caught it. Stage dancers would come around the room and engage various tables here and there, trying to get the people to join them on stage for a dance number. And when they came to our table, Erika was quick to join them on stage.

Yeah it’s a good thing we only had the one bottle of tej each.

Impressions

Busy, crazy, crowded, and loud, Addis Ababa is what I’ve always envisioned the big African cities being like. We only got such a small sip of it, but it left me buzzed and wanting much more. I can’t wait to return.

Ethiopia is booming right now, with GDP growth over the last ten years averaging over 10% per year. It’s the fastest growing economy in Africa, and portends an exciting future for an exciting country.

That boom isn’t necessarily reaching all corners, however.

“There aren’t jobs for people,” Zola, our driver, said. He was talking about the brain-drain Ethiopia is experiencing. Like Zimbabwe, Ethiopians are highly educated, but aren’t finding places to apply that education in Ethiopia that pay their bills. So they immigrate.

Then there’s the double-edged sword of foreign investment.

“Oh they’re everywhere,” Zola said with some derision. “They’re building everything. But a lot of people don’t like them.” Zola was talking about the Chinese. China is dumping incredible amounts of money into Africa, investing in roads, airports, transit systems, etc. We saw this starkly in Zambia too, where Lusaka is about to open a brand new airport terminal built by the Chinese.

One problem is it’s not Ethiopian workers doing the work, it’s Chinese workers who have been sent over. So sure, Addis Ababa now has a gleaming new light rail system, and a brand new multi-lane boulevard leading to the beautiful new Chinese-built terminal at the airport. But these works haven’t really helped Ethiopians yet and, thus, you can understand some frustration.

“Ni hao,” an Ethiopian airport worker said to a Chinese man passing through the airport, as we were leaving town. And I don’t get the impression it was a friendly greeting.

It’s an interesting situation that I don’t yet know enough about to know just how I feel. But being there, in country, you can feel some of the tension stemming from it, and it’ll be interesting to see where things go.

What’s Next?

Well, you already know, from the beginning of this post: it’s Zanzibar. We flew out early the next day, with a brief layover at Kilimanjaro, making me wish we had some time, just a little extra time, for some light hiking…

Alas, Kilimanjaro would have to wait, and our plane left it behind. We had some beach time awaiting us in Zanzibar!