Compromise solution
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
- Three Continents
In Addis Ababa there are not many museums to look at except museums. We visited the National, Ethnological and Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum together. Especially the Ethnological Museum I found quite interesting.
In Addis is the building of the University of Addis Ababa, which previously served as a palace for Emperor Haile Selassie I. Here you will find the Institute of Ethiopian Studies and the Ethnological Museum as well as an exhibition of historical Ethiopian artworks.
The highlight of this visit was for me the toilet of Emperor Haile Selassie. The Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum had many images and bones. Unfortunately, however, there was a huge lack of information. These we had to get ourselves over the Internet.
The Ethiopian Civil War was a war within Ethiopia between 1974 and 1991, during which numerous rebel and liberation movements fought against the country's communist central government. In 1974, a bloody military coup took place, during which the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie of the Empire of Abyssinia was overthrown. The revolutionary forces DERGUE, which had carried out the coup, abolished the monarchy in March 1974. During Derg's reign, hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians fled abroad from economic hardship and political repression. In 1991, rebels and opposition gained the upper hand and Derg was overthrown by the Revolutionary Democratic Front of the Ethiopian Peoples. Mengistu and the Derg leadership fled to Zimbabwe, whose president Robert Gabriel Mugabe has since denied Ethiopia's extradition requests.
From Addis Ababa I took the bus to Harar. The fourth most Islamic city to Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem for Ethiopian Muslims, former European travelers were nicknamed "Timbuktu of the East". In 2006, the old town surrounded by a fortress wall was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The number of mosques is given with the same decisiveness as 82, 87 or 99. There are also numerous shrines, also outside the city walls.
In the old town there are some guesthouses. These were all too expensive for me, however. Solomon, a tour guide, offered to stay with him in the garden. Since I could say bad no. During the tour of the old town I was quite disappointed with the whole. It stinks miserable in the streets and everywhere are beggars who constantly ask for money. If that's a UNESCO heritage, I'm the pope!
Disappointed, I drove back to Addis Ababa the next day. There I met Clive and Henri. Clive had to extend his visa for Ethiopia, while Henri slowly moved further south and I tried to get my Kenya visa here in the capital. At the Kenyan Embassy, I met Andy from Germany. We decided to drive together to Lalibela, as many of this place had raved. I had to wait 2 days to pick up my visa. After that we took the bus to Bahir Dar.
We spent three days in Bahir Dar. There is no direct connection to Lalibela. Only with mini and local buses to get there. These start, as everywhere in the country, before sunrise. Supposedly it is too dangerous to drive at night. However, this is a complete nonsense. I think the drivers are just too lazy to do that. The drive to Lalibela was pretty bad. Especially the last piece from Gashena to Lalibela. The road is not paved at all, which means that the bus takes almost 2 hours to drive for 60 kilometers. Like everywhere in the country, the Chinese are currently building a new road. Things from China are known to be cheap and will not last long. It's the same with the streets. But the Ethiopians still did not understand that.
They are doing huge business with the Chinese. As a result, they anger other foreign investors and especially their own population. Officially, Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that has never been colonized. The population is enormously proud of it. I would not be in it at all. Nothing works here and everything has to be imported from abroad. In addition, we had to fight right to get the same fare as everyone else. After over 6 weeks in this dirt land, I know the prices pretty well. People always try to demand five times the price from the tourists. On the bus, shopping in the supermarket and much more. I find that a bottomless impudence. From where do these idiots get their donations, which are used here?
In Lalibela we tried to visit the churches on our first day. Lalibela is known worldwide for the eleven monolithic churches, which - mostly multi-storey - are carved into red basalt lava. The churches were built beginning with the reign of Emperor Gebra Maskal Lalibela, also known as Saint Lalibela (a member of the Zagwe dynasty) in 12/13. Century. Probably a total of 100 years was built at the plant.
Our hotel was in the lower part of Lalibela. We visited the Bet Giyorgis church first. On the way we could not find a ticket counter. We had just taken two pictures when the first people came running and asked for our ticket. They became really aggressive when we could not show any and did not even want to show us where to get one. Such a treatment right at the beginning did not suit us at all. You pay a total of $ 50 for the churches, which is a huge price in this country (and elsewhere).
Apart from the Bet Giyorgis church, all others are covered with an ugly roof. You can not make any good pictures because of this nonsense. The only ticket counter is at the other end of the village. Why can not they make 2 switches on each page? At the entrance they wanted to control us while all the locals could just walk by. The collar burst. We have to push the idiot heaps of coal in the ass and they do not move a finger for it. Such a laziness I'm not ready to support and even Andy had his mouth shut.
We decided to visit the Saturday market and leave Lalibela as fast as possible. The market was the only beautiful thing I saw all over Ethiopia. People from all over the area came here to sell their goods. They were so busy with acting that sometimes they did not really notice us.
The drive back to Bahir Dar the next day by bus was the absolute horror. First we waited two hours for the bus to leave and then the people in the bus behaved like pigs. They vomited and spit on the floor. For the last time most of us used a shower a year ago. The stench was unbearable. I have never seen such a stupid and primitive people as the Ethiopians in my life! We were so glad when we got back to Bahir Dar in the evening. Andy was so bad afterwards that he was snoring all night because of his cold. I did not close a single eye. We were both happy when we returned to Addis Ababa after 8 days.
Something of the worst here are the churches. In an old language that no one understands. sing (or scream) the whole night through the area. Sleep is hard to imagine. Since people are completely uneducated, they let this nonsense go through. In any other country, a revolution would have long since taken place. But even they are too stupid for that. What annoyed me the most at the end was the eternal Betlerei. You can not walk the streets or talk to locals without asking for money. If they still laugh at you then you sometimes go crazy. Every day I would have loved to hit it a few times.
With Oliver and Piu, I was able to store all my stuff while I was away. They also spoiled me with delicious food and a fantastic bed. Many many thanks!
I did not feel like driving my bike through Ethiopia anymore. Conducting a war with children every day is against my principles. If you feel like it, you are welcome to do so. But not with me. That's why I decided to take the emergency solution and take a flight to Nairobi with Andy. With the bike I went to the airport, loaded everything in a box and could take everything with a small surcharge. Luckily there was a co-worker from Greece at the counter of Kenya Airways. She had to kick the staff hard in the ass, so that they brought my settlement on the line. I would never have done it without them.
If all the people in the world treated their guests like the Ethiopians, we would soon have another world war. I never want to set foot in this country again and advise all others very much. Had I stayed longer, I would have become a racist. Sometimes it's better to leave a country to your fate. Ethiopia is a good example of this. The coming countries in Africa can only get better ...