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Salam Addis!

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First night in Addis. We visited a local restaurant, called Dashen, which was down a dirt road. All the roads, apart from major ones, seem to be  dirt.  http://dashenterararestaurant.com/ There were two other tables of farangi (just two at each table) but the clientele was overwhelmingly local so we think Kate picked an authentic place. We had injera, a local fermented 'bread' made from tef, an ancient grain, which is served with most meals. As there is no cutlery, one eats with the right hand, tearing off a piece of injera and using it to pick up the various wat (stews), meat, vegetables or lab (like a cottage cheese), which are placed on top of the injera (which is round and flat and usually rather large). We also had tej, a honey mead type drink that contains a wild herb like hops. Kate liked it but Michael and I didn't really. Tej tends to be home made. This restaurant (not unusually apparently) had entertainment: musicians and singers, who also danced. Th...
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Addis Ababa: A name to conjure with

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Kate and Michael met me at the airport with this beautiful bouquet of rose buds and we caught the shuttle to our hotel.  Love that first drive through a city. First  impressions: dust - although an American resident of Addis told me that as it was the very end of the wet season, the city would become progressively more dusty - and activity, although not nearly as noisy, crowded or busy as an Indian city. No discernable driving rules but not a huge amount of traffic - no Yangon. Like similar Indian hotels, this hotel had security gates, vehicle checks, x-ray machine for all belongings and security guards. Security was possibly extra vigilent because the Indian president, Kovind, was staying at our hotel with his rather large entourage. The city was bedecked with Indian and Ethiopian flags. Check-in was not great. The man who checked me in obviously did not think that a woman travelling alone needed a room with a king-sized bed, which I'd reserved and for which I'd pai...
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En route

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What do all those names conjure up ... I know it's only 9 o'clock in the morning but it is lunchtime in Perth and I really wanted just a taste of this Bordeaux.
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Do you believe in magic?

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Kate & Michael flew in to Addis Ababa from Entebbe, Uganda and I flew from Perth to Dubai to Addis. From Addis, we flew to Gondar and were driven to the Simien Mountains (N-E of Gondar in the direction of Aksum). We were driven back to Gondar to fly to Lalibela. We then flew from Lalibela to Aksum and were driven to Megab in Tigray (east and slightly south of Aksum). We were driven from Megab to Mekele, where we flew to Addis. I flew home but Kate & Michael continued to the Bale Mountains (slightly S-E of Awasa).  Before leaving home, I'd read that visiting Ethiopia was like stepping into a childhood story book and so it was. I'd also read that when arriving at the first stop, one would imagine that there couldn't be anywhere else on Earth so fantastic - until visiting the second place and the third and so on. All true.
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