ethiopia: mount entoto and a trip to visit eyob's grandmother
after having a look at the unintelligible menu we randomly chose an item that we hoped would fit our budget. and of course we had to have injera, and everyone seems to understand 'beer' in sign language.
ethiopians are generally really well dressed and so we were able to engage in one of our favorite pastimes of rating random passersbys on the renowned sandi-musa scale of fashion.
and of course, coffee is an ethiopian speciality, not to be missed in addis. even the most basic hole-in-the-wall restaurant will offer you a freshly brewed cappucino. (although sandi insists that i mention that this was NOT in fact a hole-in-the-wall restaurant but kaldis, the ethiopian equivalent of starbucks. creative license i say! but i lost the battle.)
no mention of ethiopian history is complete without talking about menelik. menelik was born in 1844. by 1889, he was emperor of ethiopia. in may 1889 he signed a treaty with italy, but later discovered that the italian version was different from the amharic version, sneakily making ethiopia a protectorate of italy. when menelik discovered this, he went ballistic and menelik renounced the treaty. italy invaded ethiopia and menelik defeated them several times, forcing them to capitulate and recognize ethiopia as a sovereign country.
oh and the pic above is the entrance to the church where he was crowned, as well as his palace. The church itself is a fairly impressive building. its built on mount entoto, which is the place that menelik (or to be more accurate, mrs. menelik) chose to build addis ababa.
we didn't realise it at the time but apparently his palace was round the back of this church. menelik did much to contribute to the modernisation of ethiopia: establishing the first bank, commissioning a railroad from djibouti to addis, starting a postal service and introducing electricity and the motor car. one final achievement of mr. menelik: he also left his mark with the beautiful forest of eucalyptus trees that he imported from australia that cover the mountain.
the next day our good friend eyob was going on a trip to see his grandmother. originally we planned to tag along and drop off somewhere along the way at a resort, but we decided to join him and meet his grandmother. boy were we ever glad we did.
turns out the southern part of ethiopia is gorgeous! green rolling hills and valleys with pretty streams running through them. our destination was past a town called butajira, which has been around for a while: apparently in 1935 a german expedition showed up and drew out the shapes and lines that would mark out the town. (personally i would be quite offended if some random people showed up one day and started charting out where they thought i should build my town, but i guess thats just me)
beyond butajira, we drove up into the mountains until the road ended. we hopped out and eyob (who looks like an office-bound businessman) proceeds to set off at a frenetic pace without ever getting out of breath or appearing to expend much energy. he kept promising that we would arrive just around this next corner, or over the next crest or beyond that bunch of grass. somehow we never seemed to actual reach that next corner.
many many hours of hiking later (not really, but it was quite a hike), we finally got to a pretty little house at the top of the hill.
ethiopian kids are sooo cute. and we did get to meet eyobs grandma. who had a pretty good sense of humor:
grandma: "why are you taking pictures of me? are you going to try and find a husband for me?"
musa: "yes and we are going to charge a very expensive dowry and become rich"
we could only stay a few minutes because we were late had to hike the long way back to the car. as we walked back, the sun started setting and we got the beautiful afternoon sun, illuminating everything with a beautiful golden glow.
we drove back to addis really happy to have seen such a beautiful part of ethiopia that likely not many tourists ever get to experience. and to cap off a beautiful day, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset on the way home. and as if that wasn't enough, we had a delicious dinner with eyob's kind, patient, beautiful, wonderful wife, betty, to whom we apologize once again for keeping her waiting.
in a neat little tie-up to menelik and his palace at entoto, i leave you with the story of ras desta damtew. he was born in 1892. as a boy he served as a page to emperor menelik. when menelik died he served in the empress' palace at mount entoto (that we negligently did not see!). apparently he was a bit of an eccentric and ran away at the age of twenty to become a monk. later on he became a nobleman and a son-in-law (so much for that monk deal) to emperor haile selassie. when the italians invaded ethiopia, he was captured in 1937 and executed the same day, at a small town called...butajira.
