Mar 19 - Ethiopia Bound

Getting from Zanzibar to Ethiopia has been a lengthy process.  If everything worked on time, we needed to take a one hour bus ride to catch a 1.5 hour ferry back top Dar where we would take a 15 min cab ride to catch our flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We made the mistake of assuming that things would be on schedule.  First off, our bus left ½ hour late, then the ferry was delayed by 1 hour and 15 min and after almost an hour in the cab, we knew we were going to miss the flight but we had to go to the airport anyway to rebook. But fortunately the “African way” ended up working in our favour. When we arrived at the airport 10 minutes before take-off, they actually let us run onto the plane.

In Addis, we were picked up by a friend of Jacob’s family who drove us around the city, invited us to his home for a traditional Ethiopian meal followed by a traditional coffee ceremony. Coffee is a very important part of the Ethiopian lifestyle and it is some of the best we have ever tasted.

 

We booked ourselves into a “luxurious” hotel which cost $50 and we were quite surprised when our room turned out to be a massive presidential suite, 100x bigger than my last apartment. We then bought ourselves bus tickets to Bahir Dar, at the southern edge of Lake Tana (which feeds the Blue Nile). I have been sick for the past 2 days so when we arrived at the bus station at 5:30am, in the middle of a crowded and hectic market, we decided to turn around and catch a 40 minute flight rather than enduring a 12 hour bus ride on bumpy dirt roads, in a 3^rd class local bus with no bathrooms – I definitely needed the bathrooms. We managed to purchase tickets and board the plane 20 minutes before it was scheduled to depart. 

 

Not long after our arrival, we went boating on Lake Tana, from island to island visiting ancient 14^th/15^th century monasteries which are still in use today. We were also able to hang out a bit with the locals drinking some coffee and Jacob sampled some of their home made alcohol – basically moonshine. We also got to see more hippos but this time they were only about 15-20 feet away from our boat. We got to our hotel which is definitely a 1000% downgrade from our last place. Although the hotel grounds are beautiful (with a garden overlooking Lake Tana), the rooms are out-dated and we’re not quite sure when the last time a cleaning person has been through -I’m definitely busting out my mummy sleeping gear tonight!