JG, Over the Sea.: Ethiopia: Debra Zeit and Addis Ababa.

It occurred to me when beginning this post that Ethiopia will have 4 blog posts. A little excessive, but we were there 3 weeks and there were so many stages to the trip! I like having the separate experiences catalogued as such. So here's another one...ha...Ethiopia blog post 3 out of 4.

Traveling to Ethiopia was like having a homecoming with a place I had never been.

It was familiar yet new, wild yet comfortable.

After the trek, the girls and I split up and they got on another tiny plane to a lake town in the north, I got picked up at the airport by my ex-ethiopian. I think this is a reason that I took to Ethiopia a bit more than my co-workers, I didn't have to navigate alone. The few times he was at work and I was alone wandering around were a bit stressful. Luckily, the majority of the time I had him to drive me around, talk and order for me, take me to the insider places, and explore on a more local level - which is always the goal of a good traveler.

We had a great few days. I got to see some old friends I had in China whom I hadn't seen in years. They took me out and treated me very special, which was so nice. At the weekend, ex-ethiopian took me a few hours out of town to a beautiful and peaceful resort that acts as a weekend respite for Addis city-dwellers. I enjoyed driving outside of Addis and getting to see the horse carriages and donkeys along the road on the way there. You really get to see more of a country when you drive outside the capital where wealth and education seems to be concentrated.

I continued to be sick, which was very strange because usually I pride myself in my body's ability to adapt. After 7 years in China I feel like my guts are ironclad. But Ethiopia did me in. I am thankful I had my trusty translator and driver to worry about me and get me better. I am very anti going to the doctor in developing nations, but he took care of me and by the work portion of the trip I was on the mend. Thank goodness.

Addis was a city that left me feeling very alive. The more I travel in Africa outside Rwanda, the more I notice that I am more suited for places that have high energy and require more culture clue observation and adrenaline. I think Rwanda is a little bit too subdued for my ideal atmosphere.

Some of the highlights of Addis for me were visiting the sugar can juice shop where Yoni used to stop as a kid; the juice was amazing and it was a place a traveler would never find on their own, having the best coffee I have ever had in my life at Tomoca Coffee, and eating a home cooked meal in an Ethiopian family's house then watching re-runs of the Oscars on the couch. What a special time it was in Addis.

A homecoming...to a place I had never been.