We reached the limits for comfort yesterday with our room. With all our trinkets we were able to make ourselves comfortable and isolated from any bug with bad intention but the hut in the village was better kept and inspired much more trust than our hotel room... After a quick breakfast in a nearby lodge that is completely empty (low season), we start the long and difficult drive to a Karo village. We can't call it a road anymore but we have less cattle in the way. We're rethinking our definition of remote ;)
Hacia el valle del Omo: Plateriopía
Un borriquito, dos borriquitos, tres borriquitos... ¡cientos de Plateros! Pero no nos adelantemos al trayecto, primero hay que conseguir los billetes de autobús
Addis Abeba, la nueva flor de la emperatriz
Pocas mujeres han fundado capitales de imperios. A finales del siglo XIX, la emperatriz Taitu, consorte de Menelik II, único monarca africano que consiguió expulsar a las fuerzas coloniales y hacer de Etiopía la única nación libre del continente, decidió dejar las estériles montañas de Entoto, hasta entonces capital de Etiopía, y establecerse en las fértiles tierras de las faldas. La emperatriz bautizó la zona "Nueva Flor" y así seguimos llamándola hoy.
Bull Jumping Ceremony
With so many banana plantation we can only start the day with a banana shake. It's delicious and reminds me of the ones I use to make myself after school. We have a few errands before leaving Arba. First, getting tickets from Arba to Bahir Dar for after the tour. On the way there we pass by cows walking on the road (in the city) but on their lane... clearly following the rules of the road. It takes forever to buy the tickets but we get the discount for having flown here with Ethiopian airlines. Our driver gets two spare wheels and we leave Arba
Donkeypocalypse
The down side of taking the public bus without pre-bought ticket is that you have to be at the station around 4:30am to be sure to get a ticket for the 6am bus... We both barely slept that night, worried that our “plan” fails and we have to find another way to get to Arba Minch. The taxi driver is on-time and we cruise through an empty city listening to Ethiopian Jazz. There's a few people cleaning the street but that's pretty much it. It gets busier when we reach the bus station. Our taxi drop us off and our bags are “taken care off” by two guys (mistake!).
First Steps
The farewells were becoming each time more difficult, it's was really time for us to go. After one last intense weekend, following a intense month and a half, we're on our way to the airport. We start the check-in process and we're handed our first moment of stress. We have a ticket around the world but no flight out of Ethiopia.. yet. The person who is supposed to register us is bitchy and unhelpful. We go talk to someone else and it's a different story. We're ready to buy a flight out of Ethiopia but she tells us that they don't really check it at the Ethiopian custom.