Navigating Addis

The Lonely Planet describes Addis as “massive and incoherent” going on to liken it to a sprawling 250-sq-km injera. Injera— the ethnic bread on which most dishes are served— with its pockmarked surface, certainly does provide an excellent metaphor for the state of many roads. At the same time, there are significant road improvement projects, courtesy of the Chinese. This causes its own problems, as most drivers feel liberated to travel at totally inappropriate speeds given their driving skills and the state of the vehicles.

Gender equality, or lack thereof, is a significant issue in many walks of life here. That said there do seem to be a surprising number of women drivers. Relax, this is no segue to the usual comments about women drivers; to the contrary they do generally exhibit more tolerance toward other road users. Neither group demonstrates much patience, and as many roads don’t have serviceable pedestrian pathways the major “road users” are pedestrians; the mix puts Ethiopia at the top of the road casualty table, at least in Africa.

The city transportation system is equally as complex as the city itself: The few remaining decrepit government buses, which run along a limited number of traditional routes display numbers, but no destination indicators, and have no defined bus stops. The private buses display no information of any kind relying instead on the ticket collectors calls. Then there are the “line taxis” aka matatus. Again the only way to determine the destination is to interpret the auctioneer-like calls of the fare collector. There are “contract taxis” or “Lada-taxis” (for the obvious reason) aka regular taxis are everywhere! All “taxis” for some unknown reason are painted dark blue with white roofs. Most taxis are communist era Ladas with a very occasional pre-communist Peugeot; line taxis are almost exclusively Toyotas as are the vast majority of other cars and trucks.

Edited and posted by Elspeth, who LOVES Ladas.