Wednesday, July 9: Sightseeing

Because we were done with our appointments related to the adoption process, and Juan Pablo’s visa would not be ready until Thursday, we decided to take Wednesday to hire a driver and do some shopping and sightseeing around Addis. The night before, when we had called the driver to take us to Finfine, we had asked if he would be available for the whole day on Wednesday, and again, with the interpretation services of our host, had negotiated a time and a price. Our first stop was Entoto Mountain, one of the mountains to the north of the city. This is where the capital of Ethiopia was originally located, until King Menelik’s wife decided that she did not like it up there, and had him move the capital, which was named Addis Ababa, meaning New Flower, into the valley below. We asked the driver to take us there, and as we began climbing up the steep roads leading up the side of the mountain, I noticed that the fuel gage was below empty, and, sure enough, the empty light was also on. I didn’t say anything, because we were already heading up and there were definitely no gas stations in sight. The one consolation was that there seemed to be hundreds of donkeys going up and down the road, so if we broke down, we could probably negotiate a ride back to civilization by donkey. With this thought, I settled back to enjoy the scenery, and the beautiful view of Addis Ababa down below. After miles of winding roads along steep drop-offs on the side of the mountain, and lots and lots of donkeys, we arrived at the site of King Menelik’s palace, which is next to an Ethiopian Orthodox Church. We first went through a small museum, containing several items of historical significance. We were offered a free tour in English, which we gladly accepted since all the signs in the museum were only in Amharic, and we were curious to know what everything was. As our tour guide led us through the displays, Juan Pablo, who was comfortably sitting in the baby carrier, started to go through his litany of noises that he likes to make, blowing raspberries, clicking his tongue, and saying “Da da da da” and “Ta ta ta ta”. After a while, the tour guide stopped, looked at Juan Pablo, and gave what is still one of our favorite assessments of our son: “He is funny. I like him.” He is very funny- and we like him too.

After the museum tour, we walked up to where the church was, and immediately felt extremely irreverent. The church is circular, and the entire building was surrounded by intensely devout pilgrims, on their knees, bowing their heads to the ground over and over and over again, praying out loud continuously. I wish I could have understood that they were saying. After walking quietly around the outside of the church, we decided to stop being obnoxious American tourists, and go see Menelik’s palace instead. The view from the palace of the valley below was gorgeous. Jeff said that Menelik’s wife was crazy to want to move away from there. I can understand where she her reasoning though- it was much colder on the mountain than it had been down in the city.

outside the palace

the view from Entoto Mountain

After the palace, we had hoped to visit a National Park, where you could supposedly see all sorts of birds and animals, many of which can only be found in Ethiopia. We had been warned by the guidebook that this park is fairly new, lacks infrastructure, and that most people spend more time looking for the park than they do at the park. When we told our driver where we wanted to go, he seemed to not understand. Either that, or he was as concerned as I was about not having enough gas in the tank to get farther up the steep mountain roads than we already were, so he pretended that he didn’t understand. We eventually gave up the park idea, and asked to go to Entoto Market instead. Having not succeeded in finding the Merkato earlier in the week, we still needed to buy souvenirs and gifts to bring home to people. Entoto Market is supposedly where the locals shop, and smaller and more manageable than the Merkato. Our driver readily agreed to take us there, probably because it was on the way down the mountain, and on the way to a gas station. Juan Pablo was very tired at this point, so he napped in the baby carrier as we began to walk down the row of stalls, looking at all the coffee pots, traditional clothing, scarves, jewelry, bags, baskets, and other trinkets. Once we had an idea of what sorts of things we wanted to get for ourselves, for Juan Pablo to have when he gets older, and to bring back as gifts for people back home, we began to shop. It is a well known fact that the merchants will give tourists higher prices than they do locals. It is also expected for the buyer, whether tourist or local, to haggle and get that price down. Sebastian is an expert haggler, even going to the extreme of pretending he’s not interested after the merchant has insisted that the price he’s giving is the “last price”, and starting to walk away, causing the merchant to call after him with an even lower price. Jeff did very well too, picking up on these haggling techniques very quickly. I, on the other hand, am a terrible haggler. I would always convert the price that was quoted into dollars, and, probably since I do all our shopping at home and know how much similar things would cost in the US, it seemed like a great bargain. $5 for a hand-woven, traditional shirt? $2 for a funky wooden bead bracelet? Sounds like a great price to me! Since it was expected of me though, I would half-heartedly try to get the merchant to go down the equivalent of a few cents, and then call Jeff or Sebastian over to finish the job.

After a couple hours at the market, Juan Pablo was awake, and we were getting hungry so we decided it was time for lunch. We didn’t have any specific restaurant in mind, so we asked the driver to just take us anywhere that he would recommend. He nodded, and then said that first he would need to stop at a gas station. Finally. After the gas station stop, the driver dropped us off at a restaurant called Top View, which, as is probably evident from the name, is far enough up the mountain still to have a great view of the city. The restaurant had two buildings, both surrounded by windows on all four sides. In between the two buildings were several garden areas, and a path leading up to a terrace. The tables in each building are placed around the edges of the room, so that each table is next to a window, and the middle of the room is empty. We found a table, and sat down to look at the menu. The restaurant was very upscale, and all the food delicious. Sebastian ordered steak, Jeff ordered a seafood platter, and I ordered Nile Perch scaloppini. Juan Pablo, who couldn’t handle being around food and not eating it, sat on my lap and ate all the potatoes, carrots and peas that came on the side of my dish, and a couple pieces of bread. Towards the end of our meal, we were surprised to see people we knew at the restaurant. The adoptive family that had been with us at the foster home on Monday when we filled out the paperwork for the Embassy appointment had ended up at Top View for lunch as well. We went to over to say hi, and compare notes on our kids, and how our trips were going so far. While we were talking, their five month old daughter began to cry. Juan Pablo smiled and started saying, “Aaaah, aaaah, aaah.” We had heard him make that sound before, and now we knew where it came from: he was imitating the sound of the other babies at the orphanage crying.

Top View restuarant

Our driver arrived back at the restaurant to pick us up just as we finished our dessert and coffee. We had one more place we wanted to go that afternoon: Ato Basket Shop. It was listen in our guidebook as a great place to get beautiful Ethiopian baskets of all shapes and sizes. We told the name of the shop to the driver, and he just repeated it, which we had come to find out basically means, “I have no idea where this is”. This time though, we were prepared for such a situation, armed with our trusty guidebook. Sebastian sat in the front seat, and using the map in the guidebook, navigated for the driver. We ended up on a stretch of road that was not yet completed, and was therefore basically just dirt, rocks, and holes.

this sign says to drive on the road, not in the ditch

Juan Pablo was ready for his afternoon nap at this point, and did not at all appreciate his efforts to fall asleep being interrupted by an uncomfortable bumpy road. After we made it out of that stretch though, he fell right asleep, and we continued on our way to Ato Basket Shop. So far, most of the streets had matched up with those in the guidebook, and Sebastian’s sense of direction had gotten us past those that didn’t. We were getting so close, and then, out of nowhere, a roundabout appeared in the middle of the road. It appeared to be new, and none of the streets coming off of it were labeled. It was right at the spot where the street that Ato Basket Shop was on should have been, but suddenly, instead of just being able to turn on to the street, we had five or six streets to choose from. We chose one, but when it appeared to be a residential street, the driver turned around and headed back to the roundabout. Sebastian had been studying the map this whole time, and was pretty convinced that that was still the right street. He talked the driver into going back that way again, and sure enough, about five minutes later we arrived at Ato Basket Shop. The shop is tiny, and jam-packed with tons and tons of baskets, as well as wooden crosses, masks, and wall hangings. There was so much to choose from, and all very different from what we had seen at Entoto Market. We got some toy animals for Juan Pablo, a cross for his room, a cross for our house, and several baskets, some for us, and some to give people as gifts. Happy with our purchases, we went back to the guest house, to play with Juan Pablo’s new toys, and rest after our long day out.