Hotel Hunting in Ethiopia

This weekend was what I would call a Hotel Hunting Weekend….

Don't worry I have not been kicked out of the Hilton as yet...!!

It started off on Friday, when I headed off to Debre Zeiyt with a Colleague to find a good spot to hold the Company Team Days……

Firstly the trip took one hour longer than it was suppose to… the driver was driving at 40Km/hr which left me frustrated and irritated…. I kept on trying to be polite and telling him… ‘Could you drive a bit faster?’ And the driver kept on saying ‘It is safe, it is safe....’ useless argueing so I accepted my fate and enjoyed the scenery of mountains and forests on the way to Debre Zeiyt.

As soon as we got there, I opened my trusted lonely planet… my bible in Egypt… and started reading out the hotel list in the area. The book spoke about attractive locations, pleasant courtyards, adequate rooms…. Nevertheless forgetting that the book is a back packer’s guide rather than a high profile company standard…. We thus spent 2 hrs (in a village you can walk around in 30mins) going from one hotel to another….. Needless to say my hotel hunting was a total flop… nothing suitable….. Pleasant courtyards turned out to be drive-ins with some flowers, adequate rooms turned out to be cell like rooms with a bed which you wouldn’t call a bed, and a shower which I doubt even worked!!!

The attractive location was true though…. The place is beautiful, it’s all crater lakes surrounded by mountains with beautiful greenery and tranquility…. I’ll be heading of there for a relaxing weekend next weekend!!! I guess the hotels are fine enough to meet my standards….

This was not the end of the hotel hunting…. On Saturday morning I got a phone call from Sjoerd, an old Dutch friend I had met in Switzerland in 2002 (I think), he had just gotten to Addis as an intern for the UNECA and was looking for a nice budget hotel to stay in for a couple of weeks….

Thus once again we opened our trusted lonely planet and headed to the city for our hotel hunting experience (in the rain). We walked and rode micro buses around the city for about 4 hours, and saw about 10 to 15 hotels, some on the book and some which we randomly passed by and decided to walk into….. This was also not a great success….. The hotels where either ‘white man priced’ meaning extremely expensive or ‘brothel looking’ where you could even rent the room per hour!!!

Luckily we also bumped into the back packers place, coincidentally the first budget hotel on the book!!! We thus decided to take a break and contemplate on all the hotels over a beer at the hostel, and once we are at it also have a chat with the interesting people at the place. It ended up to be a big group around a table and little stools chatting about travels around Ethiopia, travels around Africa, and life. Most of the people we met where from the US, South Africa, the UK and Israel….. Some were just traveling around Africa, another was doing research on coffee for this university, and another had just graduated from medicine and was practicing voluntarily at the Mother Theresa Home….

When Sjoerd finally decided on his home…. We headed off for the last part of the full 24hr Ethiopian Integration, and I took him to a restaurant to experience the infamous beyainatu, injera, and traditional dancing…… which actually I got to love so much I love the massive plate of Injera and the different types of sauces, the washing of the hands process, and the eating with your hands.. I have now gotten used to not offending the Ethiopians anymore, and using only my hands – no more forks and knives!!! …..

A big plate of Injera and numerous types of Ethiopian dishes, and Hanna's (a colleague) hand attacking it!

What a day!!! At least Sjoerd got to experience the full think within the first 24hrs which is more than I got as it took me a month and a half to do what he did in one day!!!!