Return to Addis

We had a lovely night, finally able to sleep in a real bed and use a proper toilet. Such luxury for us! We need to head back to Addis a bit earlier than planned because we're missing quite a few things after the robbery, and those can only be found in Addis. All the other towns are just too poor and outdated. We want to head south to see the many different tribes. That requires malaria pills. We're hoping to buy some in Addis; otherwise, we won't be going down there since the risk of malaria is just too high. We're also missing our good camera. Such a bummer! But we're hoping to find a charger for our little digital camera so we can take a few pictures. We've lost about 140 photos—so disappointing. We were lucky to catch an earlier flight back to Addis. It's strangely easy to change your flight tickets without extra costs or to hop on an earlier flight here. But it also means that sometimes things get a bit chaotic with the bookings. When we boarded the somewhat worn and old plane, there were too many passengers compared to the number of seats. They counted us over and over again. In the end, they had to go through all the boarding passes to find the culprit who had snuck on board. Back in Addis, we hoped to check into a slightly better hotel. Everything is pretty much booked up, so we had to settle for Ras Hotel again. But this will definitely be the last night we stay there. We headed over to the Hilton for dinner and to see if we could get a room. Everything is booked for the rest of February. The Hilton is incredibly popular among tourists. It's where everyone hides from the poverty outside on the streets. The Hilton's buffet costs 200 birr, but it's quite good. We definitely left feeling stuffed!