On to some lighter things! On 5 December S, J, and I flew to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to start a week of sightseeing. J hooked us up with a friend of a friend living in Addis so we had a free couch and mattress to crash on. Free. I like the sound of that! I'd sleep on the plain floor if it were free. At first Addis makes you think that they are wealthier than Tanzania - more cars, a DIVIDED HIGHWAY with ONRAMPS!
Right away I ran into an issue with money. I had changed some Tanzanian Shillings into American dollars, but not that much. This was supposed to be partly for safety reasons - less cash on hand means less money could be potentially stolen. Also, it is expensive to keep changing money into other currencies because everyone wants their cut. By the time I received Ethiopian birr my cash would have gone from dollars to shillings (ATM) to dollars (money changer) to birr (money changer). I naturally wanted to skip the two middle men. In my time in Tanzania my own small podunk town went from one bank without ATM to two banks WITH ATMs one of which accepted VISA. Also, during my trip to Zambia there was no problem with ATMs. So I assumed Ethiopia was probably similar, and we were going to tourist hotspots where banking is usually excellent. WRONG! My first clue was at the international airport where I couldn't use my VISA or Mastercard in the ATM or at the money changer!
Tomorrow: Lalibella
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