Just Go Exploring

Ethiopian food was one of the things I enjoyed most about travelling in Ethiopia.

It can feel slightly confusing the first time you sit down to a proper meal.

A huge round of injera arrives at the table. Different stews and vegetable dishes are spooned on top, and everyone tears off pieces with their hands to scoop up whatever they want.

Once yo...

An Ethiopian coffee ceremony is not something to rush.

The beans are roasted in front of you, incense hangs in the air, and the coffee is brewed slowly.

If you’re used to grabbing a flat white and leaving five minutes later, it can feel almost comically unhurried at first.

But that’s the point.

The Ethiopian coffee ceremony is as much a...

Feeding wild hyenas in Harar was one of the strangest things I did in Ethiopia.

It was also one of the few that made me properly nervous.

You stand outside the old city walls after dark while spotted hyenas approach from the shadows.

I clearly remember trying to work out how close was too close. And whether I should step forward, step back, or st...

Harar wasn’t somewhere I knew much about before I arrived in Ethiopia. I’d heard about the hyenas but not much else.

It ended up being one of the places I remember most from my time in the country.

The old city feels completely different from anywhere else I visited in Ethiopia.

Inside the walls, the streets narrow into a maze of cobbled lanes, ...

Bahir Dar adds a very different mood to a northern Ethiopia itinerary.

After the intensity of Lalibela and Gondar, I found it noticeably calmer. The city sits beside Lake Tana, with boat trips to the monasteries and the Blue Nile Falls both within reach.

The town itself isn’t the reason to come.

Bahir Dar works best as a base, somewhere to get ou...