First thing I had planned for today was to go to the German Embassy in order to get some information on the security situation of Southern Ethiopia. My plan was to travel overland towards Kenya and I wanted to make sure the area was safe enough to do so. Besides, a woman I met in Germany shortly before I left and who had worked as a diplomat for over 40 years had advised me to always contact the embassy BEFORE any emergency would occur. I was determined to follow her advice. So I set off for the German Embassy early in the morning, vaguely having a clue where I had to go. I decided to be brave and try a minibus for parts of the way, which worked out quite well. Still the few centimetres left to walk on my map turned out to be quite a few kilometres in reality, so I had to continue walking for a while. Upon arrival at the embassy, I was sent from one gate to another and back, and I had to wait almost two hours before I could meet Mrs Arslan, of whom I still don’t know if she was the German Ambassador or just one of his employees. Being a tall, elegant woman, maybe my age or a little bit older, with very long light blond hair, she rather looked like an Armani model than a diplomat. But I liked her. She took quite some time for me, answered all my questions in a very professional manner and on top of that was very friendly. A role model for German representation abroad.

Although my visit at the embassy took a lot of time, I was happy I had done it. I have never been at an embassy before and it was, similar to the Goethe Institut, a haven of peace: very well maintained modern buildings in midst of a beautiful garden, friendly and helpful staff, and the comforting feeling of somehow being at home. Still it was strange that this piece of land in the middle of a rather poor suburb of Addis Ababa was officially German ground. Anyway, I got the information I was looking for: Ethiopia’s South was safe.

Straight after my visit at the German Embassy, I continued to the Embassy of Kenya. It was pretty much in the neighbourhood and I had to apply for a Kenyan visa. The procedure barely took 5 minutes but I had to leave my passport for one night and come back tomorrow to pick it up. When I left the embassy without my passport, I felt somehow naked. It was a severe violation of THE Golden Rule for travellers: Always have your passport on you!

I was back at the hotel in the early afternoon and decided to start organising for a tour in the South. My idea was to join a group of people for a visit of the Omo Valley, a region in Southern Ethiopia with National Parks and lots of different tribes whose ancient customs and traditions have remained almost entirely intact. At the end of the tour, I would simply leave the group and continue south towards Kenya. That was my plan and I didn’t want to rely on Sherif to find me a group to join. So I spent the entire afternoon going from one tourist office to the next (thank you Lonely Planet for your excellent index!), trying to find someone who was about to launch a group trip to the South. By the end of the day, I had been at nine (!) different agencies but NONE of them had a tour to join. They all told me if I would bring the people, they could organise me whatever I wanted. But they had no group at hand because it was low season. I couldn’t believe it was so difficult to arrange for a stupid trip! I had spent the whole day just organising myself and ideally, I would have wanted to leave Addis as soon as possible. I remember I was very disappointed how complicated everything seemed to be and how much of my precious time it took.

At 6 pm I met with Cheru and we went for a drink. I will never understand how he knew I was there but suddenly Sherif showed up at the place. He told me he found three guys who were planning to go to the South tomorrow and who were still looking for a fourth person. What a great surprise! So we went to meet these people and the man who was supposed to organise the tour. As it turned out, the “three guys” were called Mohamed and Ihab, two friends travelling together from Egypt, plus Xavier, a journalist from Australia, all around my age. They had more or less the same idea as me: maximum 10 days Omo Valley on low budget, leaving Addis as soon as possible. I was thrilled! We sat together with the man who was offering the equipment, the driver and 4WD (= four wheel drive vehicle) to discuss the itinerary and price. In the end, he wanted 25 US Dollars per person per day, which is - compared to the information I had obtained during the day - already a good price. Still, we didn’t want to say yes immediately, so we asked for an hour to discuss amongst us and make up our mind.

We sat on the veranda of the hotel where Mohamed, Ihab and Xavier stayed (which by the way was the Baro Hotel that had lost my reservation on the day I arrived) and went through the pros and cons of the offer we got, comparing it with other options, such as taking a private guide and using public transport to get around. Sitting with us was a guy who worked at the hotel and it was good to be able to seek his advice. Suddenly his phone rang and he got a call from someone who offered us the same tour but for 18 Dollars per person. – I have no idea how information spreads in this city but whatever the system, it works. I felt reminded of Helgoland.

Of course, we agreed to meet the guy and he came to see us half an hour later. “Nati” was very well prepared, presented us with a written itinerary and was much more professional than the other one. It didn’t take long for us to make up our mind. Still, we wanted to give the first man a chance, so we told him about the second offer and asked if he would go down with his price. He got upset and shouted that he already made us a very good offer and that his 4WD was much better than the other one. We had seen both vehicles and yes, he was right, but the difference wasn’t worth 28 Dollars per day. If nothing else, his reaction killed the deal. As I couldn’t leave before Saturday because of my passport, we agreed with Nati to meet tomorrow morning to pay and sign the necessary papers. Funny how everything worked out in the end...

All these discussions and arrangements took quite a lot of time and it was around 10 pm by now. I was very hungry, so Cheru and I went for a pizza. Historically, Ethiopia is linked to Italy and I had heard that there were excellent Italian restaurants in town. You know that I love pizza, so I was looking forward to a gorgeous meal at the end of this tiring day. Well, I don’t know if Cheru made a mistake when he ordered in Amharic or if the waitress didn’t pay attention, in any case I got a tuna pizza instead of mushrooms… and I don’t eat fish! But even if I did, the pizza wasn’t especially great anyway.