HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Back in car no.1
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Massive travel day
WORD OF THE DAY: Bajaj-Ethiopian tuk tuk’s- they are so cute!!
DISTANCE TRAVELLED: 300KM
Zeme and I leave Addis today and are heading north for the next 17 days. We have an itinerary that was planned with Minalu and Lemma and I am just happy to go with the flow, as long as Zeme and I are spending time together I could be on the moon for all I care.
We had to swap cars this morning as the hire car had to go back and the 4WD to be collected along with my Amharic dictionary that Z had bought me a few months back. That will help wile away the drive hours, me trying to get my head around a Cyrillic based language. I am sure Z will get a good laugh at some of my pronunciations. As I was waiting for Z to run all around town I finally got some internet connection at the hotel and loaded a picture of my new tattoo. I will now just see what comments come through and I am expecting some doozies!
I am leaving some things at the hotel in their luggage room, so I think I am not going to need dresses or makeup and stuff and it is at this point I found my e-ticket and realized that I actually leave Addis on the 17th and not the 19th like I have been telling everyone. Whoops! Lucky I found out now rather than checking my ticket on the 18th and missing my flight all together although staying in Addis is a very tempting proposition. It just leaves us one working day to get to the Australian Consulate before I leave but we have worked into our now 2 full days back in Addis rather than 4.
So we are back on the Ethiopian road again. I am back in the same car that we had on tour last year, it is ‘Zeme’s’ work car. So when people see his number plate 69696, they know that he is in it and has guests. We are back to sharing the road with donkeys, carts, tuk tuks, minivans, public buses, cars, kids and people. The major road rule that seems to be obeyed the most is the toot of the horn and even the animals seems to understand that when they hear that noise they need to head to one side of the road. A lot of the foot traffic also use the road as there are no footpaths, so when there is no traffic it makes sense for them to walk on the road rather than the side of the road on gravel and rocks. I them started to look at peoples feet and I would say 2 in 4 people don’t wear shoes here. And this is in the city. Is that by choose or do they just don’t have enough money to buy them? It’s hot outside, does the heat from the asphalt not burn the bottom of their feet? I guess after time their feet just harden up and they think nothing of it but there must be percussions of sores, wounds etc. that must affect their quality of life. Is this a way that I can help? Get shoes on Ethiopian feet? Just a thought and something that would need to be looked into further. I would also like to mention how well Ethiopian people dress. They remind me of the Indians in regards to that. With exceptions to the homeless people, they are always well dressed in long pants and generally collar and button shirts. The young people are dressed a little more funky in CK or Polo branded shirts (I am sure are fake) but they take care in their appearance.
We stopped for lunch at this random hotel at 1.30pm and back on the road 40 minutes later. 2 hours later Zeme asked if I could hear something as we were driving and there was like a hissing sound. So we stopped to take a look and there seemed to be a problem with the valve. Z asked some locals where the next town was and we only had to travel 10KM to reach the ‘tyre man’ in the town. You can tell which one he is as he has a pile of tyres out the front of his toilet sized shed. We do have a spare, but if we are in a position to get this one fixed it makes sense to leave that one alone till we really really need it when we are in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t even have to get out of the car as they jacked it up, took off the offending wheel, removed the offending screw, repaired the tube, back in the tyre and back on the car all within 15 minutes and you know how much the tyre man wanted for the service? 20 birr which is 1.00AUD. ONE DOLLAR! That is just insane so we gave him 30 birr and we were back on the road again with pretty much no fuss at all. Back home in Australia that whole process probably would have taken 1-2 hours and cost 100 times more.
While I was waiting in the truck, it gave me a chance to look at the small town. I was obviously a draw card and you get people coming over to the truck and have a sticky beak at me and the car. I don’t mind this as it is just curiosity, they mean no harm and I basically just have to get used to it. I have noticed the last week that I am just going to attract the stares no matter what I wear or what I do. In perspective there really aren’t a lot of western people, what I have seen so far, walking the streets of Addis? I know they are here, as there are aid agencies and foreign companies based here, but it is not the norm to see a ‘furungee’ walking the streets. One of the things I love about the Ethiopian culture is their handshake. They shake with the left hand, but they use their right hand to hold their left elbow. This I have worked out is for people that they don’t know very well, so I get that handshake all the time. Watching the town, if they are friends I have noticed that they do the above handshake and then they drop their shoulders together. It just looks sincere and such a friendly gesture. After lunch I also noticed it’s how they give menus and bills for food with the one hand on the elbow as a sign of respect and I have checked with Z if I can do it back and he said they would appreciate that so I am now going to start shaking hands with my right hand touching my elbow.
Once out of the city the scenery was amazing. The south is very mountainous, and I am not talking small mountains, these were massive. It would have been interesting just how high we were and how high the actual mountains were. It was a very hot day and there was a haze over the countryside, it was a temperate 25C when we were in the highlands (it felt hotter) and when we dropped to cross the Abaya River and a new bridge that was built and donated by the Japanese the temperature rose to 36C. Thank goodness we were to rise again into the mountains and out of that hot heat. It is a dry heat but it is still hot all the same.
After a massive 7 hours on the road we arrived into Debra Markos for the night. It really was just a drive day today to get us in a comfortable driving distance of Bahir Dar tomorrow and we had to get some kilometers under our belt. Zeme is so good with the accommodations. He will run into to make sure that they have an available room, asks to see the different categories, comes back out and lets me know the lay of the land and then we make a decision on whether we stay or not. I am really not that fussed, but he is just trying to do the right thing, so we did settle on a room at the FM International and the rate for the room and breakfast included cost us 10AUD total for both of us. The room would be a good 2-3 star motel standard, so nothing fancy, but back in Oz this room would still cost 50-70AUD.
So we have started out journey into the north of Ethiopia and our first day was a success. We have 16 days left to go and I know that they will go way too fast for my liking.
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