We landed in Addis this morning at 6AM, slightly ahead of schedule after an uneventful flight. Addis is at an elevation of 2400m, so it is a bit chillier here than we probably expected. It's the end of the rainy season as well, so it was an average sort of day.

Suprisingly, even though the plane was full, very few of the people actually got off at Addis. We were standing at the baggage collection with 4 other couples from Australia - all of them here to do volunteering work, and most for a second or third time. We had a bit of a chat with them, and they all talk quite highly about the places that we have on our itinerary.

Out into the open air, and our guide and driver are there to meet us - they take us to our hotel, which is a brand-new, 5-star affair - so new that some of the last-minute stuff is still obvious. But it is very clean, has a large bathroom, and a huge double bed. I feel they have been saving the best for first, as they all keep telling us that our next hotel will not be as salubrious as this.

At the moment we don't care. We are dead tired and flop in the room for a bit of a rest before our guide and driver return at 2:30 for our sighteseeing tour or Addis. We take in the Museum (where they have a display of the "Lucy" skeleton, which was discovered in southern Ethiopia, and has now been returned), a religious museum on top of a hill, and a stop on the way down for a panoramic view of the city - which looks suprisingly small for a city of 4.5m people.

Our driver has a rather endearing habit - he has a small wooden cross swinging from the rear-view mirror, and every now and then he reaches across to give it a small squeeze and a stroke. We are fascinated as to the motivation - he does it when he starts the drive down the hill (which sets a few alarm bells ringing), but then at rather arbitrary times as well. We go for a drive through the market area - which is completely chaotic and packed with people and vehicles. As far as I can tell there are no traffic lights, no Stop signs - and no road rules for that matter. There is a lot of stroking of the cross during this short detour.

We are dropped back to our hotel shortly after 6PM, where we meet the guy who runs the tour company, and he has a short chat - welcomes us to Ethiopia, gives us our doco for our internal flights over the next few weeks, as well as the details for the transfers to the airport tomorrow. So far, he has done an excellent job - everything has gone like clockwork.

After he leaves, we have dinner in the hotel restaurant - 2 courses (minestrone soup, and Nile river perch) for the princely sum of $25 - and then crash.