the ugly american

2.26.12  9:30am (Two hours later)

Just encountered the most annoying traveler on our way to Mt. Kilimanjaro: the ugly American.  This diva is clearly headed on a fashion safari, replete with her olive cargo shirt stuffed with her muffin-top into matching olive, skinny cargo pants that are tucked into her shiny, gold platform tennis shoes and accessorized with a dusty pink purse.  But don't worry, lest you think this woman's outfit might be too drab.  She dressed it up with not one, but three rhinestone barrettes.

And wouldn't you guess that after this consummate annoying safari-farer had loaded her six duffle bags on the security conveyor belt, she insisted her floral bag be returned from the other side of the X-ray so she could retrieve her SOCKS.  To put over the socks she was already wearing in order to walk through the metal detector.  Which beeped repeatedly because of those fancy, sparkly additions to her fabulously bad, black dye job (and Mallory, I know you get mad when I call it a dye job, but please trust me, no color specialist had been near her head).  When the security attendant asked her, kindly, to please take out her barrettes, the diva only exclaimed, repeatedly, "IT'S MY WIRE BRA!"

Oh.  God.

Are you serious, lady? In case you haven't noticed, you're in a domestic airport in Africa, and those guys with AK-47s are not a joke.  Meanwhile, the entire line has stalled and the United States of America has just been denigrated by one of its finest citizens.

I bit my tongue for as long as possible.  But the hotel shuttle had dropped us off at the wrong terminal, where we went through that security line before realizing we'd need to leave that building and run the quarter mile to the domestic terminal (which makes total sense since we're flying from Ethiopia to Tanzania) to make our flight and now we're stuck behind this prima donna.  I finally turned to her and said something about the line (I'm sure I was very tactful).  We eventually got around her as she was taking off her second pair of socks.

We made it to the departure area just as the plane was starting to board, and upon sighting the second round of security screening giggled with the relief that we wouldn't have to witness that spectacle again.

addis ababa round one

It's hard to believe that only a week ago we woke up on the beach in Zanzibar and went sailing on a teeny tiny, rickety fishing boat into the Indian Ocean before boarding a plane for dinner in Addis Ababa.  That was our second visit to the Ethiopian capital in two weeks, so I'll start with the first time around.

Saturday night we had an overnight layover in Addis on our way to Tanzania.  I brought a journal with me for this trip, hoping that I'd be able to write more about it along the way, in which I wrote exactly two entries.  Oh well.  It's two more than I managed in Italy...

2.26.12    7:30 am

We woke up this morning in Addis Ababa - so neat.  Our flight from Abuja landed after dark but we had just enough time to make it to the "Cultural Dinner" at Yod Abyssina where we were treated to a feast for all our senses.  

We were seated at the front of a crowded and energetic room full of all different colors of people.  Although there were many beautiful, beautiful, Ethiopian people present (they have the most gorgeous, exotic mixture of perfectly carved features and caramel-colored skin), most of the diners appeared to be tourists.  This was probably the least authentic place we could eat, but as Joey put it, "It's hard to call it a tourist trap when you're in Ethiopia."  Good point.

Inside the large and colorful hut where we sat, we watched a stage full of musicians and dancers in traditional garb - men wearing flowing white tunics and pants and women in billowing skirts - right in front of our table.  As the music pulsed loudly the local members of the crowd joined in, clapping, dancing - a few even climbed on stage to borrow the microphone for a song.

After bringing a silver kettle to wash our hands, the waiter served us the "non-fasting special dinner" and beef tibs, a decadent buffet for our eyes as well as our bellies, with its vibrant color wheel of reds and greens and yellows served alongside spongy injera and cold beer.  We inhaled our meal like starving, well, people, but not without savoring all the textures and flavors of meat and tomato and lentils and spice.  The waiter returned with the kettle, this time with soap and warm towels, and another order of beer.  

Ethiopian coffee rounded off our meal.  It arrived in a beautiful iron pot accompanied by burning incense and freshly popped popcorn.  Then we found our ancient, boxy, royal blue taxi whose driver regaled us with Ethiopian history the whole drive back to the hotel.  We crawled into bed and listened to the sounds carried through the paper-thin walls, breaking into laughter every time we heard a toilet flush.  

The coffee, the beer, the noise and the stuffy room made for fitful sleep, but here we are at the Addis airport anyway, waiting for our flight to Tanzania and Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Click here for all of my pictures from our night in Addis Ababa.