Detour to Ethopia

Our flight, which was supposed to leave a 1:30, was delayed by several hours and then diverted through Zanzibar (go figure). We missed our connecting flight to J’Burg and were forced to spend an entire day in Ethiopia. This ended up being an unexpectedly pleasant detour. Addis A’baba, the capital, looked much more like the preconceived notion I had had of Africa before I arrived than the other countries we visited. There were shanty towns everywhere, even near the city center and animals roamed freely, even near the main highway. The feel of such a place, however, was not at all as I expected.

Everyone was so friendly and helpful. We were not harassed at all. We spent most of our day wandering around this incredible, never-ending market (the largest in Africa). There were several different sections of the market: clothing, spices,
incense, cheese, butter, cooking oil, baskets, saddles, pottery, and, my personal favorite, the recycle market where old metal is recycled into new goods.

After the market, Kaitlin and I decided to check out X, an inexpensive spa. Those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile know that I have had my share of strange massages in other counties. I feel, now, that it is a necessary cultural experience. This was my strangest massage to date. You start be getting unclothed and stepping into a huge blue tub as it is being filled with hot water. At this point, I was thinking, “Okay, they want us to take a bath before the massage.” But then the masseuse comes into the room and grabs a power hose. They use the high pressure hose to massage you while you are still in the tub. It goes quite deep and feels surprisingly good except in places where you have excess body fat. After getting your front side, you roll over to get your back side. But, because the tub is huge and full of water, the masseuse has to push you to the bottom of the tub before massaging you with the power hose. It feels a bit like they are trying to drown you.

After the tub, you get on a massage table. Although they start by covering you with a towel, it quickly becomes apparent that the towel is just for show. Instead of massaging your top half and then bottom half, while always keeping your butt covered, they fold the towel in half, doing your left side and then your right side. You know when you are done on each side because you get smacked on the ass. After doing each side, the towel is removed altogether and you get one more rubdown before repeating the same process on the other side. They also use a menthal massage oil on you so you have an icy hot tingling. All this for the bargain price of $8.

Back at Hotel Riviera, where Ethopian Airlines was putting us up, we had dinner and went off to our separate rooms to watch as much tv as possible before the 5 am departure to J’Burg.