Saturday, January 28, 2006
Prologue
Do I stay or do I go now?
On the eve of my much anticipated trip to Ethiopia I was working late trying to finish off all of those last minute tasks before disappearing for three weeks when I received a call from my tour company. I knew something from wrong as soon as soon as I got the call. I don’t even recall having given them my office number… but I must have. Anyway, he was ringing to let me know, in case I hadn’t already heard (which I hadn’t) that there had been some riots in Addis Ababa and some people had been killed earlier in the week…and that the Foreign Office were advising against travel to Ethiopia…
My worst fears were realised. This was exactly what I had been concerned about before booking the trip. I had been dreaming of this trip for a couple of years since I first saw it advertised, and then this year I decided that there might be a possibility to go. I had some extra holidays I wanted to use up, and a group trip like this would be perfect. But then there were the demonstrations in May and June after the disputed elections and people were killed. Was it safe to go? I watched the news carefully checking out the situation online and eventually in September decided it had quietened down enough to go. Now it had flared up again! …”Some of the tour party are already there and we have decided to continue with the trip”, he said. “We are comfortable at this stage that the trip can be run safely, though you will need to lay low in Addis”.The local tour operator in Addis said we'd probably be fine so long as we took things easy around the hotel. After that we would be up in the mountains, and out of the trouble areas, should they flare up again!
So this is a great way to start a trip, I thought! Whilst the day had started well, the afternoon had gone downhill with one problem after another coming up at work, and then finally this call! My excitement about the trip was now totally consumed by nervousness… and Tom was out for the night at his cricket club dinner!
Sunday 6 November 2005
After a day spent trying to make the decision about whether I should cancel or not, I boarded my plane, not really knowing whether I was doing the right thing. If I cancelled I would lose my money and miss out on a potentially great trip and chances were that nothing would have gone wrong anyway… but if I went and anything went wrong, then well I could fly home again couldn’t I? And after all, there were riots going on in Paris too at the same time, and London was bombed a couple if months ago. What could be so bad in Ethiopia? At least the weather would be better.
On boarding my flight I was surprised at how full it was, but then I recalled that it also stopped in Alexandria on the way. As it turned out, 90% of the passengers left the flight at Alexandria, and no one new joined the flight! Is that a message?
This gets me thinking about the most frequent question people had asked me over the last few weeks ...“why on earth are you going to Ethiopia?” And these people didn’t even know about the political issues and the riots! I realised that most people know very little about Ethiopia, so I thought I’d try to list the top 12 things that people seem to know about!
- The famine (through the eyes of Live Aid)
- The war with Eritrea…and clashes with Somalia and the Sudan etc
- The birthplace of Christianity at Axum
- Haile Gebreselassie (the runner)
- Haile Selassie (the Emperor)
- St George’s church at Lalibela
- The historical city of Gondar
- The Blue Nile and Tisisat Falls
- Lake Tana
- The Simien Fox (or Ethiopian Wolf)
- The Walia Ibex
- The Simien Mountains
I landed in Addis at about 0100 hrs to an all but deserted airport, found the shuttle bus to my hotel and took the eerily quiet (was there a curfew or something?) 10 minute ride up the Bole Road to the hotel. First thing on the agenda was to get some sleep. The next day was to be a relaxing day, my main task being to find the other members of my tour party before we left Addis early on Tuesday morning!
Tuesday 8 November 2005
Our tour party were mostly identified during my relaxing day at the Ghion Hotel.
Richard & Fearon from BC, Canada
Mari & Shari from California
Garth from Sydney
Stewart from Canberra
Alex from Colorado
Then the next morning I met Pam from San Francisco and Melody our tour leader from Perth, both of whom had flown in overnight.
Just as we were trying to leave the hotel in the morning the hotel stopped us due to an unpaid bar bill. Someone called Glenn Thomas (apparently a member of our party) had taken a drink at the café yesterday and had not yet paid. We couldn’t leave until he paid. But none of us had met anyone called Glenn. Was there another person we hadn’t met yet? Where was he? Why wasn’t he here with us? We had a flight to catch in one hour, and we were already late leaving for the airport!
As it turned out, Glenn from Sydney was joining our trip. After a mad trip in a taxi to get to the airport, we finally met him… and actually I had met him yesterday when he asked if I knew the directions to the National Museum. Why hadn’t I picked him as a member of our party? I should have picked his Australian accent. That would have saved a lot of hassle!
Anyway, now we were all together and were ready to commence the first leg of our trip.
So how did the actual situation stack up against everyone’s expectations? Well there were many pleasant surprises, and for me in any case, no disappointments… well at least not any that I can remember now after being back for a few weeks.
