[Sp5]

I spent five days and nights in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at the end of the year. It's OK, worth visiting, a unique and ancient culture. There are opportunities with beautiful women but time and luck are factors. I wasted time on girls that flaked and girls that would have probably come through if I had more time to spend on them.

Flew in on Ethiopian Airlines - some beautiful flight attendants, decent service.

Two Facts to keep in mind about Addis Ababa (AA):

1. Altitude is 7500 feet (2300 meters)

It's on an arid plateau. It's relatively cool, but the sun will burn you quickly if you don't protect yourself. You'll also dry out quickly, drink a lot of water. I wish I had Chap-Stick, lips were very chapped at the end of my time there. Alcohol will have more of an effect and hangovers will be worse.

2. Per capita GDP (PPP) for Ethiopia: $1300 (CIA)

By comparison Philippines is $4700 and DR is $9700. Even considering that AA draws in a disproportionate share of the wealth, it's a poor town, manifested in the lack of traffic. It always seemed like a Sunday in all but the center of downtown, no real traffic jams. Taxis are comically-decrepit Ladas from the 1970s. Some beggars, old men and peasant women from the countryside, not obnoxious but just really poor looking.

AA is developing rapidly, though. Lots of building and also an almost-completed light rail system. The light rail is being built by a Chinese firm. Strong evidence of Chinese influence. Chinese hotels, restaurants, worker/engineer types all over. WeChat "people nearby" feature had scores of Chinese around, including cute girls, one of which I saw at a Chinese restaurant later.

The city is made of reinforced cast concrete taller buildings, with concrete block and corrugated metal buildings and shacks ringing the center of the city.

It seems safe - I never got a threatening vibe there. No hassles or even particular interest in me on the street. Police are unarmed (!) except for nightsticks and walk the beat in pairs. I only saw a few guns - old bolt action rifles with old guards in banks and one AK-47 with a guard in an office of EthioTelecom.

Here is a recent article about the place: http://www.fodors.com/news/5-reasons-to-...11088.html

I did pipelining through Badoo and Tagged. Got a few numbers and followed up on WhatsApp. One girl who worked in a hotel took an interest in helping me and arranged for a good hotel at a low price (not her hotel) and for a SIM card. I later learned it's not that easy to get one, due to inefficiency and bureaucracy of the state telecom monopoly, EthioTelecom. You have to go to their office and fill out forms and provide ID. No easy way to get a SIM card at the airport. There's also another form for a data connection (I never got one, hotel had wifi).

I got there early in the morning, checked into the hotel in the Bole section of town, got the SIM card arranged for me and took a nap. After getting up, I took a walk in the hotel's neighborhood. Bought some coffee from one of the many traditional coffee sellers on the street. I also bought some khat, which is pronounced chat in Ethiopia.


A chat kiosk

Khat is a mild-to-moderately stimulating plant which is sold in bundles of sprouts or twigs. You chew the softer parts and leaves. The active ingredients are chemical analogues of the amphetamines. It does not get you particularly jacked up, but you can go on for hours after chewing some.

I went back to the hotel, called Hotel Girl and chewed chat for awhile. Hotel Girl showed up at my room. Hotel Girl was a few tough years older than her beautiful profile picture. Oh well, I'm not so young either.

She could smell the khat on me and asked if I had some. We spent a couple of hours chewing khat in my room, talking about things, and then she proposed we go out to eat. I was pretty jacked up on the khat by then.

She took me to Yod Abysinnia, which is a large restaurant with a stage and folkloric performances. It was pretty good, they had some pretty dancers in the company, would be worth approaching if I were alone and maybe younger.

Acting as a guide, she then took me to Flirt, also in Bole. Flirt is a lounge bar, because we were there on a Monday it was pretty dead, but it's a nice venue. We also went to the TriUp bar/disco at the Haimi Hotel, it was quiet except for a group of friends dancing together.

Hotel Girl was looking pretty good after a few beers, so I spent the night with her, and she left in the morning to change clothes. That morning I walked around, went to the Red Terror Martyrs' Museum, an interesting exhibition of the purges of the Communist regime of the 1970s and 80s, including the graves of some of those killed.



you will end up like this guy, but maybe not tortured and killed by secret police

Hotel Girl met me in the afternoon at the museum and brought her hotter cousin, who was a classic petite Ethiopian beauty. We went to a "chat bayt," just a big house with rooms let out for people to chew khat and smoke shisha. All the rooms and even the stairways were full of people sitting around with khat and shisha pipes. We got a small room with lounging cushions and a small TV.


in the chat bayt


khat

The cousin lived in Riyadh for a while as a nanny and we were speaking Arabic to each other. When Hotel Girl went out to buy chat, I got the cousin's number.

I also ordered bananas and oranges to eat and a lot of water. We sat around the chat bayt for four hours or so, watching MTV Africa and talking. Hotel Girl had been in a LTR with an English engineer. They were together for four years and he even rented an apartment in Addis for a long stay together. She was showing me their pictures on her tablet. He was a good looking guy in his mid 30s. She pointed out how she had gotten fatter during their time together. Hotel Girl was obviously bereft by his disappearance and was now looking for his replacement in 58 year old me. I said that maybe she didn't take care of herself enough.

When we were coming to the chat bayt, I noticed there were a lot of bars and clubs nearby, and I wanted to check them out, so I told them I was tired and went back to the hotel. I messaged the cousin, she said hi but also told Hotel Girl, who sent me a number of angry messages as a result.

I went out to a club near the chat bayt, Jubilee. It was quiet because it was early in the week and early that night, but looked like a solid destination over the longer term.




I then walked into a small place with a few people sitting around and traditional musicians. They had a drummer and a guy singing and playing a one-string fiddle. It was like a blues session or Irish seisun. The guy singing was going around from table to table and singing some kind of mocking lyrics to the people there, which they would laugh at. Eventually he came to me, and I knew he was busting on me, which was ok.

Then this woman got up and started singing passionately. She grabbed her breasts, got on her knees. It was quite a performance. This Diva came over to me and said hello, she did not have much English but hung around for awhile and I bought her a beer and got her number.


The Diva

These bars were on the same street as Jubilee, which the locals called "New Street." New Street is off of Djibouti Street, running to Haile Gebreselassie Street north of Namibia. No name on the street on Google Maps.

I then went to Barrel club on Dijibouti Street, a sausage fest, and the Black and White club nearby, which was better. I never got to Afrobeat, which is on the same block but looked good.

The next day, I walked around the city, maybe 25 km total, no hassles. I met Coffee Girl when I smiled at her on the street and she said hi. She invited me to her coffeehouse and she did a coffee ceremony and serving, coffee with burning incense.


Coffee Girl

I got her number and tried to hook up, first by inviting her over to my hotel, but she refused that and I ended up doing other things, feeling she would take a big investment of time. I did have coffee at her place a couple of times, she was very nice.

A couple of dates with Badoo girls, one with a modeling portfolio on her profile, but they flaked or postponed. Some pinged on me later when I was already gone.

I think I did too much walking around, it wore me out at that altitude more than I realized at the time.

I did get a couple of massages though, for 200 birr ($10) basic rate for an hour. Unlike some places where massage is just a cover for untrained girls trying to rush you to a "happy ending" the girls have some training. Make sure you show your watch to them at the beginning, one did shortchange me on the time.

One night I went to the Beer Garden, a German-owned brew pub in Bole. The food and beer was pretty good.



After the Beer Garden, this guy comes up to me and says he works in my hotel. I asked him which hotel, and he was right. He said there was a student party going on nearby for university students celebrating the end of exams, and he would show me. I was a bit wary, but I went along.

He took me to a house, and five girls came out and it was instantly obvious that this was some kind of brothel, so I left. I went back to the bar with The Diva, and hung around there enjoying the show for awhile. I made a date to meet the Diva the next day and went to the hotel.

The next day, my last, I called the Diva and she also refused to come over to my hotel but invited me to her mother's house for coffee. Then Hotel Girl called and I figured she was by best bet. True enough, she took me to the best place yet, Mama's Kitchen, which is a live music club playing a weirdly rhythmic kind of Ethiopian pop/blues. It was pretty cool. There were also groups of girls there that would be easy to break into. Hotel Girl and I split a bottle of wine and then back to the hotel. The next morning I had a late-morning flight to Entebbe.

In some ways, Ethiopians (which are actually Amhara, Oromo, Tigray, and other groups) are like Thais. They were never really conquered by European colonialists and preserved their unique language and culture. They are prouder than most peoples. Like Thais, even though there is a lot of whoredom around (many streetwalkers and brothels), good girls will hold out a bit and will not be very easy. It is a pretty safe place, but you have to be experienced in the third world to enjoy it fully. If you wanted to stay longer, it would be easy - Initial tourist visa-on-arrival can be extended for months at the Ministry of Interior and apartments can be rented in good areas for as little as $250 a month. One guy at the hotel told me that some distance runners stay to train there - not surprising, weather is perfect and altitude would help.

I would like to go back there, but would conserve my energy more and be more judicious with my evening time. I did not make the high end clubs downtown, like at the Sheraton, mostly because I was there during the workweek.