Saturday, May 24, 2008
Addis: Entoto etc
This is the Entoto Mariam Church, located at the top of Mt Entoto. Some people walk a paved road up the mountain, but I think they are craaazy. There were tons of people praying at this church, kneeling down, kissing the ground. Several in quite dire straits, suffering from a variety of physical ailments. There were lots of these little shrines in the windows. You cannot go inside, which I found frustrating.
There was a very small and bizarre museum, and by bizarre I mean it combined Olympic medals with old, regal costumes and ornate dishes, several which seemed to have price tags on them. Also up top was Emperor Menelik's first palace which, I must say (and you can see, from the following photograph) was most unimpressive. However, considering it was built in 1876 EC (the "EC" stands for Ethiopian calendar, it's 2000 there right now) - wait, no, it was still very unimpressive. There is a beautiful view from up on Entoto, but unfortunately, I was hyperventilating from the altitude.
Below is the Ethnological Museum, located on the main campus of Addis Ababa University and while I enjoyed it, the power was out. This made it difficult to see everything, though the security guard lent me his flashlight to take in a particularly dark room full of Ethiopian musical instruments. Things got a little hairy when he had to escort me to the bathroom, where the toilets were broken. But he grabbed a bucket of water and poured it in for me, so all was good. Sort of.
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