| The city of Addis Ababa |
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 Location and climate: Despite its proximity to the Equator, the lofty altitude of the world’s third-highest capital enjoys a mild, Afro-alpine climate. Temperate weather almost through out the year interrupted by the occasional torrential down pours.The city today: From its inception Addis Ababa was clustered around two main centers: the palace to the east and the market, with Saint George’s church, to the west. Together they generated so much activity that the capital grew and developed rapidly. Today Addis Ababa which bears the imprint of many of these past developments is a major metropolis, with an estimated population of more than 3million. The city stands at the very heart of Ethiopia and is Africa’s unchallenged diplomatic capital, with more than seventy embassies and consular representatives clustered in the mountain city.  The city has a flourishing cultural life, with regular exhibitions and lectures. There are many opportunities to experience Ethiopian music, song and dance, to visit museums and to see the city sights. Traditional restaurants abound in Addis Ababa, and offer entertainment in the form of the ubiquitous masenqo, minstrels and traditional dance troupes. There are also many other specialized restaurants in the city, including Chinese, Italian, French, Indian, Armenian, Arabic and Greek.There is much to do and see in the capital, by day or at night when the variety of nightclubs offer all manner of music and dancing from Ethiopian to modern pop. In the famous ‘Mercato’ the largest open air market in Africa between Cairo and Johannesburg one can find a bewildering selection of grain, spices, clothes ironware, pots and pans, and curios for the tourist market. It is a colorful and vibrant place in which hard bargaining is the order of the day. After the bustle of the Mercato, the city’s second main shopping area, Piazza, provides a calmer environment and, in many cases, better quality goods. As its name suggests, Piazza has an Italian flavor. Sprawling out along Adwa Avenue, it is an area of gold and silver smiths, cake shops filled with delicious pastries, coffee bars shoe shops, tailors, video libraries and electronics retailers. A short distance from Piazza lies the long thoroughfare of Churchill Avenue where a wide variety of shops specialize in Ethiopian handicrafts and other curios and souvenirs of interest to the tourist. Part of the emperor’s former palace now houses the institute of Ethiopian studies, library and ethnological museum which provide an interesting overview of Ethiopian crafts, culture and art. The art section contains an extensive collection of well displayed classical religious icons and artifacts, as well as more recent paintings. The national Museum, near the University, contains a collection largely gathered from the northern regions. A modern renovated section of the institute displays musical instruments. The museum contains a replica of the early hominid ‘Lucy’ (the original is kept for security in a nearby safe). In 1974 the 3.5 million year old remains of ancestral Australopithecus Afareniss were found and these were nicknamed ‘Lucy’. This is only one of the many major scientific discoveries in the area: only twenty years later, in 1994, that scientists dug up the fossilized remains of a chimpanzee-sized ape from 4.4 million years ago at a site seventy-five kilometers (45 miles) south of where ‘Lucy’ was found, the latest find consists of the 5.8 million year old fossil named Ramadis Kadaba . |
