Africa Ethiopia Ethiopia Trip 2015

Ethiopia!

1 May 15

In less than a day i’m off to Ethiopia! I can’t believe this is finally happening. I have only been to Africa once before and that was to Egypt in 1995. Twenty years later and I’m finally heading back.

Like most people my age, my foundational knowledge about Ethiopia is from the images seen during the famines of the 1980s. Since then i have discovered Ethiopian

A few random facts: Ethiopia is big (bigger than British Columbia or Texas) and is landlocked in Eastern Africa, bordered by Somalia, Eritrea, Kenya, Djbouti, the Sudan, and South Sudan. The capital city is Addis Ababa (which i will not tire of saying in full, even though it is commonly shortened to “Addis”). Ethiopia has a population of just over 90M, for whom the average life expectancy is about 63. The literacy rates run at a little less than 50%. The main language is Amharic, which looks like this: አልገባኝም (which translates as “I don’t understand”, a phrase i am sure i’ll be using frequently). The currency is called the Birr and for $4.90 US you get 100 Birr. Your dollar goes a long way in Ethiopia, with a coffee costing about 15 cents. The country is nearly 50/50 Muslim/Orthodox Christians, with the Christians slightly in the lead, numbers-wise. Ethiopia is also the rare African country to have never been colonized, although it was occupied by the Italians for a few years in the 1930s, which apparently only enhanced Ethiopia’s existing coffee culture. This prevailing independence has, as i understand it, left Ethiopian culture largely intact.

Speaking of culture: Ethiopia has its own means of telling time. They start with sunrise each day as being at 00 and each hour after sunrise (until sunset) is counted from that point. So, one hour after sunrise is 1:00am, two hours after is 2:00am…get it? This goes on until sunset and then the evening/nighttime hours are counted from sunset until the next morning. Apparently this means that one has to be very careful when booking bus tickets etc as to whether it is Ethiopian time or foreign time that is being used. Oh, and Ethiopia has 13 months a year. They have 12 months of 30 days each and then a 13th month of 5-6 days. As a result of this, in Ethiopia it is currently 8 years behind and it is 2007 there. Confused? Well, given that i still haven’t mastered 24hr hour time telling and i’m not great at reading analog clocks to begin with, this could prove to be a special challenge.

My first stop is Addis Ababa, via London, where i have a layover long enough to afford me some time in the city, which i am looking forward to, but the real excitement is getting to Ethiopia and exploring.

I have a list of things that i want to do and see, but for the most part, i just hope to be surprised. I’ll be blogging as frequently as the wifi allows. The next time i write i should be fresh from London and en route to Addis Ababa. Happy trails to me.
d

Africa Zambia Zimbabwe Zimbabwe-Zambia 2023

Zimbabwe to Zambia: a border crossing on foot

When I was finished my time in Victoria Falls, the town, it was time for me to crossover into a new country: Zambia. There are two opportunities to visit Victoria Falls, the falls: Victoria Falls, the town, which is in Zimbabwe; and Livingston, which is on the Zambian side of the falls. Before I traveled to Victoria Falls, I had some anxiety about how best to approach the falls. Which town was the better way to see them? But that anxiety was really unnecessary. The short answer is you should visit both sides because traveling between the two cities is very easy. (The only thing to factor in is, depending on your nationality, you might need to pay for a new visa every time you enter Zimbabwe and that can get a little bit expensive. As usual though visa rules change all the time so you should check before you go.)

The view of the falls from the Zimbabwe inside is the best view, but there are more falls-related activities on the Zambian side. Plus, the town of Livingston, I thought, was far superior to town Victoria Falls, which I just fund too touristy.

When it was time for me to leave Victoria Falls (the city) and Zimbabwe, I took a taxi from my hostel to the part of the falls where the bridge crosses over. At that point I got stamped out of Zimbabwe and then I just walked across the border.

*Me on the Zimbabwean side before starting the walk across to Zambia.*

The walk from the road to the falls is a bit of a distance and then you cross a bridge. The best thing is that when you are halfway across the bridge you were literally on the border in between Zambia and Zimbabwe. It’s one of those things that is maybe only interesting to travel and geography dorks, but I thought it was very cool. Did I take pictures? You bet I did.

*_{The road to the bridge and then crossing the bridge}*

When you get to the other side, now in Zambia, you go through immigration. Canadians don’t need a visa for Zambia, so I was expecting it to be easy. While there wasn’t a bunch of paperwork, the officer at the border did have a lot of questions for me and wanted to see my accommodations booking and my proof that I was leaving the country.

After leaving immigration there were countless taxi men hanging around to give rides. After a bi of haggling, I hired a taxi and started the drive into the city and to my accommodations. Here’s where things got amazing.

We were just driving along the street and all of a sudden, I saw on the side of the road two zebras. I freaked out with excitement and insisted that he pull over so I could look at them. I appreciate that for him this isn’t a big deal; I live in Canada and so it’s common to see things like bears and deer and moose, but I had never seen zebras before. Maybe in a zoo when I was little. I was delighted. Zambia was off to an excellent start.

The next day I would visit the Devil’s Pool.

Africa Zimbabwe Zimbabwe-Zambia 2023

Victoria Falls, the Town

I flew from Harare, Zimbabwe to Victoria Falls (the town), Zimbabwe. The reason for my trip to Zimbabwe was to visit Victoria Falls, the falls. Not surprisingly Victoria Falls the falls is in Victoria Falls the town. I didn’t have much in the way of expectations about the town, but I did want to leave myself a little bit of time to explore it, so I had set aside enough time to visit the falls, explore the town, and do a day trip into Botswana to go on a safari drive. All of this was accomplished, and two of the three things were wonderful. Victoria falls the town… It was OK.

There are a lot of land transportation options between Harare and Victoria Falls, and if I had a little bit more time, I would have done that, but I was on a ten day holiday from work, so I took a flight a direct flight to Victoria Falls the town on an airline called Fast Jet, which lived up to its name. Upon arrival at the airport, I took a taxi to my accommodations the Victoria Falls Backpacker Lodge.

The accommodations were fine. This place had dorms, private cabins, spaces where you could park your van if you were doing a road trip, it had an outdoor kitchen under a little hut, and a small swimming pool, and areas for hanging out. It was actually quite pleasant to look at.

Most of the accommodations in Victoria Falls are set quite far from the town. This was no exception. This turned out to be one of the things they didn’t like about Victoria Falls – the lack of walk-ability. Every time I wanted to go to or from my accommodations and the town, I either had to walk or arrange a driver. I don’t like arranging a driver because it’s expensive (not really expensive; it’s just that I’m cheap) and I had to wait around for one to show up. The walk wasn’t really that far (about 40 minutes), but in the daytime it was blisteringly hot and at night it was pitch black and wasn’t particularly safe due to…animals. I’ll come back to that.

I stayed in one of the little huts at the lodge; a self-contained unit with a thatched roof and two beds with mosquito nets. No AC, no fan, shared bathroom, very dark. It was OK. A fan would have been great, as it was so hot and mosquito-y. I didn’t love my accommodations also because there often was no one at the front desk so if I did want things like, say, a fan or a bottle of water or a driver into the city, there was just no one to ask. And although there were people staying there, I didn’t see any of them, so there was no fun backpacker vibe. I probably wouldn’t stay there again, but if you’re a little more self-sufficient and driving I think it would be a decent spot. Or if you are willing to spend more money, there are really nice-looking lodges a little farther away on the river where hippos will practically serve you dinner.

Shortly after my arrival, I did go into the city and had the driver deliver me to the entrance to Victoria Falls. (I will write about that in another post.) After the falls, I browsed around various craft markets. There’s one right at the entrance to the falls and there’s another one called the Elephant’s Walk. This one I enjoyed quite a lot, as there are lots of crafts, little shops, and a café. It’s a nice place to take a rest. Other than that, there’s really nothing in Victoria Falls. It’s not an attractive town, it doesn’t have much in the way of interesting areas to look at, and it is entirely built for tourists.

At Elephant’s Walk

It just doesn’t feel like a real place it just feels like a bunch of tourist amenities. Most of the restaurants are very much geared towards tourists: brew pubs and pizza restaurants and that sort of thing. Also, and this is kind of a niche complaint, there is absolutely no place that I could find to buy matches or a lighter. They took my lighter away from me at the airport in Harare, so I needed to buy some way to light my cigars. I asked everyone I could find and no one had any idea. I went to a supermarket, a gas station, a convenience store, a liquor store, and a hardware-type store, and none of them had matches or lighters. Not even the places that were selling barbecues and firewood. I eventually was gifted a box of matches from waiter at a restaurant. That half full box of matches became precious.

On my last night I went to a restaurant called Mama Africa’s, which I really enjoyed and would recommend. I met a nice couple there from South Africa, who were planning to drive the length of the continent. They were nice and we had a good chat. This restaurant and its atmosphere, felt more authentic, but the rest of it wasn’t for me.

dinner at Mama Africa

I had another nice evening though where I met up for dinner at a restaurant called the 3 Monkeys with an American fellow that I knew of through Instagram and Twitter, who happened to be there at the same time as me. Another crazy world traveler person. That was fun. It’s always interesting to meet up with real life people that you met on social media. That night, after dinner, I caught a ride with his driver who agreed to drop me off at my accommodations. As we were driving, on the side of the road in the darkness, were two elephants. It was incredible. I could barely even see them. I could just make out their black silhouettes against the black sky with just a hint of moonlight, and I could certainly hear them stomping and crunching through the brush period. My first wildlife sighting on this trip. Being just a few meters away from elephants out having a nighttime walk was amazing. No pictures. Too rapt in awe.

I did see other animals while I was in Victoria Falls. Walking between my accommodations on the town I saw big warthogs, which was pretty neat. I found out from locals that not only are there elephants and warthogs at night, but also potentially hippos, which are the most dangerous animal in the world. So that is why it’s not safe to walk around late at night in Victoria Falls.

My visit to the falls was excellent, my day trip into Botswana was very good, and I had a couple of decent meals out, but otherwise I did not like Victoria Falls the city and I was content to leave. It’s not a place you visit for the city; it’s just a base from which to do excursions and activities, like visiting Chobe National Park or Victoria Falls, the falls, both of which were great.

Onward to Zambia.

Africa Botswana Zimbabwe-Zambia 2023

Beautiful Botswana: A Day in Chobe

Like just about everyone else who goes to Victoria Falls, I did a day trip in to Chobe National Park in Botswana. Botswana was a new country for me and while I would love to go and see other parts of Botswana, because it looks simply stunning, this would be the only part of the country that I would see at this time. As beautiful as Botswana is, it’s also very expensive; it is a tourism model like Rwanda has, which is fewer tourists with more money in order to better preserve the ecology. I don’t have an issue with that, but it moves Botswana further down my travel list as a place I’d like to spend a lot of time in.

I did the day tour with Africa Zim Travel & Tours there are a lot of companies who offer this particular package. They pick you up at your hotel early in the morning, they drive you across the border into Botswana, you visit Chobe National Park, you have lunch, you visit more of the park, they return you to Zimbabwe. It’s a pretty long day, but definitely worthwhile, and not very expensive considering everything that’s included.

My group was about 11 people, so not too big. I didn’t really make connections with many of the people. We spent most of the time just in the van driving and then looking at animals. But the few people that I talked to seemed pleasant and they were from all around the world.

The drive to the border was pleasant. At the border we got out of the van and walked to the building that would stamp us out of Zimbabwe and then to the building that would stamp us into Botswana. I didn’t need a visa for Botswana so there were no major formalities – just don’t forget your passport.

We entered Chobe National Park. As I mentioned in my post about Victoria Falls, I was there during the low / dry season. I think that visiting Chobe National Park during a wetter season would be more beautiful as it would be more lush. A lot of the trees were dead and leafless; of course, this provided for some interesting landscapes.

We drove all morning looking for animals.

And here is where I am going to tell you that this was the first time that I had ever been on a safari drive. I’ve always sort of wanted to go on a safari, but it just seemed cost prohibitive so I’ve never done it. And while I have seen animals in Africa, I’ve never gone a focused drive to go see animals in Africa before. And here’s where I tell you that I wasn’t 100% into it. It was interesting to see the landscape and it was nice to see the animals but at no point did I feel moved or amazed.

It was cool to see elephants, impalas, kudus, waterbuck, warthogs, gazelles, and mongooses, but it wasn’t exciting. Even lions; we did see five of them under trees, but it were not particularly exciting to me. We would we watch them sleeping or eating and everyone has their cameras out and you are all sort of struggling to get a good view of the animals, and I just found that a bit tiresome. This is not to say that I didn’t have a good time, it’s just that i somehow was expecting it to be more exciting than it was. The highlight of the morning was probably when we saw the giraffes. (A tower of giraffes.) I’ve seen giraffes in zoos before but never in real life, so when we came upon them it was pretty it was pretty impressive, even if we couldn’t get very close.

We stopped and had lunch at a resort along the river. I wish I knew the name of it, but it was fancy and in sort of a traditional style. They had a vast buffet of delicious western and African foods that we ate while looking out at the river. Not being one for group activities, I chatted with people for about 30 minutes, scarfed down my lunch, and then moved to the side of the river to have a quick cigar before the second half of the day. Time well spent.

After lunch, we boarded a boat to visit some of the park from the water. This was nice in the way that being on the boat is always nice, but again it wasn’t super exciting. We saw lots of hippos. (Did you know a group of hippos is called a “bloat”?) We saw various creatures on the land including a big lizard and groups of elephants walking along the water. Very pleasant, but not necessarily remarkable.

I don’t mean to sound grumpy. I had a good day, I just was expecting something more exciting. All the animals we saw that day paled in comparison to the excitement that I felt when I passed the two elephants on the side of the road on my previous night in Victoria Falls. I think it was the fact that I was out with the expectation of animals so when I saw the animals all it did was meet my expectations; it didn’t excite me. I am so glad I went, and I would certainly recommend it. My expectations may have just been too high.

We drove back to the border of Zimbabwe where I had to purchase another single entry visa, because I had been unable to purchase a multiple entry visa when I first arrived in Harare. And they drove us to our hotels.

More animals seem hanging out at the border crossing.
It is unclear if this monkey works for Nelson’s of Durham.

So I can now say that I’ve been to Botswana. If I wanted to get really technical I can tell you that while we were on the boat we actually crossed over the border an entered Namibia, but I’m not going to count that as a country visited, because that would be ridiculous. It is incredible that all these countries – Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Botswana – all come together in such a small area. If one was really committed, I suppose you could visit all four in one day. Maybe that’s an activity for another time.

I went out for dinner and a cigar that night in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, and the next day I was crossing the border on foot into Zambia.

Wandering North

Ethiopia!

Leave a Reply

Share this:

Related Posts

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Leave a Reply