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.