That meant we arrived a good five hours before take-off, and a full hour before the airline, KLM, was ready to accept our bags. So we found some coffee and sat down for a munchy lunch. Finally we off-loaded our 8 checked bags (including 7 full of donations for the various agencies and projects for which we collected items). About two hours after that, we went through security with our four carry-ons and finally were able to board the plane. It was a wide-body MD-11 and we occupied the mddle three seats and one across the aisle, near the back of the plane.
After a light supper we all settled down for some zzzzs. Giggles and I slept the best; Laolao and Laoye just dozed off and on but didn't really sleep. When I awoke, it was breakfast time, and then we began our descent into Amsterdam. The gate for our next flight was just a short walk down the hall. We had three hours to kill and spent it wandering the airport and resting. Giggles and I spent some time in the terminal store where she became intimately acquainted with all the stuffies on display, including one very realistic guinea pig. Then she and Laoye spent close to an hour walking to the other end of the airport and back.
Next we boarded the flight that would take us to Addis. We were in similar seats but closer to the front of the plane. This was a daytime flight (though very early morning Canada time!) and we spent a good part of it reading, colouring, and watching movies or playing games on the personal seat-back monitors. Giggles and Laolao also slept an hour or two. The flight landed in Khartoum and we waited on the airplane for about an hour and a half, then took off for the last leg of the trip!
Finally we landed in Addis Ababa, at just after 10 pm local time. We had to stand in line for our visa for close to 45 minutes, as the line-up was quite lengthy, but by the time we were done our bags were all off the plane. As we exited the baggage claim area the tour operator rep was waiting for us, sign in hand. They had a good-sized 4WD and were able to fit all 12 bags in! Outside the airport, the temperature was quite nice. We had expected a cooler evening, as nights this time of year (according to the internet forecasts we've been watching) can dip down to 6 or 7 degrees, but it was a pleasant 15 so we were fine with just the sweaters we were wearing.
The trip to our rental house took all of 10 minutes. The landlord was waiting when we arrived and showed us around. It is a fairly spacious and comfortable house – in many ways quite basic, but pleasant. The three bedrooms vary in size from a large master bedroom with a double wardrobe and attached bathroom, a middle-sized bedroom with a wardrobe, and a very small bedroom with nothing but a double bed.
Giggles and I have taken the master bedroom, since once Poppet arrives we'll need the extra space to move around and store clothes. (I think the bed is also a queen-sized, and it wouldn't surprise me if we all end up in it together.) Laolao and Laoye have the middle bedroom, and the small bedroom is "overflow" (!). There is also a small kitchen with a small fridge and a gas stove, and a large dining room with a good-sized table and about six chairs.
The living room has three sofas, a coffee table and even a television with lots of channels (the satellite dish is very prominent in the front yard). There is a lovely garden full of roses, geraniums, bamboo, lilies, and many other plants I don't know. A palm tree graces the front lawn.
For all this we are paying $40 a night (including the nights we are off touring, so for those nights we are "double-paying," but it is worth it to have the space and being able to spread out our stuff on arrival and not have to worry about packing up and changing rooms or lugging everything with us).
The kitchen has only very basic equipment (about 5 each of forks, spoons, plates, and cups and a few pots) but that should be enough. There are sheets and blankets on the bed and a few towels. My friend's friend, JN, who found the place and made arrangements for us, had put a few breakfast things in the fridge, so there was enough to do us for today and next Sunday once we're back from our first tour.
We did some very basic unpacking and hit the beds promptly – which still meant after midnight.
Sunday 16 December 2007
Laolao had set the alarm for 9:00 this morning, but we woke up spontaneously around 8:15. Breakfast was cereal and cold juice and milk, since there were no matches to light the stove. The landlord, Akilu, showed up around 9:00 and we asked him for matches, some table knives, and some toilet paper. Then his son, Fasil, took us to exchange some money. Our friend had told us that we could do so at the Hilton on Sundays, but Fasil took us to a black market exchanger. Not a street exchange – that is to be avoided, as they are very slippery-fingered – but a little shop that provides exchange services on the sly. The rate is somewhat more favourable there (9 birr to the US$ vs the official rate of about 8.5 birr) though the difference is slight enough that there's not a huge incentive to use the black market. We needed to exchange money right away as we needed to pay the landlord and he wasn't about to wait a week for us to get back from our tour!
Next on the agenda was a meeting with the tour operator. He came to our house and took us to his offices not far away where he gave us the airline tickets for our flights for the northern tour that begins tomorrow, and we made the final payment to him as well. From their offices on the 12th floor we had a good view of the city, with rolling hills in the distance and lots of green dotted amongst the buildings. By now it was getting quite warm – in the low 20s.
Those two transactions lightened our load of money considerably!
After that, our new friend JN arrived and we were finally able to meet her after numerous e-mail exchanges! She first took us to buy a few more groceries. Seeing as we'll be gone for six days, we didn't buy much but picked up some more cereal, water, and toilet paper (to go beyond the one roll the landlord provided). We also looked for a hairbrush for Giggles, since we forgot hers at home and her hair doesn't take very well to combing, being quite fine (so far that's the only thing that was forgotten!), but that store had none.
After unloading the purchases at home, we loaded up two of the donations suitcases and headed to the Weygoss to drop them off for a CAFAC representative who is currently in Addis. One and half of our donation suitcases are destined for Kids' Hope, a project of Canadian Humanitarian, CAFAC's charitable and development sister organization. We had to wait there for a few minutes for R to get back from lunch (it was almost 2 o'clock by then) – and when she did we realized we'd brought the wrong suitcases! We had brought the ones for AHOPE, not Kids' Hope. As JN says, everything around here is Hope this, Hope that, so an easy enough mistake to make. But R knows of AHOPE, which is an orphanage for HIV+ children, and said she would make sure the suitcases reached their intended destination. She also gave me the contact info for one of the local staff of the agency they partner with in the project so when we're back from tour I'll call him and we can get him the right suitcases. We hope he'll also take us to visit the project.
Next on the agenda was lunch, as our stomachs were starting to grumble. While waiting at the Weygoss we'd seen pizza arrive for some people (an adopting family from Calgary who had just picked up their 7-month old baby girl) so Laolao said pizza would be good! JN took us up towards the university on a bit of a tour of Addis (during which time I confess to having dozed off somewhat in the car, though I did catch some of the highlights) and we ate at a lovely café on the university grounds.
They did indeed have pizza. The waiter said one large pizza would do for one person, but the size he indicated seemed rather large, so we ordered two pizzas for the four adults plus some spaghetti for Giggles. Wise decision, as the pizzas were even larger than he'd indicated and we took half of one home with us!
On the way home we stopped at two more stores in a vain attempt to find a hairbrush… no luck. Combs aplenty, but no brushes. We'll try again later, on tour. Giggles said she didn't need to brush her hair while we were in Ethiopia!! Well, says I, if you don't then by the time we get home it will be so matted we'll have to cut it all off. "I don't care," says she with a little flip of the head. But she would!
Next was NAP time. We all lay down for about an hour. After that I had energy to play with Giggles outside in the yard. We played hopscotch on the stone driveway, played flying ponies, investigated the garden behind the house where we discovered three dogs and two chickens. Abraham, the landlord's second son, showed us the resident tortoise. It was starting to cool off, so we came inside and played hide and seek.
This fun was followed by a light supper of fried eggs, left-over pizza and tea (now that we had matches and could light the stove). After supper, Laolao and Giggles read stories and played while I got organized for our morning departure on tour. I had packed with the tour in mind, so most of our clothes were ready to go in one suitcases, but I needed to round up the necessaries I'd unpacked for today's use – my medications, our toiletries – and add a few things for Giggles to play with.
We set the alarm for 4:30 in the morning as we need to leave for the airport by 5:00. Fasil will take us there – his father has a taxi company and I think he drives for his dad – so we made sure he was aware of the time we need to leave. "11 o'clock Ethiopian time, about an hour before sunrise."
(Continue to Dec 16 - Bahir Dar: Blue Nile Falls)
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