Arriving in Ethiopia

It’s a cool and rainy 13 degrees as we wake up at our “budget-friendly” hotel in Addis- Ababa. W

e arrived at the hotel at about 11:30 pm after 2 plus hours of going through Visa lineups, security lineups and customs lineups.

On the positive side, they were able to track Brian’s Visa application in the system, even though his e-Visa hadn’t been emailed to him yet. (The other 3 of us received our e-Visas a week ago). So we were glad that Brian didn’t have to pay an extra $100 for a Visa.

Another positive is that we were able to bring the suitcase of 40 mini/youth soccer balls into the country without paying additional duty (like when we had to pay the extra $600 usd to bring the cellphones into Uganda).

On a less positive note, when we arrived at the hotel late last night, we realized that Jesse, one of our team members had items stolen out of his backpack, likely as it went through security check. Even though we are all cautious and experienced travellers the unexpected procedures and commotions at various airports can cause us to momentarily lose track of items. Thus, in some short time frame, or behind the protection of “security”, Jesse had 3 Smart phones and $3000 usd removed from his backpack.

Fortunately, on the advice of our Ethiopian elders and advisors in Canada (Lethbridge), Jesse and our local contact Tamene had time to return to the international airport this morning and have already made it through to report the loss to airport authorities. Although this seems quite futile, we will wait and see what becomes of this over the next several days while we travel to southern Ethiopia.

We are leaving shortly to a domestic airport to fly to the Jinka region. This is an hour flight, but driving would have take over 20 hours!

This is our hotel – quite close to the airport (10-15 minutes) and the street outside the hotel. (A case of “you get what you pay for”)