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Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia · October 2023

Stayed: Ethiopian Skylight Hotel, one night on the stopover
Paid with: Part of an Aeroplan award from Zanzibar to Istanbul on Ethiopian
Where: 9.01° N · 38.76° E

Coming first: the flight in from Zanzibar is at the end of the Zanzibar page.

Where I stayed · Ethiopian Skylight Hotel

The ticket included a 23-hour stopover and a hotel room in Addis Ababa, so I hired a driver for a four-hour tour of the city in the morning before the flight to Istanbul.

Near the airport

An old Ethiopian Airlines DC-3 on display outside the airport

Part one · A morning tour

The tour started at a park at the top of the hill, then went to the Menelik II palace and the National Museum, where they have the Lucy skeleton. I have more photos of some of this somewhere else, so this is a start.

Up the hill

Into the city

The National Museum

Another early human skeleton in a glass case

Around the museum grounds

A building with a colonnade, from the car

On to Istanbul on Ethiopian

The flight to Istanbul was a 737 with the exact same domestic first class type seat, with a weird footrest, that Delta had for its premium economy from Boston to Paris. I didn’t need to sleep, but the seat was still quite uncomfortable, with thin padding you could feel a few hours into the five- or six-hour flight.