Travelogue: Day 1, Addis Ababa to Dessie

Welcome to our northern Ethiopia journey! Our family has been in Ethiopia for almost a year but we haven’t been on the well-known ‘northern route’. This is the way most tourists go, or are taken, when they come to Ethiopia. The famous northern route hits the 4 major cities; Bahir Dar, Gonder, Axum and Lalibela, usually in that order. But we will be going ‘backwards’, counterclockwise if you will, starting with Lalibela.

Our journey started Monday morning, June 23, from Addis Ababa. Our first stop would be Dessie, about 400 kilometers away. For those of you following at home, follow the road that runs northeast out of Addis. We were to leave our house at 7:30 a.m. but I guess it is hard to get 5 people moving all in the same direction and on time so we left at 7:45. We said good-bye to the pets; to Coca and Peanut the dogs, to Princess Waffles and Spot the cats, to Cindy the male rabbit and Yertle the turtle somewhere in the back yard.


The journey from Addis to Dessie starts out high in the cool mountain air of Addis and ends up in the warm desert-like air of Dessie. In between are mountains to go up and down on. The guidebooks said that the road was asphalt-paved but that was only half true for our trip. It seems that the Chinese are helping to widen the road from 2 to 4 lane most of the way from Addis to Debre Berhan so the first 200 km were rough. In many places we saw the Chinese out on roads leading the construction crews. In some places the road was being moved away from the old road cutting across the land like a shortcut. The old asphalt road, meanwhile, was in sad shape, having been patched many times over. It was better at times to drive on the dirt roads beside them.

The second part of the journey was much nicer. Soon after Debre Berhan a four lane paved road appeared and driving became much easier. We were fortunate not to see too much traffic. Mostly trucks and long distance buses which we were able to pass fairly easily. This road was made with the European Union’s help, thanks EU! Our drive had been mostly through towns and plains up to that point but now the road took us from the top of the mountain winding our way down with many switchbacks (curves). Now we saw forests made up of some sort of pines or evergreens or similar looking. We also saw more of the Italian built bridges probably built 70 years ago. Beautiful stone bridges with arches undergirding the road. In fact the scenery was very alpine. We felt like we were in Switzerland or northern Italy, what a nice drive. Of course we would see the ‘tukuls’, the round huts of the populace and know that we weren’t in Europe. And there were the occasional camels and monkeys that also reminded us that we were in Africa.


We finally arrived at Dessie in the early evening and found out that no hotel room had been booked. Apparently the hotels won’t accept reservations. The hotels are filled these days with Chinese. So as Mekonnen checked out hotels, along with a kind MKC evangelist who helped by going place to place to check for us, we found out that everything was full. Full, that is, except for the government hotel. These hotels feel like something out of the 1940’s, which probably when they were built. Many were privately owned but were seized by previous communist government (called the “Derg”) and now this government would like to sell them off but they don’t have a sense of a selling price and refuse to accept a reasonable price. So the formerly beautiful wooden floors creak ferociously, the rooms have one dim bulb in the ceiling, the thin ancient wiring looks scary. The walls need a fresh coat of paint. The windows have an old wood frame with single pane glass. The beds are soft and sag in the middle, but at least the sheets were clean. The whole place is kept relatively clean and we appreciated that. Unfortunately there was no water for washing up or for the toilet. A real problem.

So we took the 2 rooms that were left and inspected them. Sophia and I slept in one room and Wanda and the twins in the other. We had a late (7:30 p.m.) supper down in the dining room before going to bed. The dining room was part of the whole 40’s look, high ceiling with wooden cortaround and ornate decorating. But to my amazement the atmosphere they created was very nice. The music was familiar American jazz but more importantly the volume was low, it stayed in the background and we didn’t have to yell over the music like often happens. And the food was good; the pasta and sauce was good and the salads were full of fresh veggies.