Yesterday we were turned away from visiting the National Museum of Ethiopia. Today we were one of the first to see the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Ethiopian PM, Dr Abiy Ahmed. It is very gold and very shiny. Now, this could be the main attraction of this museum, however, I don’t think Lucy will go down without a fight. Until today the main attraction were the skeletal remains of an Australopithecus called Lucy, one of our ancestors. The bones are about 3.2 million years old and one of the first ancestors to go bipedal and walk around on two feet.
Nobel Peace Prize for 2019
The rest of the museum is all about Ethiopia and focuses mostly on humanity and how it spread out from Ethiopia. A fun fact is humans actually arrived in Australia before Europe or the Americas. I’ve got to say the Lucy remains were somewhat underwhelming. Although I don’t think the rather nice restaurant beside the Museum is going to change its name from Lucy to Nobel. For the record Lucy, the restaurant was delicious and around a lovely garden, although probably the most tourists I’ve seen in Addis Ababa, quite a few local businessmen were eating there also.
Late in the afternoon we joined a food tour of Abbis Ababa. Three delicious food stops and coffee at the end. Of course, each meal was the equivalent of dinner and Claire and I attempted to eat it at each stop. We were also served beer at each place and the 15 minute walk between them gave my stomach a chance to settle down and make room for the next meal. The first meal was beyaynetu, which was an injera bread on a platter with a variety of vegetarian stews on top. This was followed up by a whole fish and the last meal was beef tibs, which is small strips of meat grilled. Everything was so delicious, but seriously we ate three dinners in 3 hours. As I informed everyone, I was having a “food” baby. Seems only Australians get that one!
Butchers at Yilma restaurant
The final stop was a traditional coffee ceremony. Ethiopian coffee is seriously good and even non-coffee drinkers should try the coffee here. It is not bitter, but delicious and strong. Curiously the locals buy coffee beans green and roast them in a small fry pan for about 10 minutes before grinding them to make their coffee. The food tour guide was excellent and I highly recommend GoAddis tours for anyone heading this way. Now I must go sleep off my food baby.
Roasting coffee beans in Ethiopia
The coffee sounds amazing – maybe I could brave the city for it.