Friday, Septmeber 14, 2007

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

written by: Susan

When we were on the plane heading to Addis, we asked ourselves “why are we going there again?” We couldn’t quite remember why we had decided to go there. And then we realized we didn’t have a good reason except a friend had told us that it was nice. I guess when we were planning our trip, any place that was “nice” seemed like a good place to visit.

So with our Lonely Planet book in hand and really no idea of what it was going to be like, we started our 8-day discovery of Addis Ababa. We realized that most of the good stuff to see in Ethiopia is outside of Addis, but unfortunately we wouldn’t have enough time or quite honestly enough energy to go check these sights out. I was still tired from Kili and the safari and was just willing to hang out in our hotel room for a week. Luckily, there were a couple of other things to do and it was exactly what we wanted.

Since Addis has yet to become the hot tourist spot, there aren’t that many touristy things to do. A lot of business people throughout Africa go to Addis for business though which means that there are great restaurants and spas! Exactly what Brian and I needed. We ended up going to this spa called the Boston Day Spa (on a side note, another thing I’ve noticed in Africa is that they love to use American city names for their business. We’ve seen Denver Computers, Chicago Pizza (not like it at all), and many other businesses with city names.). So we booked a day at the spa. It was amazingly cheap and first class service and facilities. It costs me $10 for an hour Swedish massage and $30 for a 1.5 hour facial. Brian shelled out the big bucks and treated himself to a stone massage ($40). Afterward we would head upstairs to this restaurant called The Lime Tree to have fresh fruit drinks and iced tea for a whopping 70 cents.

We did manage to stop by the National Museum on our last day there where we were able to see Lucy; the oldest and most complete hominid found to date was there. Lucy is 3.2 million years old and earned Ethiopia the rights to calling itself the “cradle of humanity”.

We have found as we traveled that it is interesting to see how a country’s culture is deeply impacted by the nations who have colonized them. The Italians tried to colonized Ethiopia and you can still see the remaining Italian influences especially in the food. The make a mean macchiato and great pasta dishes. There are Italian restaurants everywhere. It is definitely the best Italian food we’ve had outside of Italy.

SHOPPING

We did manage to get a little shopping in at community centers. The first one was the Alert Handicraft Center where people with leprosy weave their own fabric and make beautiful hand made bags, table runners, and clothes. The works is absolutely amazing and they allow you to watch them work. It’s nice to be able to see exactly where the money is going and the people that are making your product.

The second place we went to was the Former Women’s Fuelwood project. In Ethiopia, many women have to carry long pieces of firewood in order to make a small amount of money to feed their families. It is backbreaking work but their only means of income. This community center was founded as an alternative means of work for these women. Here they weave beautiful scarves in thousands of different colors. Although the shop is small, it is a women’s dream to see stacks and stacks of handmade scarves for $6.

FOOD

In Addis, we found one of the most diverse restaurant scenes so far on our trip which was incredibly surprising. Besides having wonderful Ethiopian food, they have excellent Indian, Italian, and pretty decent American fare.

For Ethiopian food, we went to a restaurant named Habesha where you sit on these low wooden chairs and there is a small round table in front of you. The first thing they do is bring a pot of warm water and a bar of soap for you to wash your hands with. After your hands are all nice and smelly, they bring out a tray with 15 little bowels. In the bowels are all sorts of vegetarian dishes – almost like salads – and the scoop it onto this huge wide pancake that is set on your table. The pancake is called injera and made from an Ethiopian cereal called tef. Then they bring you rolls of the injera and you tear it with your hands and scoop up the different types of spicy salads that have been piled onto the injera sitting on your table. The sourness of the injera helps cut the spiciness of the food and you wash it all down with some cold Ethiopian beer. We both rolled out of the restaurant completely stuffed……all for $10.

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