Addis Ababa, en route and first impressions

We are still en route to Addis Ababa, just touched down in (9pm Feb 16) Khartoun for some fuel and to drop off about half our passengers.  The rest of the flight is relatively short now.  As I said before, traveling with KLM sure makes the trip less harsh then it could be, and yet we still had a mewing cat the whole trip and many screaming kids.  I am thankful for my noise cancellation head phones, that is for sure.  I am seated directly behind Willem Boot, the fellow who has organized the round table and I also ran into Tim Chapdelaine from Cafe Imports at Schiphol Airport, who is also heading to Addis.  Frankly, it is the people of coffee which makes these trips as enjoyable as they are.  No matter how you cut it, the trip from Edmonton, to Ethiopia is very long.  The fun of this trip for me is the unexpected.  Having been to Central America a couple of times now, I feel like I have a handle on traveling down there, but this trip is a completely new thing, having never been to Africa.  I know that the caravan trip next week is going to be gruelling as the distances in Ethiopia are similar to Alberta, and we were warned to expect long trips in trucks, on bumpy roads.  Through it all, I remain more committed than ever to the direct trade model that we are on track towards.  I remain convinced that direct trade is the only truly sustainable model for quality coffee, as it is the one model which eliminates the largest number of people involved in the trade of coffee, and it ensures both traceability and a sustainable wage paid to those growing coffee.

Addis (7am Feb 17) First Impressions: Well, the sun has come up in Addis Ababa.  I didn't get much sleep as the bed in my room feels like something pulled out of the Flintstones.  The view from the hotel is quite interesting, people are up here very early, with banging and noise at 6 am.  I am about to go down and get some breakfast and see how that is done in Ethiopia.  Today the Lent season starts in Ethiopia, so people are fasting from meat, so I am not sure if we by default are fasting too.  Here are a couple of pictures from the vantage point of my room.  I will be cupping coffee a little later in the day.