Journey to Ethiopia

Hello,
On Monday we came back from our trip to Ethiopia. We travelled to Addis, and after a few days on to a smaller town in northern Ethiopia called Bahir Dar. It is a beatiful mid size town with good wide roads lined with Palm trees and sidewalks, coffeshops with very good coffee on every street corner.
The exciting thing about Ethiopia is the very old culture, monasteries, rock hewn churches from the 13th century, castles from the 17th century and many other unique things which can only be found in Ethiopia.
We visited an old friend in Dire Dawa in the Eastern part of the country. There we stayed in his Hotel, called the African village. From Dire Dawa it is only one hour by minibus to the town of Harar, the fourth holiest city in Islam. None of us really liked the town much because it is full of people chewing a mild drug called Khat, and the effect of it is seen everywhere. People begging, sleeping in the streets, just filth everywhere. But because of the famous nightly Hyena feeding which takes place at the outskirts of the town we had to stay until night. At nightfall people gathered at a certain point and heard the sound of the Hyena man calling out the names of the Hyenas. And slowly they came looking for food. After seeing that they really dont seem to harm anybody, the visitors also gathered courage and went out and fed them meat on a stick, and some of them picked it from the mouth. It was a bizarre spectacle and very well worth waiting for.

freshly roasted coffe in the small town of Harar in the Eastern town of  Ethiopia

In the same town of Harar Hanna-Joy feeding Hyenas