Christmas in Ethiopia

It started off as being a potentially boring and frustrating day, but turned out to be anything but.

Yesterday evening I received a phone call from my tour guide saying that Ethiopian Airlines had moved my flight to earlier in the morning. Bummer. The original itinerary said that I would have the morning free in Lalibela to do a morning hike before an afternoon flight, but when the guide gave me my ticket at the start of the tour it was for an 11:30 departure which meant there would be no morning activity. Now Ethiopian has rescheduled the flight to 9:30, which meant a 6am rise, and a 12 hour layover in an airport with few facilities. Not an exciting prospect.

Fortuitously I sat with my new Norwegian/Ethiopian/Dutch friends at breakfast, and they invited me to spend the day with them at their uncle's house in Addis Ababa. It sounded like a great plan, as long as I could find an ATM for taxi fares as I had run myself out. When we arrived, Joel, who of course spoke the language, haggled hard with a few taxi drivers to get a good price, but the taxi driver had the last laugh when he pulled over and took another passenger, so there 5 plus a baby crammed into the car. Nevertheless we all arrived safely, not to any house, but a rather luxurious house for Ethiopian standards, in a gated diplomatic community.

So I ended up swanning around the comfortable loungeroom playing with the baby Declan, going shopping in the marketplace and raiding an ATM, being taken to a Christmas lunch of roast chicken, stuffing, vegetables and chocolate ginger pudding, sleeping it off on the couch, and later in the day walking down to the local coffee shop for a macchiato. Sure beats 12 hours in a transit lounge. A lovely family, and in the final twist to the international saga, as well as the Ethiopian/Norwegian/Dutch/Japanese connection that I mentioned yesterday, the host's neice was flying in tonight - from Melbourne!

The same taxi driver miraculously offered me a discount fare to take me back to the airport which was half of the fare this morning, so I arrived back at the airport around 7:30pm in time to check in and wait in the transit lounge for Mandy, who was on an afternoon flight from Nairobi. Now Christmas can begin!

Mandy's flight was early, and we had a great time catching up with all her news while we waited for our flight. Lots of spare seats, so we were able to spread out and chat.

Our car was waiting for us, and we arrived at our accommodation about 2:30am, and quickly headed to bed.

I really enjoyed Ethiopia. It's not on everybody's bucket list to visit, but it should be. If you get a chance - go. The climate is great. The people are wonderful - friendly, smiling, polite and helpful. The sights, especially outside of Addis, are stunning, and Lalibela is one of the most fun places I've visited. Prices are cheap, and what is really refreshing is that it hasn't been internationalised and homogenised like most other countries. The is no McDonalds, and no Nestle and Mars dominating the shelf brands, I didn't see a mall or supermarket, and most things are bought from local market staff vendors. The guides haven't yet lost that genuine interest in their visitors that you do when it becomes a conveyer belt. The government is building roads and schools, and making primary schooling compulsory. Inevitably that will mean change, so get in while it's authentic.