Awassa and its fascinating Fish Market / Back to Addis

Awassa and its fascinating Fish Market / Back to Addis

Wednesday 26 March 2008

Henyak came at 7:20 am and we headed for Awasa, capital of SNNPRS not too far away. Had breakfast and visited the famous fish market. This is an open air market by the lake side. Very picturesque and pretty. Lots of huge marabut stork around, plus other water birds. After this, we drove to Addis, dropping by briefly by the pretty Lake Zway, and then lunched at Der Bezit's Ethiopian Air Force Officers Club which is located by a nice small lake. I also got to know the customer of one of Henyak's driver friends. This customer is Japanese who had spent 10 years in the USA and now returning home to Japan for good. He is a specialist in languages and is in Awassa to further his research into the Sidama language. Amazing! Such specialisation.

Back to Addis, I went around trying to draw money from ATM but only succeeded at the third ATM. Then I checked into Wutma Hotel. I was to have mini electric shocks when I showered and tried to charge my camera batteries. The wiring here is just awful. I changed rooms and yet the same happened. I wrote a complaint letter to highlight to management the dangers and moved to Baro Hotel across the road the next day.

Met Fasil, the guy who got me into the South Omo tour and his friends. He walked me round the city too try find a map of the federal states of Ethiopia but we couldn't find any after checking many bookshops and vendors. Some of these people even pretended that the old provinces still existed and tried to sell us old maps.

At night, a few of us – Fasil, a German PhD student Ralf and a Liberian UNHCR officer – went to a few local bars. I also bumped into Asaf, a well travelled young Israeli I met earlier in Jinka. One of the bars was very sleazy and the local girls were all over the Liberian who obviously loved the attention. I had a bloated stomach from indigestion and long travel today and left the group early.