On the run in Addis Ababa

TRAVEL: AFRICA:EARLY EVIDENCE THAT Addis Ababa is going to be different from my two previous experiences of African towns comes within minutes of arriving at my hotel. I've travelled here to witness the Great Ethiopian Run and ask for directions to the main square where it will begin and end, only to be told that it is a 10-minute walk away. Briefly, I'm taken aback.

I recall my visits to South Africa and Nigeria and this is new for me: it is dark outside and somebody is casually advising me I can walk somewhere. I loved both of those earlier trips but my host in Johannesburg once nearly had a heart attack when I wandered down town with Irish Timescolleague Keith Duggan one evening, and when I was in Ibadan, Fifa media officials once had a car follow me at a snail's pace when I insisted on walking a mile or so to a training ground in broad daylight.

Only this week, there was a reminder that straying far off the beaten track can be as dangerous in Ethiopia as anywhere, with five tourists killed and others kidnapped in a remote northern region. But in Addis I moved freely, day or night, and had only good experiences with people who were invariably friendly and welcoming. Most are poor, some terribly so, and clearly a white person walking alone is seen by many – like the small schoolgirl who greeted me with a gorgeous smile and the words, “hello money!” – as an economic opportunity. But when I mention the girl to Kevin Thornton, who is in town for the race after a spell working with local chefs in the north of the country, he laughs and recalls how, as kids, he and his mates viewed Americans stepping off buses in Cashel in much the same way.

Here, a common way of capitalising on the opportunity is to volunteer services to tourists as a guide and you certainly don’t go short of offers at the major tourist attractions. More than one person, in fact, got to show me around Holy Trinity Cathedral, resting place of Haile Selassie and, rather more unexpectedly, the British suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst. Both earned their money.

However, the fact that I slip unnoticed through the rather ramshackle but still remarkable Museum of Addis Ababa, where the crumbling building – a residence for royalty, a factory and a hotel, among other things, down the years – says almost as much about the place as the fairly compact collection of photos and artefacts displayed inside.

There is, in fact, more than enough by way of museums and other sights in the city to keep you going for a few days although I did make a last-minute attempt to get to Lalibela, a town in the north famous for its 11 churches carved out of the mountain rock. The writer Ryszard Kapuscinski described the place as the eighth wonder of the world and several friends who have been there endorsed that view just before I left Dublin.

It’s about 400km from the capital and costs just €4 to get to by bus, but the journey takes two days. Flying, needless to say, is easier and is still affordable at about €90 return with Ethiopian Airways, but the flights are all full while I’m there. So it’s with a certain amount of envy that I listen, on race day, to Judy Lord from Navan, who travelled with her husband, Paddy, as part of the Concern group and organised a week in the north independently through the Irish-owned Ethiopian Quadrants. She described the experience as “utterly breathtaking”.

More than 100 Irish people travel each year for the run, raising large sums for charities such as Concern, Orbis, Self Help Africa and Vita. Most are on fairly tight schedules, packing in a few sights, a glimpse of the work done by the organisation they have travelled with, some fairly hectic socialising and, of course, the run itself on the Sunday morning.

Around 36,000 took part this year, all but a few hundred of them locals and it is a truly remarkable thing both to watch and, every Irish person I encountered afterwards agreed, to run in. Also well worth dropping in on are the children’s events in the national stadium the previous day where, among other things, you can look on as Olympic gold medallist, Great Run frontman and all round local hero Haile Gebrselassie, tries to negotiate several hundred kids back behind the start line for each race.

For the main event’s largest foreign contingent, the Irish, there are usually a few group meals organised, while the independent traveller has quite a few options to weigh up. At the higher end, the quality is very good while prices are low; you’ll do well outside of the big hotels to spend a tenner on a meal and a few drinks.

Bole Road, which runs from Meskal Square in the centre, almost to the airport, provides plenty of attractive options for eating or drinking. A terrace outside Velvet, a pizza restaurant set a little back off the street, offers a nice vantage point from which to try to take it all in.

Large chunks of the city are made up of modern commercial and residential developments and there is building going on everywhere it seems. Yet you can wander barely 50 metres off Bole Road and enter something resembling another, rather harsher looking world, as I do at one stage in search of a restaurant that turns out to have closed.

My taxi driver edges his way back on to the paved surface of the main road and I head instead for Habesha, a well-regarded tourist oriented joint serving up local fare and entertainment. Injera (a large, sour pancake that is a local staple) served with lamb curry is really good, but I find the music and dancing a little too much after a while and leave feeling I’ve spent an evening in the Arlington of Ethiopia.

The next day, the charity groups almost all head for Entoto, a short drive away and the site, in the mountains, of the capital before Addis was founded, barely 125 years ago. Having missed out on Lalibela, I head instead to Wusha Mikael Church, an earlier example of the building techniques subsequently perfected up north. The ruins are a good walk up into the mountains overlooking the city and my guide, the church “secretary”, says something about “safe” and “gun”, then nips off for his AK-47 which he casually throws over his shoulder before we set off.

“So precisely how safe are we?” I ask, just a little nervously when we reach the church. “Perfectly,” he replies with a little chuckle, “the robbers only have pistols.”

I laugh along but mentally resolve to have a stern word with my hotel staff when I get back that evening.

CHALLENGE YOURSELF FOR CHARITY

There are countless charity challenges for people who like to raise funds for a good cause while also taking a trip that’s bit out of the ordinary. Prices quoted include the cost of your trip and minimum donations required by the charity.

THE GREAT ETHIOPIAN RUN

November 22nd-26th, with Orbis

Several other charities, including Concern, Vita and Self Help Africa, use Africa's largest mass participation road race to fundraise, but Orbis have doing it the longest and bring more runners than all of the others combined. The race itself is a 10k that takes barely an hour, but it's a fairly packed four-day trip with sightseeing, various functions and a chance to see the organisation's work in Addis Ababa. Cost: €3,000.See Orbisireland.ie

TRI-ADVENTURE IN UGANDA

August 11th to 21st, with Concern

Concern has several challenges lined up for 2012. Perhaps the most eye-catching is their now annual Tri-Adventure which, following on from last year’s successful debut in India, heads for Uganda this time. Participants get to climb Mt Elgon (more than 4,300m), cycle through the country for three days and finally kayak near the source of the White Nile.

Cost €5,200.See concernchallenge.org

CYCLE FROM LONDON TO PARIS

June 27th to July 1st, with Oxfam

Less exotic than Africa, perhaps, but plenty to savour as you whizz your way from Greenwich to the foot of the Eiffel Tower in just four days. Overnight stops are in Calais, Arras and Compiègne and the return journey is by Eurostar.

Cost €2,290. See oxfamireland.org

SADDLE UP IN COLORADO

September 22nd to 29th, with Croí

If cycling between major European capitals isn’t enough of a pain in the behind, there’s always playing at being a cowboy for a week. “A typical day on this challenge will include rising at 6am, feeding the horses, before tucking into a hearty breakfast, then saddle up for a day of moving cattle around the farm, finding lost steers or fixing fences.” In the evenings good meals can be followed up with massages by the pool.

Cost: €3,000. See croi.ie

RUN THE NEW YORK MARATHON

November 4th, with Crumlin Children’s Hospital

It’s the original of the species really; heading away to run 26.2 sponsored miles, and no better place to do it than New York. There are loads of organisations that organise trips to the race each year but this will, subject to it being confirmed in coming weeks, be Crumlin’s 20th time and they’ve tended to be the largest party from these parts.

It’s certainly not a cheap trip, but they’re hoping to put a big push on for their anniversary year and insist that participants will feel the benefit of their long history with the event. They may be helped by the fact that the rules have been changed to make regular entries even harder to come by from this year on.

Cost: €5,000.See cmrf.org

Getting there

Flights tend to come in at around the €650-€800 mark depending on times and airlines with Air France/KLM, Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa probably the most popular options. Ethiopian Airways also operate from several major stop-off points, notably London and Frankfurt.

Keep an eye peeled for deals, though, Lufthansa dropped its prices to just €450 for selected flights a couple of months before last year’s event.

Hotel prices tend to fluctuate too and it may be best to wait until late spring/early summer before booking as prices on the major websites are high at present.

If you’re prepared to rough it a bit it is actually possible to find accommodation for next to nothing in Addis Ababa with even the 50 or so places that make Trip Adisor’s list for the city starting at well below a tenner a night while €50 should get you a pretty solid, clean and comfortable three star place.

At the upper end of the scale, though, the ludicrously lavish Sheraton is currently quoting around €290 tonight (they’ll almost certainly happily have a member of staff run the race for you if required) which, amazingly, is topped by the soon to open (Irish owned apparently) Radisson Blu which quotes an average of €303 per night for bed and breakfast over the race weekend.

Right next door, the locally owned Jupiter International is more than acceptable for less than a third of that amount while the Hilton, where the Orbis people stay, is about €125 a night but is significantly better without being as ostentatious as the Sheraton and has the advantage, being a sponsor of the event, of being the venue for some of the race related events.

Emmet Malone’s trip to the Great Ethiopian Run was supported by the Simon Cumbers Media Fund