In the morning I had an appointment with Ihab and Mohamed to go to the Sheraton Hotel to get some money. The bank at the Sheraton is one of the very few places in Addis where you can draw cash with your Visa card. Actually, the Sheraton itself is worth a visit, even if you have no real reason to go there: it is a palace. With its 392 rooms, it became the first ‘luxury collection’ hotel in Africa. No expense has been spared: from Persian carpets and original Ethiopian paintings, to marble all over and furnishings plated with 24-carat gold. The building rises like a lotus flower from the shacks around and although I wonder if hotel guests don’t feel guilty to stay here, given the poverty of the neighbourhood, there seem to be enough people willing to spend between 200 and 4000 Dollars per night for this luxury...

Unfortunately, my personal experience with the Sheraton banking counter is not very successful. As I didn’t have my passport with me this morning (it was still with the Kenyan Embassy and I was supposed to pick it up only at 4 pm) I couldn’t get any money. This was pretty annoying but I just thought I would come back later today. So we returned to the hotel and the only embarrassing thing was that I couldn’t pay Nati. Luckily, he agreed to get my money tomorrow before we would be leaving.

One thing, however, that no one of us had been thinking about were Sherif and his counterpart for Mohamed, Ihab and Xavier, who had both worked for the other man and now lost their commission since we were not going with him. (By the way, the man came back this morning, saying he changed his mind and would give us the same price as Nati – of course, he got mad again when Xavier told him that it was too late.) In any case, as soon as I left the Baro Hotel after our meeting with Nati, I got almost attacked by the guy who had tried to arrange a tour for Mohamed, Ihab and Xavier, because he wanted me (!) to pay his lost commission. My travel mates had refused to pay him since his mediation was unsuccessful and he thought he could get money out of me instead. At that moment I didn’t even know who he was! I must admit that I got a bit scared when he grabbed my arm and started yelling but thanks to Nati, who came to my rescue, he let go of me and shouted at Nati instead. I had planned to go to the internet place and Nati kindly offered to walk me there to make sure I wasn’t harassed any further and I was very thankful for his kindness. Shortly before we arrived at the internet café, Sherif showed up and basically did the same as the other guy, just in a slightly nicer way. I couldn’t help but wonder if all these guys had nothing else to do than to hang around in the streets and wait for us tourists to come and get on our nerves! After all, I agreed to pay SOMEthing to Sherif because without him, I wouldn’t have found Mohamed, Ihab and Xavier. In the end I gave him10 Dollar, which was a bit more than half of the 10% he demanded. At least, I never saw him again.

I stayed at the internet place for quite a few hours, partly because I had a lot to write and partly because I was afraid to leave the safety of these walls and get out in the street again. In the end, I had to go because I had to pick up my passport. I was kind of tired, so I decided to spoil myself and get the luxury of a taxi. For once I was lucky because the guy I picked seemed to be new in his job and only asked 20 birr for a distance that somebody else wanted 50 for… well, maybe the 50 was a scam but my personal limit would have been 35 and I was so happy to get it for less that I gave him 2 birr tip in the end.

As soon as I was in possession of my passport again (and had paid 50 Dollars for the Kenyan visa), I went back to the bank at the Sheraton. But guess what: the man at the counter told me that my visa card didn’t work. He tried several times with different amounts but the card was refused. I couldn’t believe it! I left the Sheraton without really knowing what to do now. All other banks I could have tried were closed at this time and I definitely didn’t have enough money to pay Nati tomorrow. It was really annoying; I had three plastic cards with me in Ethiopia and still couldn’t get hold of my money laying on two accounts in Europe! I returned to the Baro Hotel and told the guys about it. In the end we concluded that I would have to try tomorrow morning again, which meant that we had to delay our departure until the banks would open. Actually, I was quite surprised about myself because I stayed pretty calm and didn’t get too desperate. I just thought I have to trust that I was lucky and that my angels would sort things out for me somehow. And they did.

Last thing today was that Mohamed and I went shopping in a near-by supermarket to buy some food and water for the coming 10 days. We would spend some nights in hotels but some others on camping places, so we needed to prepare for that. I will never forget getting on the minibus and carrying back two boxes of food and 27 litres of water!