Ethiopia and Nairobi
Our lay-over in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was pretty interesting. Addis Ababa is way up in the mountains and it’s a gorgeous area, but it’s a relatively crowded city. Our hotel was quite a distance from the airport so we got to see a little more of the city and it was like something I had never seen before. It was raining and cold, but there were so many people just walking around or standing over fires under overpasses. Their homes and businesses were huts put together with scrap metal and grasses or built into the mountain and all of it made me feel so guilty. Here were the six of us, with so many bags that we couldn’t carry them and the people we passed could fit all of their belongings into a 4’x4’ hut. I know it’s cliché, but it is unreal how much we need to be happy and how happy people here are with the very little they have.
Our hotel, the Ararat, was nicer than we had expected and the staff was so eager to help us and everyone was really nice. Each room had a bed, its own bathroom/shower, and a TV! I was laughing so hard because we only had a few channels, but one of them was MTV!! It’s funny how some things here have an American twist to them. Another example would be how our hotel buffet was all this Ethiopian food and then at the end was spaghetti and French fries, or “chips,� as they are called here. Coca-Cola is also huge here; their billboards are everywhere!
Our airport shuttle picked us up in the morning and we were off to Nairobi. We’ve been so lucky because even with all of our connections and changing of planes, our luggage was still intact! While we were driving to our hotel, I quickly found out there are no such things as traffic laws in East Africa. People drive as fast as they can, pass when they can, and honk their horns like mad. It’s actually kind of fun and exciting, but sometimes I found myself pushing my foot to the floor like I was hitting an imaginary brake or something. Another hazard are the vendors that walk between the two lanes of traffic selling anything from car air fresheners, Bibles, and Hello Kitty water rafts. Round-abouts are huge here too! I had never seen one until going to Kiran’s the day before we left and now I see them all the time. Again, drivers just go whenever they’d like and everyone seems to get to where they need to go safely. Apparently, they have less traffic accidents than we do, so maybe it’s efficient?
We were able to explore Nairobi a little before our safari and I’m not too sure if I liked it. Not that I was scared there, I felt relatively safe, but there were just so many people everywhere. We went to the Nairobi Java House, thinking we could maybe get some authentic Kenyan food, but 95% of it was American and it was pretty expensive! I can’t believe we had quesadillas, quiche, and burritos in Africa, haha. But again, we were blessed with a pretty nice hotel, although it was right in the middle of downtown and was a little noisy, but it’s all part of the experience. Loud music played until 2 or 3 AM, after which the car alarms started around 4 or 5, and then the Mosque down the street started praying/singing so needless to say, the first night in Nairobi was a little rough, but we were all really excited about our safari in the morning so it didn’t matter.
Continued in the next entry...