Open in Addis Ababa, which almost every route passes through twice, and give it two days for the National Museum, the Merkato and a proper coffee ceremony. After that the country splits three ways. North is the historic circuit: Bahir Dar for the island monasteries on Lake Tana, Gondar for the castles of Fasilides, the Simien Mountains for gelada and walia ibex, Lalibela for the rock-hewn churches and Axum for the stelae field. East is Harar, a walled Muslim city with a language of its own, and the salt flats and sulphur springs of the Danakil. South is the Rift Valley: the lakeside at Hawassa, the boat out of Arba Minch, the Bale Mountains for the Ethiopian wolf, and the Omo Valley past Jinka. Distances are long, so fly the legs and drive the loops. October, November and February are the months to aim at. One caution that changes the plan rather than decorates it: several governments currently advise against travel to the Tigray and Amhara regions, which is exactly where the northern circuit runs, so read the current advisory before you book anything up there.
4 Ethiopia city guides
Fun fact
Ethiopia keeps its own calendar of thirteen months (twelve of 30 days plus a short thirteenth called Pagume) and runs seven to eight years behind the Gregorian year, so the Ethiopian new year falls in September. The clock is its own too: the day is counted from sunrise, which makes 7am local speech one o’clock in the morning.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realityMost of the country people travel to is highland, between about 2,000 and 3,000 metres, and it is green and cold at night rather than hot and dry. Addis Ababa sits at 2,355 metres and needs a jacket after dark. The desert exists, in the Danakil and the lowlands, and it is a destination in its own right rather than the default landscape.
The realityMenelik II beat an Italian army at Adwa in 1896, which is the fact the claim rests on, and Ethiopia was never made a colony. Italy did occupy the country from 1936 to 1941 under Mussolini, and the occupation is remembered precisely because it was an occupation and not a colonial administration that anyone accepted.
The realityThe last census, in 2007, put Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity at 43.5 percent, Islam at 33.9 and Protestant churches at 18.6. Harar has been a centre of Islamic scholarship for centuries, the eastern half of the country is largely Muslim, and the calendar of feasts and fasts you run into depends entirely on where you are standing.
The realityInjera is the plate, not the meal. What lands on it changes by region and by day of the week: doro wat in the highlands, raw beef done properly in a kitfo house, enset bread in the Gurage south, ful and sambusa for breakfast in Harar, and a fully vegan spread every Wednesday and Friday because the Orthodox fasting calendar asks for one.
The realityAmharic is written in the Ge’ez fidel, an abugida of more than two hundred characters where each sign carries a consonant and its vowel, read left to right. It is unrelated to Arabic script and older than most alphabets still in daily use. Tigrinya and liturgical Ge’ez use it too.
Cultural notes that actually help
- Eat with your right hand from the shared platter, tearing injera with your fingers. Feeding someone else a folded mouthful is gursha, and it is affection rather than theatre. Accept it.
- Greetings are unhurried: a handshake, often with the left hand supporting the right forearm, and a shoulder touch between friends. Rushing this is the thing people notice.
- Take your shoes off before entering a church or a mosque, and expect the innermost sanctuary to be closed to visitors. Women usually cover their hair inside Orthodox churches.
- Ask before photographing anyone, and in the Omo Valley agree the fee first. Cameras there are a paid transaction, and pretending otherwise makes it worse for the next visitor.
- Wednesdays and Fridays are fasting days in Orthodox kitchens, and so are the weeks before Easter, when meat and dairy come off the menu entirely. It is the best vegan food in the country, not a limitation.
- Confirm dates and times twice. The calendar runs seven to eight years behind the Gregorian one and the clock starts counting at sunrise, so a bus at three o’clock may well mean nine in the morning.
- Regional politics is a live subject with real consequences for the people you are talking to. Listen if it comes up, and leave the opinions at home.
Famous Ethiopian faces
Haile Selassie I
Abebe Bikila
Haile Gebrselassie
Mulatu Astatke
Tirunesh Dibaba
Abiy Ahmed
Liya Kebede
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
Kenenisa Bekele
Derartu Tulu
Almaz Ayana
Genzebe Dibaba
Tigst Assefa
Feyisa Lilesa
Tilahun Gessesse
Mahmoud Ahmed
Aster Aweke
Teddy Afro
Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou
Gigi
Haile Gerima
Ruth Negga
Yared Zeleke
Afewerk Tekle
Julie Mehretu
Aida Muluneh
Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu
Maaza Mengiste
Dinaw Mengestu
Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin
Gebisa Ejeta
Sossina Haile
Segenet Kelemu
Marcus Samuelsson
Yohanis Gebreyesus
Menelik II
Empress Taytu Betul
Sahle-Work Zewde
Meles Zenawi
Must-try Ethiopian food
Injera
The sour, spongy teff flatbread that is the plate, the cutlery and half the meal. Order anything and it arrives on one.
Beyaynetu
A wheel of small vegetable stews laid out on injera, eaten from the middle outwards. The default order on a fasting day, and the best way to taste six kitchens at once.
Tibs
Cubed beef, lamb or goat fried hard with onion, rosemary and green chilli, often brought to the table still spitting on a clay brazier.
Firfir
Yesterday’s injera torn up and folded through spiced butter and berbere sauce. Breakfast in a country that does not waste bread.
Kocho
Dense flatbread made from fermented enset, the false banana, and a staple of the Gurage and Sidama south rather than the highlands.
Doro wat
Chicken slow-cooked in berbere and a great deal of onion, with a hard-boiled egg and a piece of ayib alongside. The dish a holiday is built around.
Key wat
The beef version, red with berbere and simmered until the sauce clings. Ask for it with kibbeh if you want the richer kitchen’s answer.
Shiro
Ground chickpea or broad bean flour cooked down to a smooth, garlicky stew. Cheap, everywhere, and the thing Ethiopians abroad miss most.
Misir wat
Red lentils in berbere, the colour of the flag’s bottom stripe. The most reliable dish on any fasting menu.
Alicha
The mild counterpart to a wat: turmeric and ginger instead of berbere, made with beef, lamb or vegetables for anyone who wants the flavour without the heat.
Kitfo
Minced raw beef warmed through with mitmita and spiced butter, served with ayib and kocho. Order it leb leb if you want it lightly cooked.
Gored gored
Cubed rather than minced, unseasoned in the pan and dipped in awaze at the table. The purist’s version.
Tere siga
Raw beef carved to order in a butcher’s dining room, eaten straight off the board with mustard and chilli. A national ritual more than a dish.
Dulet
Minced tripe, liver and lean beef fried with chilli and spiced butter. The savoury end of the raw-meat house.
Gomen
Collard greens stewed soft with garlic and ginger. The green wedge on every fasting platter, and better than that description suggests.
Atkilt wat
Cabbage, carrot and potato in turmeric, gentle enough to cool down whatever else is on the injera.
Ater kik alicha
Yellow split peas cooked to a soft mash with ginger and turmeric. The quiet one that everybody finishes.
Timatim salata
Chopped tomato, onion and green chilli dressed sharp, sometimes with torn injera through it. The fresh note on a plate of slow-cooked things.
Ful medames
Broad beans simmered with tomato and onion, finished with oil, chilli and often a spoon of yoghurt, eaten with a bread roll. Breakfast in Harar and Dire Dawa.
Chechebsa
Flatbread torn into pieces and tossed in spiced butter and berbere, eaten with honey and a glass of tea. Oromo breakfast, and the best cure for an early flight.
Genfo
Stiff barley porridge with a well of spiced butter and berbere in the middle, eaten by hand from the outside in. Built for a cold highland morning.
Berbere
The red spice blend behind nearly every stew: chilli, fenugreek, ginger, korarima and a dozen more, ground and sun-dried. Every household mix is different.
Mitmita
Hotter, sharper and orange, built on bird’s eye chilli and cardamom. What goes on kitfo, and what you use sparingly.
Awaze
Berbere loosened into a paste with oil or tej and served on the side for dipping. The condiment you will want in your suitcase.
Niter kibbeh
Clarified butter simmered with garlic, ginger, korarima and besobela until it smells like nothing else. The fat that makes the food taste Ethiopian.
Ayib
Mild fresh cottage cheese, crumbled onto a hot stew to take the edge off the chilli. The cooling half of the plate.
Buna
Coffee, from the country that gave it to the world. Beans roasted in front of you, ground by hand and poured from a jebena through three rounds, with incense and popcorn.
Tej
Honey wine fermented with gesho, served in a rounded flask called a berele. Sweetness varies wildly by house, and so does the strength.
Tella
Home-brewed barley or maize beer, cloudy and low in alcohol. The everyday drink outside the cities.
Areke
Clear grain spirit distilled at home, poured at weddings and holidays. Treat it with respect.
Ambo
Naturally sparkling mineral water from a spring west of Addis Ababa, so established that Ethiopians order fizzy water by its name.
