Addis Ababa Pictures

We arrived in Ethiopia a day ahead of Alan, Grant and Jodie.  So we met them at the airport when they arrived.  Here is Katie waiting with welcome sign in hand.

Lauren gives Uncle Alan a hug.

At Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, from left: Katie, Grant, Alan, Lauren, Jodie and Todd

Our first accommodations in Addis Ababa: Hotel Buffet de la Gare.  Not high-end, but you couldn't beat the price at $12 a night.

Having fun the first morning at breakfast, Hotel Buffet de la Gare.

This was the intersection near our hotel.

We took a walk around the neighborhood and found a lot of homeless people.

We saw a many UN vehicles like this one, as well as vehicles from relief NGOs (non-governmental organizations).

The Ethiopian people are very friendly, a smile comes easily.

Forty percent of Ethiopians are members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.  Christian names and references such as this one were common.

This Muslim girl was selling tissue packets.  We bought one and she let us take her picture.

The taxis in Addis Ababa had four things in common.  They were: 1) barely running, 2) made in the 1970s, 3) blue in color and 4) made by Fiat, Peugot, Toyota or  Lada (from the old Soviet Union).

A stone statue of the Lion of Juda.

There were a lot of beggars in the streets of Addis Ababa.  Cheryl read in one of the guidebooks that there was a soup kitchen and we could buy meal coupons to give out instead of money.  So, we took a taxi there to buy some.  And while she was buying the coupons, Alan and Todd found a shop next door selling Ethiopian crosses and bought several.  This is a picture of Alan and Todd with the sales staff.

There was a hair salon next to our hotel.

We all went out for a traditional Ethiopian dinner of injera and wat at the Gion Hotel restaurant.

This is a side street near the US Embassy.  Cheryl just gave the boys at left some meal coupons redeemable at a charity soup kitchen.  After this we watched an older boy wrestled a coupon from a younger  one.  Upon seeing this, Cheryl asked Naty (our guide and driver) to intervene.  When he did this, the older boy claimed he was the big brother of the younger one.

This is the Hilton Hotel where we spent a lot of time swimming years ago.  It looks the same except the trees are bigger.

The pool at the Hilton in shape of the Greek cross

Our transportation in Ethiopia, Naty's vintage late 1980s Toyota Landcruiser.

Naty said that if he hit a cow with the car he would have to pay for it on the spot.

Our old house on Mapping Mission Road (now called Mauritania Road).  We lived here for about 3 years.  They removed the side gate (where the grey wall is now) and the trees are bigger, but other than that it looked the same after 32 years.  We walked around and took a few pictures, then the house guard approached us and told us to stop because it was the home of a government official and pictures were forbidden.

Our old house from the side street with Alan and Naty (left and center) and Grant at the back of the car with Lauren.

Cheryl with some girls next to our old house.  She is about to show it to them the picture she just took on the screen of the digital camera.

Here is the picture she took.

The front gate of the old American Community School, now called International Community School.

We walked into the office and introduced ourselves and the Principal gave us a tour of the campus.

Our guide Naty and Jodie at the old school.

This is the old school looking up through the middle courtyard area with the library on the right, the tukel in the middle and the gymnasium in the background behind the trees.

Todd in front of his 3rd grade classroom.  We never learned what happened to his teacher Mrs. Haile.

The school gymnasium named after the famous Ethiopian runner Abebe Bikila.  Bikila twice won the Olympic gold medals in the marathon, in 1960 and 1964.

Alan, Grant and Todd at the old school.

The parking lot outside the school with Grant pointing at something.  According to the Principal the military-style razor wire was paid for by the US Government to deter terrorists.

We found the old house of our good friends the Hamricks.  Just like at our old house, we got yelled at for taking pictures because it was occupied by a government official.

Katie with several school girls in front of the old Hamrick house in Addis Ababa.

Somehow eight of us fit into Naty's Land Cruiser with Cheryl, Lauren and Katie in the back.

We found the bakery that was a fond memory of that time.

The Chinese restaurant we frequented years ago was still going strong.  We even had dinner there one night during our visit.

Meskel Square looked different from what we remembered.  We learned that they still celebrate Meskel (finding of the true Christian cross) with a parade and bonfire in September.  The Hankook Tire sign obviously was not there.

This was the view from Grant and Jodie's hotel room at the Wabe Shabelle after we returned from Lake Langano.  When we lived in Ethiopia years ago, the smaller mountain in the middle we called 'Baldy' and the taller mountain in the background we called 'Crewcut'.

We visited the Ethiopian Ethnology Museum and saw a replica of the famous 'Lucy' skeleton fossil.  It was discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia by American Dr. Donald Johnson and is supposedly 3.2 million years old.

We also visited the Institute of Ethiopian Studies Museum in the former palace of the Emperor Haile Selasse. 

Cheryl in front of the museum.

Grant helps Katie with her multiplications while Jodie looks on.

We spent a couple hours walking and driving around the Mercado, a huge shopping district in the middle of the city.

Everything was for sale in the Mercado.

We looked some local crafts and got a lot of stares since they don't see many tourists.

These ladies are selling garlic.

Bowls made of terracotta and colored with a dye made from eucalyptus leaves.

Grant and Todd take a break from shopping for some lunch.  Those are good old burger and fries.

The spoils of shopping: Todd bought this traditional Ethiopian rug at the Mercado for around $20 US.  But how to get it home?

Another street scene in Addis Ababa.

The boys all bought shirts and posed for this shot (thanks Katie!) on our last day together.

At the airport on the way to Lalibela, we encountered a Muslim man with five fully veiled women.

After we got back from Lalibela, Katie asked go swimming at the Hilton pool.

The Hilton had pizza restaurant and they were good.

We thought there must be a riot when we saw this fire.  Actually, it was construction crew heating tar to pave a parking lot next to the building on the right.

Cheryl packing up for night flight to Egypt.