A new day

I woke up Sunday morning and decided to change my attitude. Instead of fretting about travelers checks (which I haven't been able to cash), I went to an ATM. Instead of being frustrated that my luggage is not here (Charlie tracked it from Chicago to London to India and back to Chicago), I decided to buy some new clothes and continue my trip without my meticulously packed bag. A change in attitude makes all the difference in the world. ...

Early morning, we met a guy who is traveling across Ethiopia after leaving his job at the U.N. / Congo. He's been here about a week, but somehow known every nook and cranny of the place. He took us to a one room shop with no sign - just a door and an open window full of hanging bananas. Apparently, the bananas are the sign that it's a juice shop. He said any time I see fruit in a window, go in. And he's right.
We ordered a guava banana juice and they handed us spoon for the thick beverage. Delicious. Sherpa had two.
I went to the ATM afterward and my heart raced as I wondered if it would work or if I'd have to stretch the little cash I had over three months. It worked. One less thing to worry about. Feeling light, I asked an Ethiopian if he would take me to the Merkato to buy some clothes (I was starting to smell like I'd been wearing the same shirt since Tuesday).
The Merkato is a sprawling market - miles of corrugated steel stalls and people sitting on the sidewalk next to piles of clothes, shoes and food for sale. I don't know my way around yet and I don't know the prices - best to go with a local.
The Merkato is famous as the place you don't want to go. Hundreds of people in the streets. It's a maze of pickpockets. But on a Sunday, most of the shops were closed and the streets were nearly empty. I bought a purple button up shirt and a scarf. My friend argued down the "ferengi" prices as much as he could. I got a nice scarf for 25 birr ($1.40).
As we headed home, I asked about the mountains all around us. Addis Ababa's 8 million people live at the bottom of this vast, high altitude basin surrounded in every direction by mountains. It's really a beautiful city.
We changed course and headed first to Entoto Mountain - kind of a tourist spot, but still incredible. It's in the city limits but feels like the countryside.
We stopped and asked a boy if he knew of a place where we could stop for coffee. He said there wasn't a place but his mother would make us some. Then he was gone.
We got to the top and hiked into the Eucalyptus forest - about a quarter mile to a cliff that overlooks the city. Within minutes, the boy from the road was running after us with two small cups, a bag of sugar and a clay pot full of hot Ethiopian coffee his mother made.
He offered to take us to a place he knew inside the nearby Entoto National Park where I could see hyenas in the wild. (I've never seen a hyena before.)
It was probably a two or three mile hike after miles of horrible roads. As we walked, I thought how much it looked like Colorado - lichen covered boulders strewn up a steep green hillside and pine trees. And then I saw the monkeys in the pine trees and the Oromo herdsman with his goats and I remembered we were were walking all this way so I could see hyenas.
A boy about 6 or 7 with a walking staff joined us - he knew the spot. He led us through the Eucalyptus to a cliff that looked down on a collection of hyena dens and lots of filthy, huge jawed hyenas.
Not Colorado.

Settling in

Whoever said it's the journey, not the destination never flew United.
I arrived at the San Antonio airport at 3 p.m. Tuesday and didn't arrive in Addis Ababa until 2 a.m. Friday thanks to a series of mechanical issues, missed connections and other humiliations.
I landed in Addis exhausted, dirty - and, it turns out, without my luggage. It's in Chicago or London.
Enough of that - I'm here and settling in nicely.
In any journey, the first step is always the scariest. For the days leading up to my trip, I was most worried about stepping off the plane into the unknown - but after four days living in airports, it was like walked across my living room.
I caught a taxi to the Baro Hotel - "many white people there" the driver said. He taught me some words in Amharic and corrected the pronunciation of the ones I already knew.
Funny - every time I've tried to speak Amharic, people just smile and say "very good." Which means the opposite.
The taxi driver said - there are a lot of Americans from Washington D.C. in Ethiopia and lots of Chinese. I read an article that said the Chinese just invested $10 billion in a railroad from Addis to Djbouti toward the coast. They are investing roads and rail all over Africa.
I paid for a room through Monday night - about $6 a night.
My biggest fear about this trip was that I wouild be shy and would spend most of my trip alone. Instead, I ordered a coffee and approached a group of travelers sitting in the shade. I asked if anyone would be willing to show me around and soon I was walking the streets with a Nepali Sherpa who is riding his bicycle around the world in a 17 years trip and a Macedonian-Australian who kept the conversation going with a steady stream of political opinion.
Highlight of the day was dropping in on a film festival of documentaries about communal living in India.
As we walked around the city stopping for coffee - which is amazing - I met people about my age who were educated in the states, had careers in places like L.A., San Francisco, New York and recently moved back home to Addis.
A combination of the poor economy in the U.S., improving opportunities in Ethiopia and aging parents brought them here - a growing professional "creative class."
I heard of one man - a jazz musician from New York, educated at the Berklee School of Music - who moved back and helped start a music program for jazz musicians and opened a jazz club not far from where I'm staying. Going there tonight.

P.S. As I wait for my luggage to arrive, I've learned that the bare necessities are:
- A handkerchief (the best thing I packed)
- Toothbrush and toothpaste
- Deodarant
- Shampoo from a Chicago hotel
- The clothes on my back
- Sunglasses
- Pen and paper
- A copy of The Atlantic Monthly

Now you know.

Trying to think of everything

Ten years ago, everything I owned fit in a backpack.

Trying to squeeze my life back in there is a great visual reminder of how it’s changed.

As I packed, it slowly came back to me.

In the end, my pack weighs 30 pounds. Of course, much of that weight is “Finnegan’s Wake” by James Joyce and a copy of Joseph Campbell’s “Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake.” It took me ten years to get through the first 50 pages of that book. This trip seems like the perfect place and time to finish it.

Over the next three months, those 30 pounds of possessions will be whittled down to the bare necessities as I remember what those are.

Here’s what I packed (complete with unpaid product placement):

• Cat’s Meow sleeping bag (with newly repaired zipper)

• DownMat sleeping pad. The stuff sack is designed to inflate into a pillow.

• Two pairs of pants, two shirts, one long-sleeved dress made of stretch material. Sports bra.

• Pair of flip flops.

• First Aid Kit in a plastic bag— rehydration salts, Advil, melatonin, Amoxicillin, Malarone, bandages.

• One set of silverware in a plastic bag. Light Gerber pocket knife.

• Duct tape. Carabiner. Safety pins. Silicone earplugs.

• Petzl headlamp.

• Amharic phrasebook. Lonely Planet guidebook to Ethiopia and Eritrea.

• Asolo hiking boots. Two pairs of SmartWool socks.

• Baseball cap.

• In plastic bag — waterproof matches and firestarters.

• Daypack.

• Scarf — to be used as towel, wear, etc.

• Point and shoot digital camera with six memory cards. Two USB drives.

• Toiletries — half a roll of toilet paper in plastic bag, one package of wet wipes, soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, lady stuff — in a stuff sack.

• Pair of binoculars.

• One set of playing cards.

• Journal and pen.

• Three photos of home and my wedding ring.