I arrived in Addis Ababa in the early mornings of Monday July 2nd
2007. I rode the 800km or so trip in the comfort of an air-conditioned
vehicle. Here is the story of how I ended up riding the day and half
trip with a retired American IT professional from the state of Neveda
in the United States.
There are usually buses that depart from Moyale early in the morning
to a town of Shashmane. I was planning to wake up at around 5am in the
morning to take one of those buses up north with the hope of spending
the night in Shashmane before continuing my journey to Addis Ababa the
next morning. This would have meant that I would arrive in Addis on
Monday morning or afternoon.
The night before, however, one of the guys I met at the border post
came up to my room and told me about a government vehicle that is
going up north (he said it going straight to Addis Ababa) at around
8am in the morning. After much negotiation, I decided to take that
with the hope that I will be able to take pictures easily along the
way and would also arrive a lot sooner. So, the plan was that I would
wakeup in the morning and met the driver at the border post. The
driver is returning to the capitol after dropping two Kenyans at the
border and he trying to make extra money.
When I met the driver in the morning, however, he told me he is only
going up to Dilla and it looked like he is not even going to make it
out of Moyale until around 9am. Obviously, I was upset but decided to
go along with it because I have no other alternative since all public
transport up north (at least as far as Shashmane) has already gone for
the day.
So, I just packed my stuff, checked out of my hotel and headed for the
border with the hope that I would find another person that is heading
straight to Addis Ababa. As I was approaching the border post, a bunch
of guys that saw me arrive the day before were calling for me. They
all knew I am American (words get around in a small town) and told me
about a "Furenge" that has just gone inside the immigration office and
is heading up north. Surely, there was a huge GMC truck with a NEVEDA
license plate parked outside. What are the odds, ha?
Long story short, Mr. Osterhagen (a retired IT Professional) was
gracious enough to agree to give me a ride to the capitol. We left
Moyale at around 10am. The rest of the journey was unlike my previous
trip from Nairobi by any measure. For once, the mostly two lane road
is paved and in a fairly good condition. In contrast to the
semi-desert of Northern Kenya, Southern Ethiopia is green and full of
beautiful scenery, with the Rift Valley to our West as we drove up
north. We mostly drove straight without stopping, only to take a few
pictures here and there.
After spending the night in Awasa, a small college town about 45min
north of Addis Ababa, we arrive in the capitol around 11am in the next
morning. Before heading home to my grandparents house, I went to
Ethiopian Commercial Bank in Mesqel Square area with my American
Companion and also had a quick snack in small place behind the
National Theater. Mr. Osterhagen decided to spend the night in a hotel
and we departed at the Quen Saba Hotel (we found in our lonely planet
guide book and used his GPS/mapping software to get there), which is
only about a 15 minutes taxi ride from my grandmother house. I hired a
contact taxi to take my there for 20birr. Believe it or not, I found
the house without much problem after 11 years of being away!!!
