Susan Corbin

May 19, 2024, Sunday

We planned to go home on Sunday—we were all ready to be home. Unfortunately, we had to travel a long distance. Surprisingly, we still had adventures.

Goodbye Kurifu Lodge

Melaku sent us a WhatsApp message the night before to remind us that breakfast would be served as usual in the hotel restaurant starting at 6:30. John and I got up at 6:30 and got down to the restaurant by 7:30. Melaku also asked that we have our luggage outside the room at 8:30 and I was happy to do that. I didn’t want to carry bags down those steep steps outside our room. I repacked the suitcases and tried to keep the dirty things together and not mix them with the clean stuff, but seriously, I rewashed everything. Who wants to wear a shirt that’s been in a suitcase on multiple airplanes and through multiple time zones?

When I repacked, I pulled out my clean, black, long-sleeved shirt and comfy black pants to put on top of the clothes in my suitcase. I wanted to wear them after the shower at the Jupiter Hotel, and I wanted them handy.  I’d wear this outfit on the flights from Addis to Istanbul, DFW, and Austin. Whew. In self-defense, I tried not to think about how long it would take to get home—just one flight at a time.

Well-Deserved Tips to the Tour Leader

After breakfast, we returned to the room, finished packing, and dug out the envelope with the tip for Melaku that we had carried for the entire trip. We found him walking around outside near the pool, and it turned out to be near Becky’s room and the room the boys shared. We gave him the envelope and thanked him profusely for being such a fantastic trip leader and for all the extra things he did for our family, from the boys’ haircuts to Becky’s raw coffee purchase. Since we were near Becky’s room, we went by there and gave her the envelope with the tip money from her and the boys.

Back to Addis Ababa

Melaku asked us to gather in the lobby at 10 a.m. to drive to the airport for a flight to Addis from Bahir Dar in the hotel van. John started a timer about ten minutes into the airport drive because he wanted to know how long it took door-to-door to get home. With all the time zone changes, it is hard to calculate. I won’t keep you in suspense with the results. When we got home at 1 AM on May 20, the timer said it had been more than 47 hours. Wow. You’ll understand why as I describe the next two days.

We were in the lobby by ten, as requested. I checked to see that all our bags were waiting to be loaded on the van and thanked the employees who retrieved them. We turned in our keys to the front desk. Soon, the bags were loaded into the van, and we followed them. The trip to the airport was uneventful, as was the flight, which lasted about an hour. Of course, that’s just the flight. It takes at least that long or longer to scan the bags at the airport door, for Melaku to check our bags, get us boarding passes, get the take-on bags scanned again, and finally, wait to board the plane.

Lunch at Koba

When we arrived at Addis Ababa airport around 1 p.m., the Jupiter Hotel van picked us up. Melaku had a reservation for us at a restaurant called Koba. We went straight there from the airport. He said it was the best restaurant in Addis. It was very nicely appointed and modern-looking. We had a reserved table for 13 in a corner.

Many of us visited the restroom, which was hard to find, but we did find it. I don’t remember what we ordered, but it wasn’t the best I’ve ever had. I may have been tired of restaurant food by this time. The restaurant did have lovely desserts. I should have ordered the chocolate, but I had the strawberry tort. Paul Hollywood of The Great British Bake Off would have said the crust was too thick.

Jupiter Hotel again

After lunch, the van took us to the Jupiter Hotel. As we drove through the streets of Addis Ababa for the last time, I took pictures from the van’s windows. I wanted to document the interesting juxtaposition of modern buildings next to half-completed structures.

At the beginning of the trip, we stayed at the Jupiter Hotel for the first time in Addis Ababa. This would be our first day-room of the journey home. Some of the ladies decided to visit the leather store for their free time between flights, but John and I were shopped and touristed out. We declined. Becky did, too. We got our room keys from the registration desk, and this time, we were on the 8^th floor, and Becky and the boys were on the 6^th floor. She retrieved the bag left at the hotel from their baggage room and started repacking.

We went to her room to hang out with her and eat her snacks. We ate peanut butter crackers and trail mix for dinner. I wasn’t looking for another restaurant meal after our big lunch. Sam and Micah were not there. It turned out Sam called Josephine and Ebony around dinner time. They were going to the hotel next door, the Radisson Blue, for dinner. They invited the boys to come along. When they got back, Sam said they had nachos. If I’d known they had nachos, I’d have gone over there too, though I think the crackers and trail mix were better for me.

I did indeed take a shower in our day room. It felt wonderful, and the water pressure was a delight. I wore my “flight” clothing and was ready for the many hours on airplanes.

Good-bye Jupiter Hotel

We had to be out of the room by 8 pm. We took our bags down. I can handle our two bags each if the floor is level and there’s an elevator. Our flight out of Addis was scheduled for midnight. Oh, my. Several of us were on that flight, but not all of us. Armando had managed to miss his flight out but got it rescheduled. Melaku took him to the airport in his car. Janet had a room at the Jupiter to decompress for a few more nights, and then she was returning to Oregon.

The rest of us left for the airport in the hotel van at 9. Melaku reminded us that he could not go to the airport with us because he had no ticket. After leaving us at the airport, he returned home to his wife and son. His feelings may have been, “Whew, glad that one is over.”

As we walked away from the van, I felt abandoned. It was the first time in 17 days that I felt like we were responsible for our travels. I didn’t blame Melaku for that feeling, but that’s how I felt. Of course, John and I weren’t totally on our own. We had Becky, Josephine, and Ebony.

Addis Ababa Bole International Airport

In the parking lot, once we were ready to head for the airport, Melaku told us that we should turn right for Turkish Airlines once we had passed the first scanning. I didn’t remember what he said until we started walking right, and then I thought, “Oh, that’s what he meant.”

We got in line to get boarding passes and check bags. John and I decided to keep all four of our bags. I didn’t want to get to Dallas and then have to get the bags and go through security again, as we had done at the beginning of the trip. The line was pretty long and getting longer. At one point, an airline employee returned to wrap the line around.

Josephine and Ebony were ahead of us in line. As the line wound around, we noticed that Lee was at the first-class ticket agent, and Josephine was with him. The story we told ourselves was that he was having trouble with his ticket, and since that’s Josephine’s job at O.A.T., she was helping him get it squared away. We never really talked to her about it, but it worked out. As we boarded, I saw him in first class as we walked through the airplane to our cramped economy class seats. (Poor me)

Checking in at the ticket counter

Becky was our spokesperson with the ticket agent because she had all the passports. I was happy to let her do that. Bless that ticket agent’s heart; she got us ticketed to DFW and Austin. She sat John and I together, and Becky and the boys together. The five of us weren’t that close, but that was okay.

I was so glad I would not have to repeat the scare I had on the first flight to Istanbul when I thought I might not be able to sit with John and sleep on his shoulder. Becky checked their three bags but kept the one roll-on that contained her SLR camera bag. The boys kept their backpacks as carry-on luggage.

Waiting for our flight

I didn’t have any water. In the US, I would fill my water bottle at a water fountain, but I didn’t even look for that in Addis. We had to walk a long way to the gate and then down. There seemed to be only two airlines in the Addis airport: Ethiopian Air and Turkish Airlines.

We finally found a shop that sold bottles of water. Becky bought it with a US $20 bill. (No, it didn’t cost twenty dollars. She got change.) The bill was one of those that none of the hotels would take because it had writing on it. They wouldn’t take it because they said the banks wouldn’t take a bill with writing on it or a bill from before 2006. I hoped the young man who accepted it didn’t get in trouble. I promise there was nothing wrong with it. The water tasted wonderful because, by that time, I was very thirsty.

The waiting area was cavernous, larger than two football fields side-by-side and two stories high. We entered it at one corner and went down a long ramp with several switchbacks, which I appreciated since we were dragging suitcases. The area seemed very crowded. We had several hours before our flight, which was to leave at midnight, so we grabbed the first seats we found. The closer one got to the gates at the long end of the area, the more crowded it got.

People watching

There was a significant pilgrimage of men and women in red robes. Becky said they were going to/on a Hajj. There were hundreds of them. When their flight was called and they left, the room was much emptier.

I appreciated Turkish Airlines’ dedication to getting people on the correct airplane and not depending on the passengers to know where they should go. About 10 minutes before any flight was to leave, a Turkish Airlines employee walked to the back of the room where we were sitting and announced that the flight to Paris or another destination was leaving. Thanks to him, we were less likely to miss our flight.

As the night wore on, the vast room became emptier and emptier. We moved closer to the gate as more seats opened up. Finally, our flight was called. The Ethiopian airport didn’t even give the Turkish Airline an actual gate. We were herded onto buses where at least twenty passengers stood with luggage at our feet or on our backs as the bus took us to the airliner. Passengers had to carry their bags up an outside stairway to the plane’s door. The boys carried our 22-inch bags, and we brought the smaller carry-ons.

I don’t remember much about the five-hour flight from Addis Ababa to Istanbul, so I assume everything went well and that I slept (or tried to sleep) most of the time. We landed in Istanbul around 6 a.m.

My next post will be about the flight from Istanbul to Austin, and my last post on our Ethiopia trip.