I joined the Focus Travel Club in Denver on October 23
after getting up at 5am to get to the Flag airport for the flight to Phx and
then to Denver. I arrived about 2 hours before the group started arriving. We
gathered our baggage and checked in to fly to DC. We spent the night there so I
got a good night’s rest. My roommate was Harvey Meyer, a retired geologist who
has been traveling the world years before I started. He was a great roommate
and am looking forward to our next trip, where is my roommate to the Great
Migration. We didn’t have to head to the airport for the long flight until
about 7pm. We arrived in Addis Abba about 8am on their time. Thanks to Hamdy
and HLO tours our adventure began when we landed and met our guide, Melaku Tesfa. He has been a guide for at least four years and as a Coptic was able to share a lot about the religion's beliefs. He was
with us the entire trip.
I’m not going to write a day by day experience, but will write
about things that I found interesting, fascinating, unusual, or just awesome.
MUSEUMS AND MONESTARIES
In Addis Ababa (Amharic) meaning ‘new flower’ we visited
the National Museum where we saw LUCY, the 3.5 million year old remains of the
earliest human. So awesome.
The country is a Coptic Orthodox Tewahado Christian [የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ተዋሕዶ ቤተ ክርስቲያን]
nation. The monasteries are one of the centers for education. They believe
Jesus Christ as the savior, celebrate mass, and believe in that Jesus died on
the cross and was resurrected. Jesus is part of the trinity—but Christmas is
not celebrated in the same way other Christians do. Mass is celebrated in the
Monastery and locals come for the 3+hr service—where everyone stands or
prays…no seating. Coptic art is a very distinctive style that fills the outer
area where the chanting and mass take place The priests are standing in the
‘holiest place’ and no lay people are allowed into the ‘holiest place’. Men and
women are on opposite sides of the ‘holiest place’ and pray, chant, and receive
mass from their place in the church. At one monastery we arrived to the monks
practice chanting. We were invited to participate. We were given a staff and a
metal instrument to shake. I was surprised that many of the Coptic crosses have
a Celtic look…opps many of the Celtic Crosses have a Coptic look since Coptic,
I believe, is older. I have to do some more research on that issue.
Underground monasteries…yep, dug from ground level down,
with the ceiling intact. These were an amazing architectural feat to say the
least. We were told God helped in finding a place that could be safely dug out.
They really have to be seen to be believed.
AMHARIC and CALENDAR and TIME
Amharic is a Semitic language—related to Arabic—and is
the 2nd most spoken Semitic language. Addis, the capital, has a
metro population of over 5 million. Amharic does not have either ‘th’ sound in
their language…so Ethiopia is pronounced EE-TEA-Oh-Pee-ah with the accent on
the O.
The Ethiopians operate on two calendars…one for the
Western World and the a modified Julian calendar for their religious use. That
explained the ’13 months of sunshine’ tourist campaign. For example: Nov.1,
2011 in my calendar was 21 Teqemt 2004 in the Ethiopian calendar.
Then there is the time on the clock thing. Their day
starts at sunrise meaning that is when the calendar changes dates. So it’s
Monday at 5:59a, in one minute it will be Tuesday. Our guide says it makes much
more sense to have the new day start at sunrise than in the middle of the
night. Ethiopia is GMT +3 for business and tourists, but is basically 6 hours
different than that. So if you meet someone at 9a GMT +3, it is 3a on the
Ethiopian clock. Somehow our guide made it all work—he was always on time, the
drivers were always on time and so were we. Our guide does a lot of European
tour groups and told me: The Swiss invented the clock, the Germans use the
clock, and everyone else breaks the clock. He did say we were punctual, like
the Germans.
DRIVING
All vehicles are equipped with horns and are used as
frequently as in Cairo. Rather than deal with the hassles of stop lights,
staying in your lane, turning, or passing one simply toots the horn a number of
times and keeps on driving. All drivers in the country seem to honk, pass cars,
drive into oncoming traffic, honk, and pull back into the lane. While climbing a hill everyone simply honks,
goes into the oncoming lane, pass, and somehow know that no vehicle is just
over the horizon. Most drivers drive between 80-100km/hr—50mph-65mph—on all
roads—paved, two lane, four lane, dirt roads, windy dirt roads, and windy
mountain paved roads. Honking means survival.
Our driver, Jonas was the most experienced driver and
spoke very limited English. In our four wheeling times, Jonas led the group. We
even picked up an NGO vehicle who had a driver who wasn’t familiar with the
area. He later told us he would have turned back hours ago, had Jonas not been
a professional driver. If you asked Jonas a question he didn’t understand, he
would either just say yes or no. My ESL did come in handy a couple of times
when important information was really needed. On our first drive, we asked how long to get to the
destination? His answer: 10 minutes. How far? 200km. At that time I knew we
wouldn’t be doing a lot of conversing.Jonas did a great job of getting us through some difficult areas and we really enjoyed his driving expertise.
MARKET
We visited the largest market in the country in Addis. As
our guide told us, if you can’t find something at this market, it doesn’t
exist. There were blocks and blocks of market. Each area sold specific
things—spices, coffee, clothing, fresh food, auto parts, and on and on. Everything
is laid out on the ground and available for bargaining. The market is not a
tourist buying place, more like Sam’s, Costco, and supermarkets all out in the
open. Strangely the young kids recognized us as tourists. They would come up to
us, practice their English, and after a few minutes of chit chat tell us they
needed books or pencils for their schooling. It soon became easy to spot the
real students from the scam artists. Two kids in the market asked us to name
European countries and they would instantly tell us the capital. I had no
problem giving them a few birr for their efforts. At one market we somehow
attracted three street urchins who just ran around us and laughed and begged.
Even the guide couldn’t deter their game. They followed us until we got back to
the bus, then sat in wait for the next bus. Every town we visited had market a
couple of days a week. Locals would walk for miles to and from the market. They
come to market with their items, and then carry home what is left over and what
new things were purchased. Some had donkeys, some had one wheeled wagons, some
had four wheeled wagons, and some just carried things on their backs or heads.
Most of the rural markets had no pick pockets, but we were warned in Addis to be
alert. No one in our group lost anything. Some of the markets were a little
muddy but each one was worth the experience.
ON THE ROAD
The country side in the south is very hilly. On all the
rural roads there were always people walking with cattle, goats, firewood, big
plastic water bottles, or carrying something. This walking traveling was an
everyday experience for them. Up in the morning, walk to town, at the end of
the day walk back home. Next day, same thing. There were always kids on the
side of the road trying various ways to stop tourists. Some would stand in the
road holding up something to sell. Some would just stand on the side of the
road and wave. More enterprising youth would dance to get our attention. The
really innovative would do back flips. Very cute. While there were usually one
or two kids dancing, once we stopped to give them pencils and sharpeners, or
blown up beach balls suddenly there would be six or more kids around our
vehicle. Many would ask if we were from America and then say ‘I like Obama.’ I’m
sure they had a similar line for every tourist. Many of the tourists we saw
were Germanic or South African. Not a lot of Americans. Many women carried
bundles of firewood on their lower back, walking to town to sell it. At one
stop, a woman had stopped and placed the bundle on a cement abutment. Hamdy
tried to lift it..no luck. A lady in our group offered assistance and the two
of them couldn’t lift it. How these women carried the wood day after day is
beyond my comprehension.
Our road trip included seeing a small pack of African
Wild Dogs which our guide said he had never seen before. We also saw a leopard
in the brush beside the road. At several other times we saw monkeys playing
around. Several times we saw a family of baboons.
TRIBES
After my pre-adolescent years with my paternal
grandmother’s National Geographic, I had some idea of what to expect. Each
tribe we visited…Mursi, Dorze, Konso, Tsemay,Karo, Hamer, Bena, had their own
language, culture, and traditions. We were greeted at each village and many
residents posed for photos…at 2-3birr per person in the picture. I’m convinced
that National Geographic started this practice by paying tribal members when
they visited these areas in the mid 20th century. The Mursi tribe,
the women have clay plates in their lips, were the most aggressive about photo
taking. They would stand in front of you and not move till you took a picture.
The time in the villages was exciting and exhausting. At one village we tasted
a homemade wine that was very strong. Another village had a dance show with
singing. Another village offered us traditional bread, which was very good.
While we had been warned that touching us was to be expected, it didn’t really
bother me. It kinda reminded me of my early days on the rez, with my hairy
arms. I would have gladly spent more time with each tribe except the Muris.
Their village was just to hectic. Their only goal seemed to be having their
picture taken. Thanks to Hamdy, who is
great with kids..he would help out at every stop by diverting the kids from us
with a game or something so we could enjoy the sites and not have too many kids
hanging on.
CLOSING COMMENTS
Our trip showed us many sides of Ethiopian culture. I was
struck by the amount of mountain walking that takes place every day. Families
get up early in the morning, load up their goods for trade or sale, and walk
from their small villages to larger towns on dirt roads. They spend most of the
day in town then take everything back to their small villages. In the rural
areas, there is almost no motorized transportation.
The Ethiopian Coptic Church was present in most of the
villages. The churches and monasteries were magnificent. Those that were carved
out of the earth were amazing. All the monks and priests we met were friendly
and knew how to work with tourists. The art work in the monasteries was easily
identified and usually told the story of something from the Bible. I
appreciated the different take of stories I learned as a child.
I am not a coffee drinker That sort of changed while I
was in Ethiopia. At our first hotel, I sat down to a coffee ceremony in the
lobby. The coffee was not bitter, had no after taste, and was very good. I did
drink coffee whenever it was offered. A great memory.
It is hard to understand Ethiopia in the short time we
were there. Another visit is needed. I had a great trip that was made possible
by HLO Tours and Hamdy, Focus Travel and Ellie, the great people in our group,
our guide and our drivers, and the many, many people who opened up their lives
to us.
I have posted some videos at my YouTube website. I hope
everyone enjoys them as much as I do. Click here to go to my channel.
