Dec 22 - Addis Ababa

We touched down in Addis Ababa at 7am (after very little sleep!). After breakfast at the hotel (Hotel Kaleb - doesn't get great reviews on TripAdvisor but we thought it was fine), we were off on a whistle-stop tour of Addis with our local guide. He was brilliant, steering us through the endless stream of street-sellers and beggars, decorating every stop with the culture and history of Ethiopia.  By the time we'd walked around the Merkato market at 4 in the afternoon, we were shattered. Addis is a full-on city - no shrinking violets here, just the mayhem of three million people making a living beneath the warm, blue skies of Ethiopia's highlands.

So, first stop, the National Museum of Ethiopia, home of Ethiopia's most famous resident - Lucy.  I'd waited a long time to see her.  She is after all one of my relatives (and yours).  Admittedly, she was showing her age but impressive nonetheless.  We had to share our visit with a melee of primary school children who were visiting the museum as part of their studies into human evolution. As one seven-year-old child pointed out to me as he leaned on the display cabinet of Australopithecus afarensis 'you foreigners just can't imagine the impact that Lucy had on our understanding of hominid bipedalism.'  (Ok, so I made that bit up.)

Chris and Sam dodging a class of would-be evolutionists at the National Museum.

Lucy - or at least bits of her; she looked a lot better when she was alive 3.5 million years ago - on two feet.

Check out the menu of the nearby restaurant - it's not the food that's interesting (although it was!) but the cover...

After lunch, we managed to gain access (with difficulty) into the Holy Trinity cathedral (we sneaked in through a side entrance) to see Emperor Haile Selassie's tomb.

Outside the cathedral lies the tomb of Emily Pankhurst's (remember her, ladies?) daughter, Sylvia Pankhurst.  Like her mum, she was a force to be reckoned with.  Ask any Italian what he thinks of Sylvia and watch his expression change!

Finally, no visit to Addis is complete without a wander around the Merkato, Africa's largest open-air market. 13,000 people work in 7000 stalls!  Despite its reputation, you are more likely to get lost than mugged.  Go with a guide and you'll escape both of these fates, but don't expect to emerge empty-handed! 

Everything in Addis gets recycled - here's the plastic recycling stall in the Mercato.  It's one reason why there's no plastic waste strewn all over the city.



Christine wonders if Ethiopian Airways will allow 87kg of hand luggage on their internal flights.