The night before we were due to head north our good friend Jezza took us out on the town. After an excellent Ethiopian meal at 17/17 he decided to treat us to a first class tipple. We found ourselves sipping (actual) Gin & Tonics in an expensive Arabian themed bar hidden in an inconspicuous tower block.
As our conversation was turning to world politics (two G&T’s down) a rather large South African man starting sending over flaming shots as a way of ingratiating himself into our party. He had more money than sense and we had less sense than money and so we soon ended up trawling the upmarket bars of Addis Ababa. A scene we had not expected to find ourselves in, as we are used to the brothel bars of the back street, the free drinks soon drove us to the illuminated dance floor of a pumping club.
Many hours and shots later we were unceremoniously sent home with the fat man for some reason claiming “he had never been so embarrassed to be a white man” (we didn’t realise our dance moves were that bad!) and inexplicably trying to start a fight with Jezza. Our time at the upmarket club was short lived and back at the hostel the drinking continued from Jez’s hip-flask.
We provided the music in the form of Avril Lavigne’s great new hit ‘Here’s to Never Growing Up’ on repeat! Suddenly at 4:30 am it dawned on our drunken selves that we were meant to be catching the 5 am bus to Barhir Dah. Despite the fact Jez was meant to be leaving the country in two days we easily persuaded him to embark on this 12 hour journey with us. Even as we hurriedly stuffed our many bags it all seemed like an excellent plan.
How did we get to the bus station? We don’t know, the next thing we did know however was that we had back row seat as the sun was coming up and nobody else on the bus was appreciating our singing. The journey began… As drunkenness turned into hangover we all felt decidedly sick as the bus bumped and swerved itself towards our destination at high speed.
Four hours in and for Tash/me it all became too much and the flaming shots and shiro (local chickpea dish) of the night before made a reappearance. Lying on the dirty floor at the front of the bus, to the great amusement of everybody aboard, Tash/I repeatedly vomited into a plastic bag.
When we stopped for breakfast none of us where in a good way (especially Tash/Me). It was disheartening to hear we had another 275km to go on a mainly un-tarmacked road. The scenery was beautiful, none of us appreciated it however! What a way to say goodbye to Addis and hello to the north!
