Met with some of the tourism heads from Awasa and the region, and Sedeka from Arba Minch had also come to the meeting so it was good to see him again. I couldn’t face my tent that night so asked if I could rent a single room but they only had doubles left.
It was very dark and I was putting my tent in the same place as last time but this time on many big chunks of fresh mud they’d decided to put all over the camping area which I couldn’t see properly. Tiritu the really lovely waiter who I’d become friends with during my last stay was very pissed off with his manager and wouldn’t let me pay for my food that night, he paid out his own pocket, no questions, I tried. Again Ethiopians are so generous in that way, it’s not the first time, unique in Africa in my experience. He did get it back in a tip at the end of course, that would just be too harsh when they’re earning about £20 a month. I woke up and trampled through the mud which I now realised totally surrounded my camping area only so I could have been told to go to the bit next door instead of being watched (!) and I went to have my cold shower and get ready to meet Sedeka and the government car that was giving me a lift to Arba Minch on my was to Addis. Excellent.
They weren’t allows to offer me a double for the price of a single unless I spoke to the manager who wasn’t there so I waited till later. I got back late from my meetings and it was dark. I found the manager in his office and asked if it was ok to pay a single rate as there were only doubles available and as it was 10pm they probably wouldn’t receive any more guests that night. No chance! It was totally out of the question and after me lecturing him on how he doesn’t know how to do business and trying to explain he would now get no money for it at all, he watched me put up my tent in the garden. Arrrghghhg sometimes common sense is just missing!
It was very dark and I was putting my tent in the same place as last time but this time on many big chunks of fresh mud they’d decided to put all over the camping area which I couldn’t see properly. Tiritu the really lovely waiter who I’d become friends with during my last stay was very pissed off with his manager and wouldn’t let me pay for my food that night, he paid out his own pocket, no questions, I tried. Again Ethiopians are so generous in that way, it’s not the first time, unique in Africa in my experience. He did get it back in a tip at the end of course, that would just be too harsh when they’re earning about £20 a month. I woke up and trampled through the mud which I now realised totally surrounded my camping area only so I could have been told to go to the bit next door instead of being watched (!) and I went to have my cold shower and get ready to meet Sedeka and the government car that was giving me a lift to Arba Minch on my was to Addis. Excellent.
So that was a luxury 6 hour journey, we stopped for great fish by the lake and they dropped me at a cheap hotel in the town of Arba Minch. I changed my flight with Ethiopian Airways to Malawi for a few days time because I couldn’t do any more here at this stage, checked out the price of flying to Addis which I was told was only $30 but extremely sadly it’s a different rate for foreigners. So I got my bus ticket for 5am the next morning (of course) and had a couple of farewell drinks with Sedeka.
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