APRIL 20, 2012 DUBAI TO ETHIOPIA

Friday April 20, 2012    Dubai to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Beautiful drivers in pink from the Ladies Taxi Fleet in Dubai

We were awake early, packed and off for the breakfast buffet - we ate very lightly, time zone changes seem to diminish the appetite - however the flaky chocolate croissant was excellent and the coffee hot and fresh!  I believe that the Premier Hotel is in a hotel chain from the UK so that explains the very English breakfast buffet with grilled tomatoes, button mushrooms, pork sausage, baked beans and eggs cooked to order (with toast of course)! 

Outside the sun was shining, but the air was still very muggy and hazy, so no great views of Dubai city were to be seen.  The 7:30 am shuttle took us to the airport in about 10 minutes - and we were soon checked in.  Emirates has such a large fleet of planes that fly everywhere in the world and the Emirate planes occupy the entire large Terminal 3 at the airport.  The counter staff were efficient and friendly in this very modern airport.  In fact the Emirates view of the world is very different - imagine the world map turned 90 degrees clockwise with Dubai in the middle and all of the routes converging in Dubai - quite disorienting when you look at it. 

At 9:45 we were boarding at gate 132 and realised we had to take a bus to the plane from the gate - the ride to the plane was about 20 minutes, entirely around the airport - longer that the shuttle from the Premium Hotel to the airport  a couple of hours earlier!  But we were soon boarded and the Airbus 320 left the gate about 10 minutes behind schedule - the pilot apologising for the late departure due to the long bus ride to get everyone on board.

We flew over Saudi Arabia, Oman, the Gulf of Aden, and Eritrea - the flight was just over 3 hours duration and uneventful  although for a long time we looked down and could see only a large brown haze presumably from the sand from dust storms across the desert.

As we came in to land we could see all the hills around Addis Ababa which has a population of around 5 million people.   The name Addis Ababa means “new flower” (addis = new, ababa = flower) and was given to the city many years ago by King Menelik II’s wife, who found a new flower growing where the Sheraton Hotel now stands in the city, and coined the name of the city after the discovery of this new flower.  

Most famous discoveries made in Ethiopia are of very old things and the most famous and oldest is Lucy, the skeleton found by Dr Leakey in the Great Rift Valley in Ethiopia (apparently named because Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was playing at the dig campsite just after the discovery).  Also in Northern Ethiopia is Axum, where the Ark of the Covenant is kept under lock and key. Yes this will be an amazing tour!

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Airport

It is a country full of history - including Emperor Haile Selassie who is widely respected by Rastafarians, many of whom make pilgrimages to Ethiopia for that very reason. Haile Selassie was the Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. Rastas claim that he is the resurrected manifestation of Jesus (Yahshua) Christ and therefore an incarnation of Jah (Jehovah) onto the Earth. They also claim that he will lead the righteous into creating a perfect world, called Zion which would be the ultimate paradise for Rastas.  The future capital of Zion is sometimes put forward as the new Jerusalem (Lalibela Ethiopia) and Rastas say that Haile Selassie's coming was prophesied from Genesis to the Book of Revelation.

From a political perspective, Ethiopia was under Italian rule from 1936 through 1941 which was followed by Independence after World War II.  In fact after WWII the British gave Ethiopia the small country of Eritrea (which is next to, and north of, Ethiopia and borders the coast of the Gulf Of Aden).  Ethiopia (which is landlocked) was delighted to now have access to a port on the Gulf of Aden - needless to say the Eritreans were furious about their lands being given to Ethiopia and so then followed the Eritrean War of Independence from 1961 through 1991.  

Ethiopia had its’ own Civil War from 1974 through 1991.  YUP - lots of wars and conflict in this area and much support (or meddling) from Europe, Russia and USA!  After the Italians were beat by the British and Allies in WWII, Emperor Haile Selassie returned to the throne and spent the rest of his career endeavouring to promote the modernisation of his country, Ethiopia.  Seeing the growing Imperialist movement in Ethiopia, the Soviet Union Communists under Leonid Breznev moved in to support the Ethiopian Communists. Over the next two weeks on tour in Ethiopia we hope to hear many versions of Ethiopia’s history.

Ethiopia VISA Form (in Arabic)

The Addis Ababa airport is quite small (especially after Dubai!) but immediately after we landed a Kenya Airways plane landed.  We were soon in the line for “visas on arrival” with about 20 other passengers which cost $20 USD each.  There is an English side to the Visa form shown here!  The process is fairly tedious and slow (two government agents filling out visa forms and receipts) but straight forward.  Mind you, there was a group of 7 ladies in front of us from Argentina with plans for a 24 hour stop in Ethiopia to visit an orphanage or some charity.  One of the ladies did not have two clean unused pages in her passport and it sounded as though they were not going to give her a visa and let her stay - the group of 7 were still in the visa office when we left.  After the Visa office it was passport control (fast) and pick up our 2 checked bags and enter another line to have all of our hand and checked bags scanned before we could exit into the airport building!  Prior to leaving Canada, we had read that Ethiopia customs are very thorough seeking out what is being brought into the country, including cash and high tech products. We had read that any video camera with the words HD (for high definition on it) would be taken away immediately to be returned when you leave the country.  What video camera isn’t HD these days?  We kept our fingers crossed that our own HD LUMIX cameras would be no problem since they most definitely say HD , and are capable of both still and movie pictures!   

At the scanner in front of us one gentleman had many computer parts laid out on the table which had been taken out of his suitcase and it looked like he was going nowhere fast!  They were asking for his passport.  My checked bag was opened, and the guy operating the scanner asking if I had a walkie talkie? (no I didn’t). Nothing incriminating was found so we were soon on our way into the airport - and guess what? It was large and airy with only about 5 people around and noone holding a sign with our name on it! Uh Oh!

The single local man standing waiting for someone to arrive advised us that for the last two days noone has been allowed into the airport if they are not about to board a plane or get off a plane!  We spoke to a lady who had a cell phone and she phoned Dinknesh Tours who are our Tour company in Ethiopia - Dinknesh told us to  walk outside and down the hill into the car park and that’s where your rep will be waiting for you - and sure enough that’s where Malcolm met us, running over with a sign saying “UMBACH”!  It was very warm and sticky but within 2 minutes we were on our way to the Panorama Hotel - a 4 star new hotel Malcolm told us.

First impressions as we drove from the airport was that this could be Nairobi - except that Nairobi is not surrounded by hills and has a million more cars than Addis Ababa has!  Addis feels much poorer than Nairobi (try explaining that thought process to anyone when you think of the Kibera slums in Nairobi with over 2 million folks living there)!  We were on a ring road being built by the Chinese in exchange for giving China resources in Ethiopia (same story we have heard in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania in the past couple of years).  The road is being built as a circle route around the city of Addis and the Panorama Hotel is on the East side of Addis on the ring road.

Our tour guide Malcolm (very good English) left us to relax at the hotel and arranged to pick us up at 8:30 am tomorrow, Saturday morning, for a city tour.  First Malcolm would be picking up another two folks arriving at the airport (from the UK  believe) around 6 am Saturday morning who will be joining us on the tour.  We were greeted at the Panormama hotel by friendly staff and soon settled into our room - clean and very basic (definitely not an international 4 star rating) but amazingly enough the hotel has free wifi available in our room, and it works!  The Panorama has a bar on the ground floor and 24 hour restaurant on the first floor. 

On our drive to the hotel we saw nothing in the immediate area that would be worth investigating on foot.  Outside our window I watched construction on  a small plot opposite - all ditches and footings being dug by hand.  Three young lads were moving the dirt being dug by a man down in the hole - I had to laugh as I saw one of the young boys take each shovel full of dirt and try to throw it over the head of one of the other young boys - efficiency was not a worry for them!  Two workmen carrying a hand saw left the lobby of our hotel (below our window) and they put their hands in the air and were patted down by the Security Guy presumably checking that they weren’t leaving with more than they were supposed to.

 It was now around 3 pm and I was crashing fast after very little sleep the last couple of days.  Terry purchased a very large bottle of ice cold water from the bar and we started to rehydrate ourselves before looking after a few tasks on the internet - the internet response was good at times and unbearably slow at times, so this took about twice as long as we thought it would!  At 5 pm I fell into the bed and could have almost broken my neck on the rock hard pillow!  I slept on and off until just after midnight before picking up my book for a read. An excellent book which has been on the New York Times best seller list for over 12 months and highly recommended to me by sister Sue and other folks.  It is called Cutting For Stone (Abraham Verghese) and takes place in Ethiopia and USA - I am very much enjoying it so far.  A Nun from India who has twins who both become Doctors.

While I was napping in bed Terry was working hard for nearly 5 hours on a Rotary Project, so he came to bed pretty much as I woke up and is now sleeping - I hope!  There are few lights in the room and none on the desk so we have both been making good use of our flashlights and head lamps!  With one computer we have to share our time on the computer and internet - we don’t expect to have internet again for maybe the next two weeks but time will tell!  

The hotel sounds like an empty shell - everything hollow and every noise reverberating around.  It is actually very quiet outside with the odd car driving by, and several planes flying overhead during the night.  It’s now almost 5 am Saturday morning so I shall post this to the blog and get ready for our day ahead.  We shall stay in touch when we can and give you more details of this grand adventure through Ethiopia, a beautiful country with so much history.