Around the Globe

This week Jamie and I are happy to welcome guest blogger and co-worker/friend Jeremy.  Very fitting for the Rider Chronicles, Jeremy writes about a recent trip to Ethiopia.  Check out part one of the three part series. 

Part I

For a capitol city at night it was surprisingly dark as the plane greased the runway in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It was my first trip alone to any underdeveloped nation, and it had me a bit on edge. For one, I had only the vaguest idea of how to get to my hotel. Much more pressing however, I hadn’t registered as a journalist (I was there on assignment for a news site), and the government isn’t a fan of excessive photographic equipment (I had a lot of it). I was told by the folks who I was there to see that I didn’t need to, so instead I registered on arrival as a tourist and crossed my fingers. Predictably customs wanted to know why a tourist would be carrying $13,000 in declared photo/video equipment. Luckily five minutes of questions and a little negotiation later I got my stamp, sighing a bit in relief.

Doubly lucky, my hotel had a small kiosk at the airport and contracted a shuttle to pick me up: another sigh of relief. Stepping into a dark, diesel spewing hotel mini-bus we began a crazy drive through the darkened streets of Addis. You think taking a cab in NYC is an experience… well, NYC has nothing on Addis. I can’t recall seeing a single street sign, let alone traffic lights. Streets were dimly lit at best, and much of the city was in the throws of a brown-out that night, which left most of the city pitch black save for the occasional cooking fire. Our driver flew down straightaways, made turns on a whim, and rolled through intersections with abandon. All the while pedestrians darted across the roads barely visible. The only rule appeared to be incessant honking of the car horn, which appeared to function as a way to clear the driver of all responsibility from the action he was about to take.

Rolling into my hotel for the evening, the Hilton Addis had enough luxury to be Westernized but enough Ethiopia to not let you forget you were definitively in the third world. The hotel had a 15ft security wall topped with razor wire and electric fencing along with guards with shotguns to underscore their seriousness. Consequently Addis initially felt like being on the set of Syriana, where at any moment something might blow up and land me front and center in the plot of an international political thriller. Admittedly part of me wanted it to happen. It was terriciting, which is my new term to describe the cross between extremely exciting and terrifying.

Despite a nice room and comfortable bed it was hard to sleep. Truth be told it was mostly because I was nervous. I consider myself to be a pretty confident and adaptable person, especially when it comes to travel. I can navigate mass transit, drive in just about anything, and get by with language barriers. But this was different. It was the first time visiting a country whose primary language – Amharic – utilizes an alphabet that in no way resembled anything I could decipher. It was the first time visiting a place that didn’t have an obviously defined transit system. First time to a place where you definitely shouldn’t drink the water, or to a place where it was extremely obvious that I didn’t belong. And I was alone with a lot of very precious camera gear on me. And I had to get back to the airport for the assignment first thing in the morning.

Still, for as much as I was terricited about the coming morning, I enjoyed that first night. The ride to the hotel was wild and, now in hindsight, wildly fun. My first introductions to the country had me wondering what else was in store. I ordered a stiff drink at the bar and brought it up to my room on the fifth floor. Sitting on the balcony the air was mild and filled with the soothing scent of burning eucalyptus. No matter what happened tomorrow, at least I knew it would be interesting.