From Addis with Love - not really!

I woke up early this morning to walk around Djibouti city for one last time and to take some photos before the day get really hot.  My flight is @ 11AM, so I have some time.  I went up to the roof of the hotel and snap some aerial views of the city and then I went back to the European quarter, and looked for a breakfast place, eager to get some real food, but there were only café places.  By 8AM it is already pretty hot, as I was heading back toward the market area, I finally saw someone eating and glad to hop in to check out what people are eating.  It looked editable so I sat down and luckily a guy sitting in the next table spoke good English and he helped me order a chicken dish with milk tea, yes they eat hot meat dishes for breakfast (liver was also on the menu).  I finished off with freshly make juice.  It was good to have a full meal.  The guy who helped me is actually studying medicine in St. Petersburg, Russia and hope one day to work in the US.  He was back to take care some business for a week, before going back to Russia.  With a happy tummy, I headed back to my hotel and get ready to goto the airport.  This time I asked the hotel to get me a taxi, and asked for the local rate, so I was not overcharged this time.

The flight from Djibouti to Addis wasn’t too eventful other than that I saw a military UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) landed at Djibouti airport while waiting for my flight.  US has a military base here and Yemen and Somalia are both close to here, so it is only logical to have a strike force here to kill some terrorists.

It was pouring rain when the plane landed, so much for end of rainy season. The airport bus at Addis airport took us to the domestic terminal, and apparent everyone either is local or had visa already, so I was told I need to be bused to the international terminal to get my visa on arrival.  The person promised that my luggage will get to the international terminal when after I get my visa, and it did (took a little while).  With my visa ($20) and luggage I left to look for ATM in the terminal to get some Ethiopian birrs.  But all the machines were out the service and foreign exchange desk was closed.  This is only around 1PM!  Finally I asked the information desk and they told me that there is an ATM/bank in domestic terminal.  The atm/bank turned out to be outside of the domestic terminal.  Once I got some local money, I headed to the dreaded taxi stand, another round of negotiating to finally get to a reasonable price.  On the way to my hotel I was surprised to be told that the major road into downtown, Bole Rd, has been closed for construction for at least 6 months now (to be closed for 2 years may be), nowhere in my research did I read this.  So as you probably guessed the traffic was terrible.

I picked Ras Hotel downtown, as it was thirty something a night and supposed to be a decent hotel.  For some reason I thought it was only $10 a night which taxi driver thinks I am crazy.  They gave me a double room and the room seemed a bit worn and damp, tv didn’t work, shower drain didn’t drain; I tried to wash my dirty shoes after walking on nasty streets in Djibouti.  I mentioned this to the front desk, and they said they will have someone look at it, but no one ever came. In other accommodations that I was to stay in my trip, this is a common theme, grimy room with broken fixture and toilet, drain, pool of water due to un-level ground, bed bugs, fleas, mosquitoes, unwashed linen, smelly room, no shower curtain, lack hot shower or inoperable shower head water flow  etc. And you get this for the privilege of paying the inflated foreign price and it does matter if you are paying $10 a night or $30-$40 a night, all the same.  It just seen that the construction quality here is extremely poor, may be they learned from the Chinese whom are helping building their roads but also from lack common sense (water flow from higher ground to lower ground).

After I settled in and grabbed something to eat the hotel restaurant, I was ready to walk around town and get a sim card for my phone so my wife can call me or I can call her.  Not soon after I stepped out the hotel I was latched on by a local lad who I thought was friendly enough to get his help to get my sim card and air ticket to Mekele.  I had read before that there are many hasslers in Addis that will tell all kind of sad stories to get money from you or any help they offered is not genuine but for a fee they will inflate. Anyway he took around to get my sim card (cost only $2.5), got my air ticket, and made an internet call home, so I decided to pay me $1 for his service, but his face turned and demanded $5.5 for his service.  I scolded him that it was nice of him that he helped me, but now he ruined the friendly gesture by demanding hefty fee. I just gave him $1 and said if he does like it, I will gladly take it back – he took the money and left. Funny thing is that the next day, he saw me again and said hi and smiling, so $1 is probably good day for him, but with the sour ending the previous day, I would have nothing to do with him and I just keep on walking. Quick note about calls in Ethiopia, calling locally is recently cheap, about 5c per minute and only the caller pays like most of the countries I visited. But call to US cost $1.2 per minute! Government control the only telecom in the country, so lack any competition and money probably goes to fat cats in the government.

After taking cared of the most immediate business, I headed up the Church Ave to the Piazza area to checkout some of the cheap hotels there; I planned to move to this area after one night at the Ras, too expensive for crappy room, so why not pay much cheaper price for a little crappier room :)

On the way to the Piazza area, a kid started to follow me, I knew he is up to no good as many pickpocket kids in the area, so I tried to run up hill, but was out the breath very quickly, almost 8000 feet in elevation make me weaker than a little kid. Soon a rain shower came through and I took shelter in a souvenir shop. The kid also waiting outside for me and he was joined by many more older and menacing homeless kids, the store owner try to get them to leave the front of the store, but they refused.

I felt since I used the store as a shelter I should at least buy something, so I purchased a small copper toned bracelet (the only souvenir I purchased for the whole trip) and when the rain stopped I continued my walk uphill to the Piazza and the pesky little kid followed. In a short while, he finally made his move, with one hand stretched out toward me to ask for money, the other hand hidden under a cloth below the other hand, he aimed for my pocket. So I used my guide book and smack his hand hard and stared angry at him. With his cover blown he stopped following me. A local guy looks on in disgust as well.

This was last of bad incidents on the first day in Addis. Other than the constant hassles and been overcharge by the locals, everything else was not too bad – after the first day.

Arriving in Piazza area, I went to check out the two cheap hotels: Wutma and Baro – right across the street from each other. Both are crappy but Baro didn’t have the toilet smell, so I reserved a room for tomorrow night and for 2 nights. I thought it was going be good, but I was wrong – see later post. Wutma does have a good looking restaurant and I ate the local dish with extremely chewy lamb, it took a long time for me to finish the dish. Later my tummy started to not feel too great.

My walk back to my hotel in the dark wasn’t bad at all, it was still not too late, so people were around and it was too dark for local people to tell that I am a foreigner. I went to an internet café inside the hotel and then call it a night.