Photos : Ethiopia, Addis Ababa
Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the most uncomfortable flight of your lives
Due to the tour starting on a Tuesday, we left on Monday night on our direct flight to Addis Ababa on Ethiopian Airlines. Read on for a quick overview of the flight, passengers and my general waffle.
Once through the security checks where you are poked, prodded, searched, relieved of the burden that is your DNA and pretty much given up any semblance of privacy, it’s off to the gates. But wait…we can’t have you boarding the plane just yet. You see here at Ethiopian “we attract stupid passengers” Airlines, it’s absolute organised chaos and we couldn’t possibly let you board the plane without checking your credentials once again plus more importantly, now that you’ve actually bought your duty free, weigh your bags.
From the gate counter, a single line snakes its way from the gate back about 50 feet. As we get to the front of the queue your bags are weighed and I have a mild panic about the weight of my bag and wonder whether I’m one of the stupid passengers. I’ve only my camera equipment, UMPC plus the iPod speakers I’ve just bought and some toiletries but the camera and lenses are quite heavy. Switching to stealth mode I move the side of the queue and contemplate what to do. The largest and heaviest lens is just shy of a kilo so I take that from my pack and hide it in my fleece that I nonchalantly and inconspicuously (hey no laughing…I’m sure no-one noticed), head to the back of the queue.
After about 10 minutes I again approach the front of the queue. To get into the gate area you have to get past the bag weight sergeant who is armed with an old set of kitchen scales and a clipboard. As you balance your bag on the scale he reads the weight and then you hear your fate. The maximum weight allowed is 7 kilos but the 3 guys in front of me tried to carry on 23-27 kilos! Sergeant Weight politely and succinctly informed them, ‘do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars however you do have to pay 10 pounds per kilo on all weight greater than 7 kilos’. The passengers tried all manner of persuasion from justification, to excuses about carrying the ashes of his entire family in a very heavy urn, to utter shock (hoping for leniency) to an ignorant pleading smile. None were successful in their bid to pass. The highest fine was 170 GBP for 1 carry on bag. In an almost catatonic state they take a seat next to the scales and contemplate life, air travel, and their disappearing life savings to get a bag on the plane.
Now it was my turn and I was worried the eagle eye sergeant was going to notice my fleece seemed to be playing host to an alternative life form but luckily I had a big bottle of water in my hand as well so I casually asked if the water was to be weighed thus surreptitiously guiding his attention away from the fleece. He said ‘no’ and to see if my bag could balance on the scales. I couldn’t really put the fleece down so as awkwardly as a 3 legged giraffe on stilts running the 100m through a swamp, I set my bag on the scale with one arm and crossed my fingers. He gave me the all clear so I half dragged and half lifted my bag off the scales and headed for the gate.. Phew! Things must get easier/better from here….oh what an idiot I am.
Once making it to one of the oldest planes to be making commercial flights, you realise you’re in for a long journey. It’s so old it has rocking chairs for seats, and that’s not an exaggeration. Ethiopian Airways is doing it’s part for the ozone layer or more accurately the passengers are. Deodorant is a scarcely used commodity and I’m not sure I can hold my nose for 7 hours. Oh, good news. The toilet doesn’t flush. Yay for aromatic airlines.
Ahhh….now I see where all those extra and overweight bags go. In the overhead locker but to get it in there you need to take a running jump and pile drive it. Oops….there’s someone else’s bag there. Apparently that doesn’t matter. Just smash your bag in and ignore the sound of breaking glass in the other passengers bag. Those family heirlooms are a dime a dozen. The plane is supposed to taxi in about 10 minutes but there’s no way that’s going to happen. I think they might have someone outside cranking the engine like a 1920’s T model Ford. The air con is now on after 20 mins but with a slight twist. It’s hot air. Perfect for the ozone friendly passengers. I’m now socialising with a passenger. Well more accurately he got on late and there’s no space for his bag but mine is ‘his’ spot. He’s complaining to me that my bag isn’t where it should be. I’ve got an idea about where it could fit 🙂
Now 30 mins late taking off and my verbal sparring partner is complaining to the attendants about the lack of space. If this isn’t his first time on a plane I’d be very surprised but he might have checked his brain into the cargo hold to reduce his carry-on weight so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. The wings are now flapping like a bird in a vain attempt to lift off. Best assume the crash position and kiss my +@** goodbye.
In the air the flight could get better… but then again it might not.
The curtain that separates Cloud 9 and us peasants in cattle class is almost like a beacon of hope that maybe on the return flight the entire plane will be treated to the quasi luxury in Cloud 9. We peasants have to respect the power of the iron curtain and not venture past its force field however if you’re in Cloud 9 then you’re welcome to slum it with us in cattle class. We have a freaky guy who looks like Lenny Kravitz wearing sunglasses and listening to his iPod, standing on our side of the curtain for the last 10 minutes simply staring at all of us….it’s as though he’s stalking his prey.
The seats are tiny, dilapidated and the most uncomfortable I’ve ever had. The width is such that you can only just manage to wedge yourself between the armrests but the pitch and limited leg room forces your shins into the seat in front (for anyone under 5 foot 5 then you’re probably good to go). It’s almost impossible to get comfortable and sleep a luxury I was not afforded.
With a numb backside, sore shins, stiff knees and heavy eyelids a welcome relief was a toilet break. All I need to do is move the human jelly machine sitting next to me that seems to be overflowing to my seat. After navigating past Mr Jelly I could reach the upright coffins that appear to have been used by most passengers. Hazarding a guess here but I think there may be many a sick passenger on this flight….if you get my drift. On most newer planes the flush is violent however on this flight it was mere a flap the essentially remained opened the entire time…I swear I can see lights down there of some cities. 🙂
This is not a lie. But on the return leg the flight was late taking off, no surprise however the one thing you never want to see is exactly what we saw. Our seats were forward of the wing so gazing out at the engine we became a little ‘concerned’ (understatement!) to see an engineer with a screwdriver in hand working on the engine! What the hell?!?!?! I’ve no idea what he could do with a handheld screwdriver that was going to stop the engine from falling off or to keep running for the flight back to London but I was hoping he had forearms of steel and wasn’t trying to sabotage the plane.
Welcome to Addis
You can get a tourist visa ahead of time but you can also get when you arrive. We opted for the latter. You queue for the office and one inside you see 4-5 people working manually registering the details of each tourist into the paper logs then filling out your entry visa by hand and slapping the finished product into your passport. From there it’s a normal process for the arriving passengers but not necessarily the welcoming committee. Whilst waiting for immigration to verify the visa we had just had done, we saw a gentleman with a bunch of flowers in the crook of his arm, walk from the baggage claim area and into immigration to greet his friend. Only at this point did a security guard approach him and advise he was not allowed in immigration. The welcoming committee had managed to blag his way into the baggage claim area and walk straight through immigration before he was even stopped! Good work.
The smells of Addis fills the senses… you have food, traffic pollution, pheromones and last but certainly not least is the sewerage. Almost dead on our feet we got to the hotel and had about 40 mins sleep before the afternoon tour began. A couple of churches and the National Museum was on the itinerary. Not awe inspiring but a glimpse of the culture.
There are beggars in most parts of the city and they will always be asking for money. Whilst persistent they do respect your personal space to a degree and don’t actually grab you. School kids are worse than the beggars from my point of view. They are insistent, persistent, grabby, and somewhat rude in demanding for money (Birr) or pens.
Addis is the major city in Ethiopia and is like most major cities namely noisy, polluted, congested and full of contradictions. Intermingled with the new buildings and construction are the smaller areas containing small houses creating mini suburbs. The buildings often resemble the villages from rural Ethiopia although here they are a lot closer together.
On our return to Addis we went for a walk and had a groundskeeper from the hotel recognise us on the street and struck up a conversation during which he told us he was at university (often a precursor to being asked for money) and he had finished work and walking home. Somewhat dubious about if this friendliness was something other than genuine we bid him farewell and meandered to the souvenir district. On our wayward return to the hotel we again found the groundskeeper standing outside his village (as he called it) into which he invited us. We had discovered the Rastafarian quarter. We declined the offer to sample the Rastafarian goodies but on the street there were others who seemed to have been enjoying the lifestyle to its fullest. From people asleep on the footpath to a guy that looked as though he hadn’t slept or washed for 7 days muttering something about me buying something whilst falling into me.