Addis Ababa — Ethiopia

We arrived in Addis Ababa on Tuesday night (1/9/2018). Wednesday was supposed to be an uneventful day, working on our blog posts, getting Ethiopian SIM cards, figuring out where to go next, and finally having some of that delicious Ethiopian food. Addis is a huge city, almost 3.5M people. It is at a high elevation, 2300M (or 7500 ft), so the temperatures are really moderate (in the 60s F). It felt nice to be in some cooler air after the heat and humidity in Zanzibar.

We had an amazing lunch at Kategna restaurant — we knew it had to be good since it was packed with locals, and we weren’t disappointed. We ordered the fasting variety platter, which had a variety of vegetables and lentils on a bed of injera. And it was so cheap, about 6 bucks for a large meal for both of us. We liked it so much that we went back the next day, but were disappointed to discover the fasting variety wasn’t available. The predominant religion is Ethiopian Orthodox, and they fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, avoiding meat, fish and eggs — so many restaurants offer vegetarian fasting meals, but only on those days.

In the afternoon, we went to Meskel Square to buy bus tickets to Mek’ele, our next destination.

The streets around Meskel were packed with people, and we kept getting re-routed to different shops to find bus tickets to Mek’ele. As we were walking to yet another bus shop, a small kid (probably around 10) started talking to me and suddenly grabbed my arm and started shaking it. And then I felt my phone being swiped from my back pocket!! We turned around, and I said, “Hey, my phone” and some other guy grabbed the kid, and then the kid gave me my phone back. He was hiding it under a magazine. The whole thing happened in less than 30 seconds, they’re fast. And then about 30 minutes later, we saw the same kids approaching us again, but Arnaud was quick to shoo them away. As Arnaud sadly pointed out, they shouldn’t have even been there, they should be in school.

When we got back to the hotel, I did some research on pickpocketing in Addis, and it is very common, especially by small kids. One tourist mentioned getting pickpocketed 9 days out of 10 when she was here, and another expat living in Addis experiences a pickpocketing attempt at least once a week on average. I read all about the various schemes, many seem to involve tissue boxes, so hopefully I’ll be more prepared next time. And no more phone in the back pocket. Definitely a beginner’s mistake.

Tomorrow, we’re off to Mek’ele, on a bus for 13+ hours. Wish us luck!