Oh man. I have a confession to make. I am terrified to go to Ethiopia.

My nerves are brought on for a few reasons. I’ve just gotten back into traveling after several months off, I’m intimidated by sub-Saharan Africa because I’ve never been there before, and the idea of navigating a Third World country on my own — without the safety net of a tour — is unsettling.

But how can I not attempt this? I’m mesmerized by the sunken churches of Lalibela and haunted by the lip plates of the Mursi tribe in Omo Valley. These images have called me to Ethiopia so that I might glimpse them with my own eyes, photograph them with my own camera. I have to steel myself for any unpleasantness that lies ahead — rampant poverty, children in tattered clothes reaching hands out for money, pushy locals, feral animals, inevitable delays, flat tires, traffic — all part and parcel of traveling in this part of the world, or most Third World countries. If you can wade through the harsher elements, you might glimpse the beauty — and often those are wrapped up in the same experience.

I mentally prepare for the unknown and board my early morning flight from Marrakech to Milan for a day-long layover in Italy.

When in Rome… eat pizza. That’s what that expression means, right?

I settle for some underwhelming fast-food pizza because the airport dining options are limited and I need to hunker down to edit photos and write blog posts for a few hours.

In total, I spend about eight hours in the Milan airport and then board a plane that flies to Rome to pick up more passengers. That same plane then continues on a red-eye flight to Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia.

I wake up in Ethiopia and remind myself to take a deep breath. I can do this.

After standing in a long queue to get a visa on arrival, I approach an official-looking information stand to enquire about a taxi to my guesthouse. I had emailed the guesthouse in advance to ask how much I should expect to pay for a cab ride from the airport, and this information stand quotes me a higher rate. I HATE to be ripped off and they don’t respond to my haggling, so I confidently walk away and head down towards all the cabs waiting in the distance, outside the security perimeter around the airport.

There are primarily two kids of cabs in Addis Ababa — the yellow cabs are a little more expensive but also the tiniest bit nicer, and the blue cabs are cheaper but more run down. Generally, both are safe enough, and depending on what’s available I use both color cabs throughout my time here.

Also, both color cabs look like vehicles from the Stone Age that would be at home in Fred Flintstone’s garage. The interiors are stripped down to the basics.

The first driver I approach gives me the normal rate (the amount the guesthouse advised me to pay) with little negotiation. Ten minutes of bumper-to-bumper traffic later, we arrived at Mr. Martin’s Cozy Guesthouse.

I’m given a room at the back which is perfectly functional (with a private bathroom) and only cost $25 a night.

I finally watch The Tony Awards that night (which had taken place about two weeks prior in the U.S.; I’d downloaded the telecast from iTunes before leaving Morocco), and it makes me unspeakably happy for three hours. I’m mildly concerned that someone will knock on my door for being too loud — for watching the Tony Awards at 9pm in Ethiopia — but if that happens it’d be a funny story to tell. (It doesn’t happen.)

Here are some views from the rooftop:

There is poverty surrounding the guesthouse. In fact, with the exception of a few small pockets, there is poverty everywhere in Addis Ababa. I take all of these shots from the roof.

Here’s breakfast the next morning — Mr. Martin’s Cozy Guesthouse gets high marks all-around.

I do a little bit of walking around Addis Ababa and it’s uncomfortable. To put it in context, if I felt like an alien from another planet walking down the street in Yogyakarta, Indonesia last year, then I’ve stumbled into a whole other universe here in Ethiopia. I am the only white person in a sea of dark-skinned Africans. As expected, I attract attention, more of a curiosity nature than for negative reasons (come-ons or sizing me up for robbery). I nod hello at each opportunity, hoping to leave a positive trace on each brief interaction. I get freaked out by one boy (maybe 10 years old) trying to sell me a magazine, as he uses the item to cover his hand while reaching for my pockets. I quickly spot his trick and shoo him away, letting out a long, guttural “Nooooooo” as intensely as I can muster. It works and he leaves me alone. The roads are in terrible shape for both cars and pedestrians, just covered with mud; I’m wearing Keen sandals and the mud actually spills over the side of my shoes and onto my bare feet — just walking down the main streets! Beggars are constant. Trash is everywhere. There’s lots of traffic and beeping horns. I try to work through my discomfort until these sensations become normal enough.

My first order of business is to visit an Ethiopian Airlines office to book my domestic travel within the country. I would’ve done this in advance, but it’s about 60% cheaper to do so in person if you’ve booked your international arrival or departure flight on Ethiopian Airlines. Since I arrived on this airline, all I have to do is present that confirmation number at one of their offices, and they’ll give me a much cheaper rate for my domestic flights.

Major fail on my part (I’ll blame it on nerves and the red-eye arrival) — I forgot to stop at the Ethiopian Airlines office when I first land at the airport. So now that I’m in the city, I go to the nearest office, which just happens to be located at the upscale Hilton hotel.

As soon as I step on the premises, it doesn’t feel like Ethiopia anymore. It’s an island of civilization amidst a sea of chaos. But it’s also not real, if that makes sense. If any of the hundreds of businessmen I watch passing through between on-site meetings in conference rooms consider themselves to have traveled in Ethiopia — and they’ve taken a private car from the airport to the hotel — then I have news for them: they did not go to Ethiopia, they went to the Addis Ababa Hilton. Because it’s practically another country in here.

I wait in line and then book all of my domestic flights, five in total over the next ten days — Addis Ababa to Arba Minch in the south to visit the Omo Valley tribes, then back to Addis, then Addis to Bahir Dar to visit the Blue Nile falls, then Bahir Dar to Lalibela to see the sunken churches, and then Lalibela back to Addis.

The only bummer is that the first flight I plan to book is full so I have to wait one extra day in Addis Ababa.

I splurge on dinner at the Hilton.

Random: on my walk back from the Hilton, I pass by this billboard for Turkish Airlines advertising flights to Boston with the tagline, “Discover harmony in diversity.” It strikes me as an odd way to sell Boston (I lived there for three years during college), but I find it interesting to see how U.S. cities are marketed to an international crowd.

So since I have to stay in the capital city one extra night, I hope to book at Mr. Martin’s Cozy Guesthouse again. But they are at capacity so I dig around on-line for a last minute rate at a proper hotel maybe two miles away and book it for $35. This turns out to be a mistake for reasons I couldn’t have predicted — the main road connecting that part of the city is under major repairs and it’s not easily accessible by vehicles. The streets here are barely walkable as it is (mud is EVERYWHERE) and there’s no way I can drag my luggage through mud for two miles. I finally find a blue taxi driver to take me the long way around to the hotel.

Here is my room:

The place is nice, but it’s in the middle of a poverty-stricken area. And they don’t tell me this when I check in, but if the power goes out they only run a generator until 10pm since it’s quite loud. (Sure enough, the power goes off around that time, and my laptop and phone are only partially charged.) It’s totally fine — truly First World problems in a Third World country — but the hardest part by far is the location. I don’t feel safe walking, not because I expect to be mugged although it’s a genuine concern, but primarily because there is so much mud on the surrounding streets that I’m worried about falling and hurting myself as I navigate the literal ups and downs in the road. Again, there aren’t many cars in the area because it’s so hard to get to with the main artery cut off, so taxi service is unlikely. I feel sort of stuck.

Then comes word that my flight to Arba Minch, where I plan to visit the Omo Valley tribes, has been cancelled. So if you’re keeping tabs, that means I have to stay in Addis for a THIRD night. Furthermore, this compresses my time in Arba Minch to too few days to properly visit tribes in that area, so I have to make a choice — either go to Arba Minch exclusively and cancel my remaining flights to Bahir Dar and Lalibela, or cancel my Arba Minch flights and do Bahir Day and Lalibela instead. I can no longer do all three. No matter how I work it, something gets cut, either my time in the south or my time in the north.

This is frustrating because I allowed myself ten days in Ethiopia, which should’ve been more than enough to visit the two major areas I have my eye on, Omo Valley and Lalibela (Barhir Dar was added last-minute because flights to Lalibela often pass through there anyways so it’s a bonus destination). I might be able to JUST squeeze in Lalibela, but I’d return mere hours before my international flight to Kenya… and if Ethiopia Airlines makes it a habit to cancel flights, then I might be screwed out of my next trip. I have to be in Kenya at a specific date to start my next tour so I can’t play it that tight.

While I’m devastated to miss seeing the churches of Lalibela, I’m ultimately more intrigued by the tribes of Omo Valley. Plus a friend-of-a-friend, Mike, is currently in Arba Minch waiting for another person to join him to split the cost of a guide and driver to visit the tribes. We’ve been in touch these last few days on Facebook and I don’t want to bail on him. And I like the idea of exploring the area with another person so that I’m not alone in an intimidating area. My choice is made: one more day in Addis Ababa and then I’ll go to Arba Minch.

I go back to the Hilton to get a refund for my airline tickets. Remarkably, they process the refund immediately and without protest. Thank god for small favors.

Okay, I’m going to skip past my visit to southern Ethiopia and briefly detail my final two days in Addis Ababa at the end of my trip here.

This regal-looking building above is the Sheraton in Addis Ababa. I go there on my last full day in town when I am desperate for faster wifi and someone at Mr. Martin’s Guesthouse suggests I try this hotel. It can’t hurt, so I take a taxi and plan to get coffee and lunch while using their wifi. But things don’t go as planned.

I cringe to share this story, but it must be told.

Upon arrival, I find out that the wifi here is not free — it’s $5 per hour for non-guests, even if you’re a paying customer in the fancy restaurant. But if you are a guest, just log on with your last name and room number for unlimited free access. (Can you see where this is going?)

On my way to the hotel’s business center to purchase wifi, I decide it can’t hurt to ask a passing guest if they wouldn’t mind me using their name / room number to access wifi. I’ll ask one person and if it doesn’t work out I’ll just buy the wifi. There aren’t many people around, but a well-dressed European-looking man in a business suit walks by and I politely say hello and ask if he’s a guest here. He says he’s not. I apologize and start to move off towards the business center but he stops me, asking why, and I explain my internet dilemma. WHOOPS, turns out he’s the hotel manager… and his (unamused) response is, “So that’s how you’re trying to beat the system?” He’s not angry, just stern, and I explain how $5 is a lot for one hour of wifi but I’m happy to pay at the business center. I ask if the wifi is fast and get an unfortunate answer — because there is only one telecom company in Ethiopia (government-run, not private), there is only one speed of internet for the entire country. And it’s not fast. He says that the Sheraton has the largest bandwidth in all of Ethiopia so lots of people can be on it at the same time, but it will only go as fast as the provider allows.

Since I’ve come all this way and paid about $5 for the taxi ride here, I give it a shot. It’s decidedly slow and I think two of my high res photos upload to Dropbox during the hour-long internet session. Oh well… at least the manager didn’t throw me out of the hotel? Pro tip: be aware that hotel managers might not wear name tags and blend in among the other business men on the premises.

This is GreenView restaurant in Addis Ababa, just around the corner from Mr. Martin’s Cozy Guesthouse. I go here for dinner three times, it’s that good. The pizza is especially noteworthy.

Once my trip has come to an end, I head back to the Addis Ababa International Airport.

When we visited the Omo Valley tribes (photos coming next week), I got a lot of 5 birr coins to pay photo tips, which is about 25 cents. I have a lot left over at the airport so I try to pay for my coffee and sandwich in coins but the girl behind the counter balks. I get it, it’s annoying when someone pays in quarters, but we’re taking about the equivalent of a $5 tab. She eventually relents.

Also frustrating? The fact that this international airport all but shuts down during the day. Since most of the big flights arrive and depart in the evenings, that’s when the stores open. My flight departs in the afternoon and even the money change place is closed (which is why I can’t exchange all those 5 birr coins I’m stuck with).

But I’m truly bummed that I can’t buy a postcard to mail myself. I’ve written before about my postcard tradition — I send myself one from each country with a bullet point list of all the things I did and people I met, so it sort of serves as a journal entry. Perhaps this says something about Ethiopia’s status (or lack thereof) as a tourist destination, but I don’t see a single postcard for sale during my ten days in this country. So I count on picking one up at the airport and sure enough, there are shops that sell them here (as well as stamps), and even a post box where I can mail it. But all those shops are closed, so I am out of luck.

It’s also POURING at the airport. The rain just pounds away on the metal roof.

Eventually the skies clear and we take off. I’m en route to Kenya, but more on that in a few weeks once I wrap up my Ethiopia posts.

Despite my pre-trip jitters (and genuine trepidation) about visiting this country, I am very glad I went. As you’ll see in the next few posts, this is one of the most culturally different places I’ve visited in my travels.