Ethiopia was in some ways a return to freedom. Probably in a superficial way, but after a month and a half in Muslim countries where alcohol is prohibited or drunk in paying clubs, The women cover their faces and the schedules are marked by prayers (nothing to criticize), we meet again with our lives, our ways.
We went to Gondar and there after a car breakdown we met Nani Man. To summarize, I could say that the kid is a fool., another of those inhabitants of the global village who believes that behind every tourist there is a bag of money to tear open. He fixed our car, or charged him that he did nothing, and then he got us a hotel and offered to go out with us for the night.
He believes that after each tourist there is a sack of money to tear
And he did, Although Leandro and I trusted little in him, It took us to bars that I did not imagine in an Ethiopian rural population. That bar could be in a European postin club. But, I was in drowning, In the midst of an appreciable misery and in the middle of a city at another time where life is not lived, override. And there was also Nani, asking for glasses and taking receipts that he paid with our money.
And from the modern Gondar bar we went to a surprising bar. It was a small place in a street full of cup premises. There was a group that played strange instruments and a strange voice of a woman and a strange and compulsive dance that is done with the shoulders until it loses meaning. That was real, We were the only ones not ethiopo in a world where they were danced with smell of incense and straw soil. And there it was also where we fell as Nani the fool who wanted to collect the consumption to the triple of its price. We tried to explain that we always understood everything and that it was a bad path and that ... and he looked thinking "I have lost the taxi commission".
A country that should never be conquered by foreigners for pure laziness
We went to the lalibela. On a mountain road that rose on the clouds we discovered a country that should never be conquered by foreigners by pure laziness. They had to get there, look at those eternal mountains of more than 3000 meters and decide "we better go home", The villages were beautiful, clean, With a certain order. In Ethiopia poverty is individual because the country has acceptable infrastructure that grow and grow with Made in China. Somehow the State is well above the poverty with which its inhabitants live, especially in the south.
In the lalibela we visit the excavated churches in the rock. The mandatory guide was dedicated to teaching those treasures with reluctance. His only purpose was to pay for everything that was hidden behind a curtain. I sent him to hell and he told me that he went to the bathroom so as not to return. I made the visit next to a Brazilian who was traveling alone, He had been three days, And something boring and fearful explained that I had decided to return to Brazil. "I thought Ethiopia was something else", He told me and I kept the question of what was the thing he had thought.
His father told him that the only possible choreography was to take desserts to the Pata Coja
But in Lalibela the prominence was a distant and eternal sunset that seemed that he would never conclude and from a nice night with the waitresses and waiters of the hotel who told us their dreams. They wanted to marry nuances, One wanted the wedding to be far to travel, And the boy wanted to be a dancer but his father told him that the only possible choreography was to take desserts to the Pata Coja. "The dance does not give money", his father pointed out ", What reminded me of that story of our friend Pintor Abdo in Egypt.
And finally the end of this first stage of the trip in Addis Abeba arrived (We flew to Maputo to make our committed safari with tourists by Zimbabue and Botsuana). In Addis we spent two fun nights where we met Elias, the owner of the hotel that bears his name, that dignified the word honesty. Addis is a thriving and modern city in which I always feel at ease.
But those days were more final than ever because there we said goodbye to Leandro, that he was returning to Portugal perhaps not to return. And saying goodbye to Leandro was saying goodbye to an eternal smile., of the appropriate silences, of lack of ego, of friend and companion. I have learned a lot from Leandro, but perhaps the most important lesson from this chubby friend of 63 years is the forcefulness with which one can speak quietly. We have not had in two months of route one discussion between the three. How would the, travel with you "are favors that never pay me". Goodbye friend, It was a pleasure to travel with such a good man.
