Category: Ethiopia

So after a super fun 24 hours in Lalibela we arrived back in Addis Ababa for the last 2 nights of our trip. I’m a huge wine fan, so when researching the trip we found Castel Winery a french winery who had imported french grapes into the Rift Valley of Ethiopia and arranged a tour. By arranged a tour I mean we booked a guide and driver for the last 2 days to take us around. They contacted the winery and arranged a tour for us. So early one morning we set off. The winery is located 3 hours to the south of Addis- it being the rainy season everything was green and lush. Our trip plans for the day were to visit the winery, do a wine tasting, and then drive back to Addis where we had arranged a tour of this world famous women’s hospital that we had to reschedule from the previous day because of our flight delay.

This particular day was a great reminder that sometimes things do not go as planned. Sometimes travel is hard and frustrating and there are communication errors and shit just goes generally opposite of how you want it to. So we drove south towards the winery. The roads reminded me of driving in India- small single or double lane roads winding thru tiny villages lined with massive potholes and any number of bikes, motorcycles, car, trucks, cows all over the road. We passed several funeral processions as we passed thru the tiny villages. We stopped off mid morning for a cup of Ethiopian coffee and Fanta for Kiwi and drove to the winery.

We arrived at Castel Winery which is a large wine exporter. We had read blog posts about the lovely tours other travelers had, and again our tour company had emailed them that we were coming. Except they had no idea we were coming. So we arrive and negotiations were made as to whether we could be given a tour. Thankfully, a random employee gave us a tour of the vineyard and told us about the agriculture in the region and what types of grapes they grow. Which was great, except I’m primarily there to taste the wine. I will totally drive 6 hours round trip on backroads just to taste some wine. So next they arrange for us a tour where the wine is actually made. Which again is cool. But I’m here for the wine people. So after that tour they’re like “would you like to buy some wine?” And I’m like “hells yes, but after we taste is so I know which ones I like.” Being a real wine nerd I had already looked up all the wine they made and knew which ones I was keen to try. And then the guy said the words that I dread….“not possible.” And I’m like “what now?” And they inform us that the person in charge of the wine tasting wasn’t working today so there was no wine tasting. We had a total first world traveler melt down. I think I stopped breathing I was so disappointed. I mean that was the entire point of us driving all that way. We could’ve literally stayed in Addis and bought every type of wine that they made there and did our own wine tasting while getting day drunk instead of driving 3 hours there and back to taste zero wine. We went wine tasting and left sober. It was actually pretty fitting seeing as how our trip to Ethiopia had gone thus far. So they told us we could still buy wine. So we bought one bottle to take back with us. Naturally, being the person who likes to get the last word in I told the tour guide and the winery employees that if they want to get tourists obviously they need to have wine to actually taste. Kiwi chimed in and was like “you need to get some table and chairs and crackers and cheese…..” and I was like “Kiwi that’s the least of their problems- there’s apparently no wine to taste.”

We sulked back to the car, and because we were already tight for time for our hospital tour we opted to skip lunch and just try and make it back to Addis in time. Our guide and driver assured us this was possible despite our gut feeling that it was not. One lesson I’ve learned from mixing with other cultures is that often times people will just tell you what they think you want to hear instead of telling you something bad. This was that exact situation. In hindsight unless we were taking a helicopter back it was unlikely we ever could’ve made it back in time. Like hella unlikely. After 3 more hours in the car we were hungry, tired, and it was impossible to make our appointment so we had to call and cancel. Again. I was so bummed. The Hamlin Fistula Hospital was founded by an Australian couple in the 1970s. It provides free care to women who have sustained injuries related to childbirth. As someone who works in maternity and is passionate about women’s health I was really gutted that we missed this. This particular day was just not our day. We arrived back at the hotel 9 hours after we set out, starving and feeling defeated from the many obstacles of the trip. We had plans to meet up with one of the housekeepers I work with here Saudi Arabia. She was in Addis with her children to visit her family and this was one of the reasons I wanted to visit Addis. We couldn’t have felt less social after our day of irritation but we dragged ourselves to the shower and made ourselves presentable. I’m so very glad we didn’t cancel.

My work friend and her brother picked us up from our hotel and drove us to a nearby touristy restaurant that serves Ethiopian food and then also has traditional dancers. Her three children and her brother’s wife and their two young kids were waiting for us. We had such a fantastic evening. Truly. That night will always be such a special memory for me. We ate some delicious food and sat around chatting while I cuddled the brother’s 6 month old baby girl and gained the trust of his 3 year old son. They were adorable and they kept saying to the 3 year old “do you want to go to Canada?” And I was like don’t leave this kid unattended or he’s for sure coming to Canada with me. We watched the dancing and he sat on my lap (the kid not the brother just to be clear) and we took a ton of photos and got all the kids to do kissy lip selfies with us. It was the best. And then they refused to let us pay and even payed for our taxi back to the hotel which was beyond kind. I hope I can repay this kindness to them in the future. After a dark cloud of a day the storm cleared and the sun brightly shone on us.

The next morning we woke up early for a tour of Addis before our flight back to Riyadh that evening. We did a little shopping. The textiles in Ethiopia are beautiful so I bought an absurd number of scarves and some jewelry. We then visited Holy Trinity Cathedral which is very much worth a visit if you are in Addis. We arrived at the tail end of a service and there were worshippers outside. The inside of the church has stunning stained glass windows, but the bit I liked was that the walls and pillars were tiled with this glazed tile which made the light reflecting through the windows bounce all over. Also the carpet was fuschia and who doesn’t love that?! From here we drove to a view point on Mt Entoto which over looks the city of Addis Ababa. Did you know that Addis is the fifth highest capital city in the world at nearly 8000 feet? Well you do now. You’re welcome. We drove down the mountain and visited the Lucy exhibit at the National Museum. While there I started to feel not so great. My stomach felt a little off and I was dizzy so I took a rest hoping things would improve. They did not so we went to a nearby restaurant and I tried some 7-up and soup which marginally helped. We visited the Ethnological museum which probably would’ve been interesting had I not been feeling so poorly. Our guide was a chatty fellow and basically read every single sign to me which was way over stimulating. After that we drove through Merkato market which is the largest market in Africa. They literally sell everything. We drove through because I wasn’t feeling great and our guide wouldn’t have let us out of the car anyways, because according to him there is a lot of theft and such there. I imagine that’s not an untrue statement from what I saw. We then went back to the hotel so I could rest before our flight as I was starting to run a fever.

So later that night we headed off to the airport. The check in guy was great and gave us a row to ourselves as I clearly did not look well. This was the first time our flight was actually on time. Thank goodness. We boarded the plane and there was this creepy guy who was clearly taking photos of us. I was too ill to care but Kiwi was getting irritated. Right before take off he moved seats and sat directly across the aisle from Kiwi. I was just waiting for her to tell him off because he was hardcore staring at us. Then he tried to do his seat belt up. He grabbed part of his seat belt and part of the one from the empty seat next to him and tried two identical pieces to match. Naturally this didn’t work. Kiwi and I just sat there watching this happen. So he tied the belt in a knot and tucked it under his arm and look around to see if anyone noticed. Kiwi and I made eye contact with each other and then just about died laughing about the hilariousness of the whole trip. My medication kicked in and when I woke up the creepy guy had moved seats away from us. When we landed in Riyadh I texted my driver to have him pick me up crackers and 7-up. Sometimes having a driver is the bomb.

So while a lot of crazy things happened over our 5 day trip to Ethiopia it was still overall a great trip. One for the books really. There’s no one I would’ve rather shared it with than Kiwi as we balance each other out and we laugh all the damn time which makes us great travel sidekicks. I can’t wait for our next adventure!!! Next week I’ll update ya’ll with what’s in store for me for the few months…..

Ok, so now you know the story of how our Ethiopian adventure came about. After one extremely long and dramatic travel day we found ourselves in Addis Ababa after nearly 36+ hours of no sleep. We were beyond exhausted and literally ordered room service and fell asleep. We had an early morning flight with our favourite airline Ethiopian Air, the following morning.

Bright and early the next day we caught a shuttle to the airport only to find out…..not very shockingly....that our flight was delayed a couple hours. This was a little annoying because we only had time for an overnight in Lalibela, and were planning to pack a lot into our time there. But these things happen and we didn’t want to get into a negative mood so we grabbed some cokes and some type of cake and people watched. Much to our delight we ran into a super cute Somali/UK family that had been on our Riyadh flight the day before. The mom was very nice and she had an older teenage daughter, and a boy who I’m guessing was like 13 and a young boy who was maybe 3. The 13 year old was the most polite child I’ve ever met. The 3 year old was naturally scared of strangers and didn’t initially take a liking to me, but eventually I wore him down and he kept trying to hold my hand like we were the best of buds. Operation befriend strangers child was successful. It’s a good thing his mom was keeping an eye on him otherwise I might’ve made off with him- he was super cute. So anyways because of our delay that morning it just so happened that we crossed paths with them which was a very nice surprise.

Our flight to Lalibela which is in the northern part of Ethiopia was uneventful (thank goodness!) We stopped off in a place called Bahir Dal which is on Lake Tana and then into Lalibela. Coming into Lalibela the countryside reminded me of the Grand Canyon. It’s rugged and colourful and there are little huts dotting the horizon. We jumped in a local shuttle to go to our hotel- the actual village is about 20min away from the airport. I watched out the window wide eyed. This after all is my first trip to Africa apart from Egypt and Morocco which are very different because they are Northern Arab Africa. We passed straw roofed huts, colourfully dressed locals, and the absolute best part for me was that they had RICKSHAWS!! Ever since driving a 3 wheeled auto rickshaw across India a few years back I’m obsessed with driving them. As soon as I saw the first one I turned to Kiwi and was like “I’m driving one of those today!” And luckily Kiwi is happy to go along with my crazy ideas so she was on board. We arrived at our hotel. There are understandably no super fancy hotels in this village but we stayed at the Maribella Hotel which was perfectly adequate and the staff were lovely. We met our guide for the rock churches who would come back and get us after we had eaten some lunch. I requested that our tour be by rickshaw, “preferably a rickshaw that I am driving.” Kassaye the guide was totally unphased by this and said “no problem.”

We had a delicious Ethiopian lunch and I had a couple local Walia beers which were very tasty and we started to climb the 3 flights of stairs to our room. Part way up Kiwi says to me “I feel dizzy.” And I’m like “well take a rest then.” And I went ahead and unlocked the door to our room. Kiwi comes in and she’s leaning over her bed and again says “I feel dizzy.” And I’m like “well sit down then.” No sooner do the words come out of my mouth then I see movement out of the corner of my eye. I turn and watch her slow motion fall between the beds. My initial thought is that she’s fake fallen, but as I come around the side of the bed she’s laying in between the 2 twin beds, eyes open, not blinking, face pale and her lips are starting to turn a little blue. My mind was racing and I’m trying to figure out whether I yell for help- if anyone would actually hear me, and if there’s even a hospital in this village. I crouched down and felt her pulse which thankful she had and start shaking her and she eventually started blinking. Now a back story is that Kiwi is allergic to a wide variety of things and one of the requirements for us to take this trip was that she get an epi pen. So I’m like “Kiwi are you having an allergic reaction?” And she’s like “why is my iPad on the floor?” And I’m “like well you’re on the floor.” And she looks around and realizes that she is and she slowly sat up and we both laughed. I laughed mostly out of relief because it really was a scary thing to witness, and having to call a travel mate’s family to say that something bad happened is something I’ve always feared while traveling. But she was ok. I think it was a combination of the elevation and exhaustion so we took it slow the rest of the trip.

Once that medical emergency was out of the way we made our way downstairs to meet Kassaye. Outside to my great delight was Kassaye and a young rickshaw driver who was totally cool with me driving his rickshaw. So Kiwi got in the back with our guide and the rickshaw boy perched on the edge of the driver’s seat as he gave me a refresher of Rickshaw Driving 101 for Dummies. I stalled it the first time and then got it going and then he jumped in the back. I was smiling from ear to ear and both the guide and rickshaw boy were impressed! They said they’d never had a tourist drive a rickshaw in Lalibela before and by the end of the day we would be the talk of the town. So off we headed to the main cluster of rock churches. We drove through the main center of Lalibela and when locals got a look at me driving they would start clapping and cheering. The kids chased after the rickshaw. But the best for me was the look of surprise on the teenage girls faces that we passed. I loved seeing the excitement in their eyes. Kiwi kept saying “I can’t believe I’m being driven to a UNESCO site by kristinewanders in a rickshaw. This is the best!” And she was exactly, right. It was the absolute best.

So we arrived at the complex that holds several rock churches. Lalibela is an interesting town in that it is all Orthodox Christians. There are no other churches in the area- in fact the closest mosque is like 60km away. It is also considered to be a holy city and is a site of pilgrimage for Orthodox Christians. The churches in this region date from the 7th to 13th century and are often carved out of a solid piece of rock. There is a lot of links of Jerusalem and most of the churches have names like House of the Cross or House of Mary as examples. Our first stop that day was to visit the Northern grouping of churches which comprises 5 churches in the same complex. The Lalibela Rocks churches became a UNESCO World Heritage site back in 1978. It costs $50 US dollars a person to get into the Northern complex. To me that is pretty steep but they are very much worth being seen. There is a tiny museum on site which houses display cases with old art work and a history of the King of Lalibela and examples of the metal crosses the region is known for.

As we were checking out the museum a religious ceremony was finishing up so there were priests and other worshippers dressed in traditional clothing leaving the church complex. That made for some amazing photos. Over the next couple hours we visited several of the churches. They are carved out of a single piece of rock and each one is different from the others. Some of them the insides are bare, others like St Mary’s has the remnants of fresco paintings on the arches and ceiling. They have carved windows which allows for natural light to filter in. It’s amazing to think of how something like this was built with such precision. The archways are perfect. You need to wear good walking shoes though as the floors are uneven and you are climbing up and down to get to the churches. We were in Ethiopia during the rainy season so late in the afternoon it started to rain which turned the paths into mud and made it quite slippery. Luckily, the rains were short lived and we wandered the paths outside the church complex. We then got back into the rickshaw to pick up some supplies for one of the local schools. Kiwi had been in contact with the principle of the primary school there and was told that the kids needed soccer balls. She had kindly bought some nice Adidas balls in Saudi which were taken away from us in Riyadh by airport officials who said you couldn’t fly with soccer balls, but secretly we think they just wanted them for themselves. Anyways we bought 10 new soccer balls for the kids and squeezed them into the rickshaw with us. The young rickshaw owner had an old Nokia phone that had  Whitney Houston’s “I will always love you” as his ringtone. Lucky for us he was quite popular so it would ring pretty often and Kiwi and I would start singing along until he answered it and we would all laugh!!

The next morning our guide Kassaye picked us up. He had been in the market the previous night and the talk of the town was of the girl who was driving the rickshaw. So now I’m basically #EthiopiaFamous for my mad driving skillz. We set off for St George’s Church.  Naturally we had requested a rickshaw again so I drove us there. St George’s Church is the church you see when you when you google Ethiopia rock churches. It is beyond stunning. A perfect rock cross roofed church carved into the ground. When you first view it it appears small, but as you walk closer you can see that it’s not nearly as small as you had originally thought. I was actually speechless and pretty much just stood there feeling like all the drama to get to this place was so very much worth it. There’s a path that descends down to the base of the church and we walked around it and took photos from outside and then inside. After that we climbed back up and took selfies with Kassaye and the rickshaw owner. Kiwi even convinced them to make kissy lips which is her specialty.

We then switched vehicles and on our way to the airport we tracked down the school principle and visited the school to drop off the soccer balls. Sadly, school was out for the summer so there weren’t any kids around. Maybe this was a good thing because I likely would’ve tried to adopt/steal several of them! We toured the school- like 2000 children attend broken into morning and afternoon classes with adult education classes held in the evenings. We then drove out of town stopping on the way to visit Bet Neakutoleab a church that is built into the wall of a rock cliff. It’s a bit of a walk down a rocky path to get to it but it’s pretty cool. I got to meet one of the local priests who showed me all the treasures of the church which consisted of the typical metal crosses, incense and an old colourful handwritten bible. From here we got dropped off at the airport. The airport there is super small. Like teeny tiny. Naturally our flight was delayed almost an hour. We had each purchased a metal Lalibela cross as a souvenir and didn’t even think that they probably wouldn’t be allowed as carry on. We made sad eyes to the security guy and he said he would ask someone if an exception could be made so we could bring them on board as we didn’t want to have to check a bag. He later came back to us and said he would ask the flight attendant if she would lock them up for the flight and return them to us when we landed in Addis. Much to our delight she agreed which made me dislike Ethiopian Air a tiny bit less.

If you go to Lalibela the staff at the Maribella Hotel is really great. The local guide we used is Kassaye. He speaks great English and you can contact him via his Facebook page here.

Happy travels….

Last month I went to Ethiopia for 5 days. You’re probably saying to yourself “hmmm Ethiopia is an interesting choice?!” My reasons for going were threefold. First, it’s an easy direct flight from Riyadh to Addis Ababa so it’s a great use of 5 days. Secondly, these UNESCO rock churches that I’ve been wanting to see are there and thirdly, one of the lovely housekeepers that I work with was taking her family home for the summer and would be in Addis during this time. So we booked a ticket. My kiwi sidekick has been to Africa a bunch and had previously flown with Ethiopian Air. Reportedly, they used to be amazing. Our choices to get there were to fly with them, or with Saudia stopping in Jeddah. The direct flight with Ethiopia Air was the logical choice.

I’m part of a Girls travel group on Facebook and in the week leading up to our trip I saw a couple different girls post about getting stuck in Addis  with Ethiopian Air, or having their luggage turn up with most of their things missing, or their luggage never turning up. I told my kiwi sidekick this but she was unphased. The day of our flight I came across another post about Ethiopia Air.  The person commented if you want some entertainment to read the reviews on Ethiopia Air’s Facebook page. In that moment for whatever reason I did want some entertainment, and so I searched them. The reviews were awful. I’m already a nervous flier so reading this was not an especially smart move. Basically, all the reviews had the same thing in common- things went from bad to worse. People said that if there was an option they would rate them zero stars instead of one. Phrases like “worst airline” “horrific experience” “total incompetence” keep repeating themselves, and my anxiety was building. This was red flag numero uno.

So after working a 12hour day shift we went home from work to finish packing. I grabbed an hour cat nap and we were off to the airport for our 3am flight. We arrived at the airport and it’s normal Riyadh chaos. Oddly, our flight isn’t even listed on the screen so for a second we think maybe we’re at the wrong terminal. Turns out we’re not, just for whatever reason our flight and airline aren’t on the monitor. Hmmm. Weird. Red flag numero dos. So we check in, and it’s mayhem. People have like a million bags and like 5 pieces of carry-on per person. As you can imagine getting thru security took all the remaining patience in us after working 12hours. So we wait at the boarding gate which is confusing as we aren’t sure if the flight is even on time because again it’s still not on the monitor. People are literally camped out in the walkways and it’s pretty much impossible to move around. I go find someone to get some intel on when we are actually leaving- because I’m such a stressed flier I like to take my prescription meds an hour before we leave so that as we are taking off I’m mostly asleep. So they say the flight is delayed a bit. A little while later a guy says we will be boarding soon, so I medicate. We all form a line (I’m joking of course).  There’s no single line per say, just like 10 lines that all end up in people crowding together and the people behind you pushing. Part of the plane begins to board and then there is a commotion and suddenly we are all back in the boarding area. Doors are closed and we wait. At first people are standing in place and then people just start dropping to the floor unsure whether to go take seats or if the issue will be resolved quickly.

Eventually a guy comes around and says “mechanical problem.” And I’m like what does that mean? And he just repeats the same phrase over and over which in that moment was highly irritating and I immediately decided I didn’t like this guy. Over the next 3 hours we would mill around the airport trying to get an update. There were very few westerners on the plane. As the delay went on it became apparent that Ethiopia Air well knew of the delay before we checked into the flight, hence why it never ended up on the list of departures. This of course was done on purpose so they didn’t have to put people up in hotels. Seeing as most of the flight was Africans I imagine they felt they could get away with treating people like this. This made me more angry. By 7am they had not given us much info or offered any of these people food or water. Many of the people on this flight wouldn’t have had the money to pay airport prices for things like food and drinks. Because I was already so annoyed I made a big deal about this to some of the airport staff and then they suddenly brought food and water out. We waited some more. We started to make back up plans. Where should we go instead we discussed? There was a flight to Dubai at 5pm. We could go home and repack and come back to the airport. Check into a 5 star hotel and lay by the pool and sip cocktails and get fanned by a pool boy. By 9am we were demanding to speak with the supervisor. I was told that he couldn’t come now because he was on the plane. We demanded refunds. They said that wasn’t a problem but that we had to wait for the supervisor. They then told us and a select few passengers that the flight was actually cancelled. Again they would refund us, but we needed to wait on the supervisor to officially state it was cancelled. So we waited some more- and bonded with a few other passengers over the disaster that is Ethiopian Air. So then the “supervisor” shows up and it’s this same jerk that we had to deal with earlier only now he’s saying that the flight is leaving right now. I’m all like “so the mechanical thing is fixed?” And he’s all like “inshallah” and my kiwi sidekick and I look at each other like are we actually doing this? And I swallow my anxiety medication and we board the plane. Eight hours after we were due to leave we actually left.

So we get on the plane and there are a bunch of crying kids because they are overtired and hungry and frustrated just like us. I put an eye mask on and my headphones in and I’m out. A while later I’m woken by someone shaking me. I groggily pull my headphones out and lift my eye mask and it’s a lady from South Africa whom we’d been chatting with earlier. She knew we were nurses and she’s saying to us “they need you. They’ve been paging a medical emergency for the last while, there’s a lady who might be in labour.” Kiwi and I look at each other and shrug our shoulders and try and get our shoes on and go see what the scenario is. I’ve never actually seen a birth take place. But I did recently compete a Neonatal Resuscitation course so I’m feeling mildly confident with my skills. The woman is on the floor. She does not speak English or Arabic. She looks to be having some pain but does not appear to be in active labour. She speaks Swahili. Thankfully there is one random dude who is acting as a translator. Kiwi leans over to me and says she knows the Swahili word for giraffe. Funny. But not helpful. There is also a girl there who has just completed nursing school. She has examined the woman and her water has not broken and she is not bleeding. I ask the man to translate a series of questions. When did the pain start? How many babies has she had? How far along is she? Can she still feel the baby moving? The pain started yesterday. It’s her 5th pregnancy, and she is 6-7 months along although to me she looks small. The baby is still moving.

I ask the flight attendants for the emergency kit. There’s not a ton in it that will be useful if she has this baby. We take her vital signs and give her something to drink as I’m sure she’s dehydrated given our lengthy delay at the airport. We are an hour outside of Addis at this point. A medical team will meet us when we land. The crew is helpful and professional. As we begin the decent they move the woman and I to business class. I have the man translate prior to him returning to his seat that if she feels severe pain or if her water breaks she should squeeze my arm. The plane lands and as we touch down she squeezes my forearm and her eyes go wide. So here we are taxiing down the runway and I’m under her skirt checking the situation. No bleeding. Her water did not break. Once we were stopped the medical team arrived and I reported off to them and the woman was taken away in a wheelchair. I wonder whatever happened to her.

And so that’s how we found ourselves in Addis Ababa deliriously tired. This was far from the only adventures we had on the trip, but luckily the kiwi and I travel great together so mostly we end up just laughing when things went awry. Would I fly Ethiopia Airlines again? No. Not unless it was free and it was the only option, but I’m sure there are worse airlines. More of our Ethiopian adventures to come….