January 8, 2020: Winging My Way to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Geography lesson for the day: Ethiopia (formerly known as Abyssinia) lies in the Horn of Africa, which is the easternmost part of the African landmass. It is land-locked, surrounded by Eritrea to the north and then, moving in a clockwise direction, Djibouti, the de facto state of Somaliland, Somalia, Kenya, South Sudan and Sudan. The Great Sift Valley runs through the country from the southwest to the northeast. There is a great diversity of terrain in Ethiopia with wide variations in climate, soils, natural vegetation and settlement patterns. It is both mountainous, with the highest peak being Ras Dashen, with a height of 4550 meters (14.930 feet); and desert-like; its lowest elevation is -410 feet. Ethiopia is about the physical size of Bolivia. The population is about 109 million, making it the 12th largest country in the world.
Ethiopia is a country often called the “Cradle of Civilization’ as there have been many important discoveries of evidence of human evolution in the area, propelling Ethiopia and the surrounding region to the forefront of paleontology. The most well known hominid discovery is Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy). Known locally as “Dinkinesh”, the specimen was found in 1974 by Donald Johanson, and is one of the most complete and best preserved adult Australopithecine fossils ever uncovered. Trivia: Lucy got her name because the Beatle’s Song, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was playing in their camp when the fossil was found. The hominid is estimated to have lived 3.2 million years ago. The oldest hominid discovered to date in Ethiopia is the 4.2 million year old Ardipithicus ramidus (Ardi) found in 1994. I hope to learn more about these discoveries as part of our exploration of the area.
My flight plans take me from Seattle to Frankfurt on a Lufthansa flight (10.5 hour flight time, a layover of about 3 hours, then another Lufthansa flight to the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa. I was surprised to learn that the flight time from Frankfurt to Addis Ababa is almost 7 hours; it is further than I imagined.
Yvonne drove me to the Bainbridge Island ferry terminal where I simply walked on for the pleasant 35 minute ferry ride to downtown Seattle where I grabbed a Lyft ride to the airport. The Lyft fare was ~$30, whereas cab fare runs at least $45. No wonder why they are so popular.
Now that the holiday season is over the airport was fairly quiet and I breezed through security and headed to the Lufthansa business class lounge to await my flight. Yes, I was 2 hours early but the light lunch/snacks in the lounge, newspapers and comfortable chairs makes the time go by quickly, and I did not have to worry about missing my flight!
My flight leaves Seattle at 2:10 PM. We boarded around 1:30PM. My on-board procedure is as follows. I put on my “flight slippers” and await the snack and cocktail service which begins right after take-off. Perhaps I start a movie if there are any good ones, which there often are as they do show recent movies, some of which might still be in the theaters. Dinner (usually three choices) follows accompanied by a couple glasses of wine. After dinner I finish the movie or read until the wine/food kicks in and I attempt to grab a few hours of sleep. Luckily I am able to sleep on flights, even if it is only 3-5 hours. I am flying in business class so the lie-flat seats make it quasi-comfortable. Normally during the peak season Lufthansa has been flying one of the remaining 747s in their fleet. At this time of the year we are on an Airbus 330, also a wide body, but not as large as that good old 747, which has just about disappeared from the skies. Not many airlines are flying the 747 any more as the newer planes are more fuel efficient.
We left Seattle five minutes early. The plane appeared to be at full capacity. As has been my previous experience the service and quality of the food on international carriers is superior to what is offered by US carriers.
I watched two movies on my flight to Germany- “Hustlers”, with Jennifer Lopez, a true story about some women who worked in a strip club and began fleecing rich clients to make more money. They ultimately were busted. Needless to say any movie with J Lo is worth watching! I also watched Ad Astra, a sci-fi movie that turned out to be terribly slow moving. I did sleep a bit but not as much as on previous flights.
My seat companion was a young man who was moving to Stockholm to pursue his PhD in Bio Statistics and we had an interesting conversation about what he was about to do. As I exited the plane a young lady seated near us heard I was headed to Ethiopia and told me she was going there also. Turns out she is a field service rep for Boeing and was headed to Addis Ababa for a 30 day stint supporting Ethiopian Airlines. We chatted about her job and my stint at Boeing as we found our way to the Lufthansa lounge at the Frankfurt airport, where we had a 2.5 hour layover.
Our flight to Addis Ababa left 30 minutes late but was expected to land on time. More wine( same selection) and a heavy lunch was served shortly after take-off. I chose Arctic Char but it was not as good as the salmon I had on the first flight. I tried watching another movie but fell asleep, managing to get a good 3-4 hours of sleep.
As expected we landed at 9:30 PM at a large modern airport. A nice touch was that there was a special line for business class people to go through immigration and a special belt delivering our luggage. There was even Avery convenient ATM located before you exited the arrival area with your luggage. Even better was that it worked properly; however, it dispenses the local currency (birr) as 100 birr bills, each of which is worth $3.20 US. The result is you end up with a fist full of bills! Oh well it least it worked!
I was to have been met by a driver to take me to the hotel. There were plenty of people with signs awaiting arrivals but my name was not among them. Surprisingly several people asked who I was looking for and eagerly provided me with directions to where the hotels have agents to arrange transport. My first sign of how friendly the Ethiopian people are. Standing there was another young American who also was waiting for the shuttle and as a frequent traveler to Ethiopia he took me under his wing. It turns out he is a buyer of coffee beans and was here to visit some of his producers. Conversation ensued and I learned he was from Columbus, Ohio but was originally from Indiana and graduated from Purdue as I had. He even lived in the same dorm complex as I had, albeit many, many years later. He is a coffee “sommelier” and travels the world teaching his producers how to evaluate and optimize coffee beans. I asked which are the best coffees in the world. He said Ethiopia, followed by Columbia.
Our base hotel in Addis Ababa is the Best Western Plus, a modern downtown hotel favored by foreigners and business people. The room is modern, there is AC and the water (so far) is hot. The internet is the weak link, so far. I had to go to the lobby to get a decent signal. We will see how it goes.
It is 12:30AM local time (1:30 PM Seattle time) and I am calling it a night. I meet up with the rest of my travel group tomorrow. The adventure begins!