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Addis Ababa – New Flower in Amharic

Arrived on a rainy Saturday afternoon, after a challenging time on the highway with the driving on the right hand side thing! Town driving is a lot more challenging than driving on the rural roads. Even reached the Mr and Mrs stage! Ah well…

With Sue driving and Den navigating we missed the hotel road by about 200m and managed to get ourselves back into a section of town. Finally we asked a very friendly traffic officer how to get to the hotel. He offered to take us there. We kicked ourselves when we saw how close we had been, we did renew our faith in Dennis’ navigation though. Sue managed to upset a driver by cutting in front of him when turning down a major intersection and trying to drive on the left hand side of the road! Dennis took the traffic officer back to his beat, all the way back the officer complained about his poor salary and how good a tip would be!!!! Dennis forgetting to keep right hit the island and promptly went left – which left the officer speechless, and half frightened to death! Fortunately the traffic was not too bad, so he was able to do a u-turn and get out of his predicament. The traffic officer was very quick to get out of the car!


Bel Air Hotel – Addis Ababa – N09.01.905 E038.46.418 – 7 873 ft amsl – 30 Birr ppn – 07 July 2002

Sunday found us taking a walk to have a look at the city, and to get our bearings. We had to put up with the usual ‘you, you, you’ ‘give me money’ etc and the beggars. They are irritating but not too difficult to turn down. We ended up on Bole Road at a delightful café called Pizza Deli Roma – which was recommended in the Lonely Planet – we agree the pizza is worth crossing town for. We caught a taxi back to the hotel – no problems and a fair rate was charged.


A young man by the name of Derej, a taxi driver, befriended us, and said he could take us to the Embassies we needed for a very good rate, the Sudanese visa would take two to three days – no problem. Dennis agreed on a rate of 200 Birr – understanding that would be the payment for the whole exercise! As it turned out we paid this exorbitant amount for very little – to the SA Embassy, Sudanese Embassy and an Internet café, which should not have cost more than 70 Birr! We were very disappointed and are now extremely wary of taxi drivers, so we walk to where ever we want to go – nothing wrong with that – we get to see much more of the city.

We have our letters of recommendation from SA Embassy and Sudanese visas, now we are waiting for Henri and Jenny. While we are waiting, we tried to find out some information from the Egyptian (they could not help us – go to Khartoum they say) and Libyan Embassy who gave us quite a run around, we walked there a few times, and finally they said they only issue visas to Ethiopians – so we must go to Khartoum! This is making any forward planning extremely difficult!

Still no sign of Henri and Jenny so finally we decided to try and make contact with them via the Internet, and received the very sad news that Jenny had contracted malaria in Uganda and had passed away, and that Henri had returned to PE. We were absolutely devastated by the news, and spend a couple of days in total shock! Finally we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and started to make plans to move on. We made contact with Bridget via her email address, which was given to us by Andy, a South African we met in Nairobi, before we went to Uganda.

Bridget and Thomas travelled to Djibouti, Eritrea and Sudan in February 2002, so she has been able to give us some vital information about the areas. She also inspired us to actually attempt this section of the trip – many thanks Bridget. So now with a plan, we once again head to the SA Embassy to get letters of introduction, this time for Djibouti, Eritrea, Saudi (we may have to use this route – depending on what transpires with Egypt and Libya Embassies in Khartoum). The Djibouti visa took 24 hours, and we are now set.

Claire of Computech Kenya came through to us with some good news about our HP digital camera. HP has agreed to the warranty and has replaced the camera! Our thanks to all concerned who helped to resolve our problem.

16th July 2002 or Ethiopian date 09/11/1994 we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary! Dennis had arranged a coffee ceremony with the hotel for 8.00. He thought a.m. and as it turns out they thought p.m.!! So no coffee ceremony with breakfast – we were both very disappointed. We had decided that we would not buy each other gifts, but that we would rather get a couple of footballs for the street children, who play football with rolls of plastic bags. It was such a joy for us to be able to give something to these children. Obviously they all want their own, so there was much begging and pleading with painfully pathetic looks for us to give them a ball. It still gives us joy to hear the children playing in the street.

We thought we may have started something we would not be able to finish, the next day as we walked into town, we were mobbed by the children, this time they shook our hands and said thank you! It brought tears to our eyes!

We celebrated with a quiet dinner and a bottle of champagne brought from Nairobi. At 8.00 p.m. we were invited to the elusive coffee ceremony! To our utter surprise the staff had gathered the other guest in the hotel and invited them to join us as well.

The Hotel owner gave us a bottle of Ethiopian red wine, and the Ceremony was a gift from the Hotel staff. The ceremony was very special for us and it truly made our anniversary very precious! We even had a bash at Ethiopian dancing!



Coffee Ceremony – 09/11/1994 (16/07/2002)




Hotel guests joined us on our special day






Coffee Ceremony






Ethiopian dancing



Ethiopia is a land of kings and legends it has a fascinating history and is rich in tradition and culture. Although nearly half the population adheres to the deeply rooted Christian faith of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, a large percentage is Muslim, and there are some who practise ancient forms of Judaism. The people are incredibly friendly and hospitable, no matter what their social status. Ethiopia is a very colourful country, with beautiful scenery.



The country’s rich tapestry of history is woven with fascinating facts and legends – there are tales of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba; the journey of the Ark of the Covenant, which is now said to rest in Axum, the growth of the ancient Axumite kingdom and the birth of Christianity and the introduction of Islam.



Amongst the rare books at the National Library are the four Gospels, an early fourteenth century illuminated manuscript, and the Pauline Epistles, a fifteenth-century manuscript found at the monastery of Lake Haik. There is an Old and New Testament, which is made from 500 sheepskins and which took five calligraphers five years to produce.



Enough sight seeing … back to work.



The repair that was done on MR W to try and stop further cracking on the canopy has not been successful. There is a garage called General Motor Co, which is 200 m down the road from the Bel Air Hotel, so we asked them if they could weld the cracks – at least the wet and dust would not get in. The lady at reception said the job could be done but not the same day as the paint needed to dry. Dennis said he does not need paint, just the welding done – nope that was not possible – it is not professional! All we want is some welding done, eventually the manager came out to see what all the fuss was about. After much discussion he agreed to just do the welding job. The guys did a brilliant job of the welding and even managed to get their way, and paint where they had welded. The job was done for free. We were so grateful. The people at General Motor Co were fantastic. The Manager came and had a drink with us at the hotel, and invited us to his home for lunch the next day! Mr and Mrs Abebe gave us an incredible welcome and laid on an extensive spread! We enjoyed spending time with you and your family – thank you very much! We look forward to being able to reciprocate when you visit South Africa.



Ethiopians have a wonderful sense of humour. There is a ‘homeless’ man who lives under a shrub and a piece of corrugated iron. He has bits of coloured paper and tinsel as ornaments at the doorway to his ‘home’. We pass his stretch of road every time we go to or return from town. Every time he sees us, he grabs his blue bowl and rushes over – jabbering away in Amharic. He always has a cheery smile, or laugh, and manages to make us laugh. His mime and antics are a delight – eventually he managed to get us to place a few Birr in his bowl!



It is time for us to move on – we plan to visit Bahir Dar and Lake Tana to visit the island monasteries, to see the Blue Nile Falls, from there go over to Lalibella to see the rock hewn churches, then to take a shortcut through to Dessie and Mille and onto Djibouti. We will have to spend some time in Djibouti Town in order to get our Eritrean visa, and from there we will follow the coast through to Eritrea through the Danakal Depression (Afar country – one of the hottest places on earth)! We hope to be able to do some snorkelling in the Red Sea and then will go onto Sudan, turning west for Khartoum. It is quite a drive, many kilometres and challenging conditions. The GPS is going to be put to the test!






Rest in peace Jenny, we will miss you enormously