Pickpockets, Scammers, and Jesus: Welcome to Addis Ababa.

Jan 23

Jan 23 Pickpockets, Scammers, and Jesus: Welcome to Addis Ababa.

This city.

This. Fucking. City.

I’ve been here before, four years ago, and since then I’ve harbored fond memories of Ethiopia. Granted, it was a very short visit, but I had stayed in the city and gone out with my travel buddies to a popular restaurant. We had a great traditional meal, lots of honey wine, and my buddy Mike and I even got pulled onto a stage to dance. As far as first impressions go, it was a good one.

It was also a lie. A filthy lie.

The real Addis Ababa is a predator, and we were the antelopes.

Tara and I met up with our friends Mike and Martha for this trip. The Ethiopian part was left a bit unscripted as it wasn’t really the focus (that would be Sudan) and we didn’t have quite enough time to really get out of the city to explore. We figured, based on our previous rosy visit, that Addis would be a soft landing before heading to Eritrea, Somaliland, Djibouti, and finally Sudan. Woof, were we wrong.

Addis Ababa might be the capital of Ethiopia and it might have a relatively booming economy, but it’s also home to roaming gangs of brazen pickpockets, thieves, scammers, and muggers. There are also parts of the city where gangs of dogs will hound you (ahthankyou) on the street around sunset. We deliberately chose a hotel in one of the nicest areas of the city as we (wrongly) assumed it would be safer. Like most commercial buildings in the city, it had security and metal detectors, and if you lower your expectations a bit, it’s an okay place to stay. After a late night arrival, we rested up for a full first day.

Somehow, the four of us missed the fact that the weekend we would be in Addis was the same weekend as Timkat, Ethiopia’s most important Christian holiday. Like I said, unscripted. Timkat turned out to be a chaotic, claustrophobic, charmingly good time. Street parades were all over the city, with replicas of the Arc of the Covenant being toted from one point to another, and everyone out and generally having a good time. Our first stop was the National Museum to see Lucy (or a replica on display), the paleontological wonder skeleton discovered in Ethiopia in 1974. The National Museum might have seen better days, but I somehow doubt it. It’s scruffy, but pleasant, and worth a visit to see Lucy and learn a little bit of her history.

Hanging with Lucy at the National Museum

We left the museum and merged into the parade that was marching right near the entrance on the way to a church across the street. It was a pretty jubilant atmosphere, and we felt safe the whole time. We detoured when the parade made its way onto a church grounds and started walking towards the famous St. Georges Cathedral.

Along the walk we picked up a stray: a middle-aged guy whose nose looked as if it was used to pound nails, or crack rocks. Cleary, he was no stranger to a bad time. He smelled of alcohol, but didn’t seem drunk. He was never really rude or mean, nor did he ask for money. He just followed us, chatting constantly in Ethiopian, annoying the hell out of our group and calling a lot of attention to us. He just didn’t get it when we tried to –at first politely- part ways. We finally ducked into a restaurant where it took the manager more than a few tries to get the guy the hell out of there. We finally ate some lunch in peace, quite pleased with ourselves, then headed up the road to see the St. George Cathedral and Museum.

Where after one block that SAME crazy dude spotted us and started following again. Was he…simple? More drunk than we realized? Out to scam us? I really have no idea. He didn’t try and really do anything, so who the hell knows what his deal was. We reached the church with him still in tow when Mike had a good idea: we would scatter suddenly, make a loop around the square, and meet back under a certain sign. He followed me briefly before I lost him in the crowd, then we regrouped at the rendezvous location and never saw him again.

We toured the perimeter of the Cathedral, which was closed for the holiday, though the museum was open if we wanted to pay a ridiculous fee so we skipped that.

Our next destination was the Merkato, a massive market that’s on every list of things to do despite it also being shady as fuck. The walk to the market was through mostly populated areas, still filled with people out celebrating the holiday. The actual market looked more like a war zone than anything else. Sure, we were on the outskirts and most shops were closed, but damn, this place was rough. We decided to walk to a main road and look for a taxi (they are everywhere in the city) and that’s when we made our first mistake.

We lingered briefly on a street corner, debating which way to turn. That minute of indecision was all it took for a pickpocket crew to organize and descend on us. As we walked down a sidewalk lined with vendors selling mostly useless garbage and random items, a few things happened at once. Tara was grabbed on her arm by someone and yelped, jumping up in between Mike and I. I turned to yell at that asshole and as that happened another guy tried to get into Martha’s purse. Little did he know it’s slash proof and locked, but she yelled at him to back off. In the moment I paused to yell, there was just enough space for two other guys to come up in front of me. One pretended to bump into me and grab my arm to apologize, and right as that happened I felt, rather than saw, the other guy start to reach into my front pocket for my phone. All this happened fast - we are talking just a few seconds. If I wasn’t on alert already from the grabby asshole behind us, I probably would have reacted too late, but amped as I was, I pushed the first guy away and caught the phone grabber with a right hook to the side of his face. Mike said he heard the unmistakable sound of someone getting punched, and turned to see the phone-pickpocket dude looking stunned and holding his face. I’ve never wished more that a guy had a broken jaw before. I pushed forward yelling a lot more expletives and we got the fuck out of there, still worried because we were very outnumbered.

No one chased us or followed though, and we rehashed the event at a train station guarded by police with heartwarmingly-large assault rifles. What a fucking first day. At least it ended with a fabulous meal at Yod Abyssinia, the restaurant we went to on that first visit years ago. It was just as great this time as it was the last.

Yod Abyssinia. No matter how good it is, Ethiopian food never actually looks tasty

The second day, Sunday, was perfect and we had a wonderful time. Just kidding, it was also a fucking shit show. As we walked to a coffee shop (Tomoca, highly recommend) one block up from our hotel in the Bole area, we were approached by a guy asking for money, and another guy holding a tray selling pins and tissues. We should have known something was up based on that alone, because who needs to buy that kind of crap on the street, right?

Here’s how the pickpockets work: the beggar asks for money, or food, distracting you on one side. As the street vendor closes in, the beggar will grab you. This is what he did to Mike, shaking his arm all of a sudden. The vendor comes at you from the other side and uses the tray to cover his movements as he picks your pocket. You don’t even feel it because it’s happening so fast, and all your attention is on the random guy who just grabbed you.

I turned and yelled just as Mike was shrugging the guy off, and they backed off. Within just a few seconds Mike realized his phone was gone, and we chased them across the street. Surprisingly, they were quick to turn over the phone. We figured they knew they could get any number of other marks that day and it wasn’t worth a beat down (or attention from the police) for one iphone. These guys were pros, not like the scruffier types we had run into the day before.

Look, it isn’t like this is our first trip to a developing country, or one known for having pickpockets or scammers. It’s just that these were so brazen. Broad daylight on of the business, nicest streets in the city. And talented – mere seconds pass and boom, your shit is gone. It’s not like we were walking around with our wallets hanging out, though we did have a phone in our pocket for navigation (thanks Google maps). I don’t think it would have mattered either way – they would have come at us regardless. I’ve read travelers of, uh, European decent need to be extra cautious and it’s true - we really were a spectacle, especially Tara with her blonde hair. I would go so far as to say that single women shouldn’t travel the city alone, period. Both Martha and Tara were mildly harassed and cat-called the entire time, and that was with Mike and I – two not-insignificantly sized guys – right beside them the entire time. This city is far more dangerous than you read about online and in books.

Still, that didn’t stop us from seeing another museum on the campus of the City University, which was refreshingly very safe, and we had a nice lunch at Lucy’s – an oasis from the chaos of the street it sits on.

That evening, after having one last bite to eat at an off-brand In and Out Burger across from the hotel (don’t judge us) we had a quiet short walk back, enjoying the night air underneath a clear sky. Just kidding, it again was more shit show. Right as we left restaurant we heard yelling behind us, and witnessed a mugging of an older tourist in progress. It probably had started out as pick pocketing, but had moved on to full assault/mugging. Mike snatched up a brick and we ran to help (the only good thing about the streets and sidewalks here looking like the buildings alongside them had vomited up construction debris ,is that makeshift weapons are very handy). The muggers wanted no piece Mike with a brick and took off. The older guy was flustered, and didn’t seem to speak English, so we never did know if he had anything stolen but it would be a miracle if he didn’t. At lease he ended up all right. We were approached yet again by another pickpocket as we walked the rest of the way back to the hotel but Mike still had the brick so the guys didn’t bother to even cross the entire street towards us.

We learned, and relearned, a lot of things on this trip. Mike and Martha pointed out that the usual ignore/stare straight ahead technique that works so well in other places, like Asia, doesn’t work here. You have to have your head on a swivel, and confront people directly. It’s the only way to see them coming and scare them off. Keep moving, don’t be afraid to yell/scream or even get violent. The timid will get absolutely crushed here. If you’re with a group, have a tail gunner bringing up the rear, someone who doesn’t have anything at all on their person so they can devote all their attention to watching the road and the group. Don’t feel bad about shutting people down quickly when they approach you. If you’re on the street, it’s going to be a scam, guaranteed. However, if you’re in a museum or a facility that charges an entrance fee, it’s more likely they just want to chat and be friendly, so you can let your guard down… a little.

We are off to Eritrea next, the country whose’ visa process gave me high blood pressure, and while I know it sounds like we didn’t have a good time, I have to say – I think we are leaving with some memories we won’t ever forget. But I’ll be damned if I’m coming back anytime soon.

Where we Stay: Saro Maria Hotel. Lower your expectations and it’s not a bad place, I would stay again…if I had to.

What we did:

St. Georges Catherdral
National Museum
Ethnological Museum
Merkato
Yod Abyssinia
Lunch at Lucy’s
March with the Timkat crowd