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I got really stoked on all the media I had seen about skateboarding in Ethiopia(Anthony Bourdain and Viceland's Post Radical) and Africa was the only continent I haven't visited yet(not counting Antarctica), so I convinced a friend to come with me and I booked the ticket. I didn't know anyone or much of anything before I arrived. Itinerary: June 12-29th LAX-YYZ-ADD ADD-KGL KGL-CAI-LHR-LAX I had like 50,000ish United miles saved up, I bought another 70,000 for like $1,200(United always has like buy some get 75% bonus). 120,000 miles total with Biz class on the way back. Air Canada to Toronto  I landed in Addis Ababa hopped in a cab and managed to make it to my hostel(which seemed to be the only real hostel in Addis) I was pretty loving tired from the journey and I had managed to start getting sick before I left so I just slept the whole day waiting for my friend to arrive. Rainy season in Addis(not good for skating)  I did get some food tho, Shiro  My friend showed up at like 5am and we just chilled until the morning. I had done my best to reach out to other skaters thru social media but I knew if we went to the skatepark we could meet people. Unbeknownst to me they were having a contest the Saturday we showed up and it was on from there. Addis Skatepark  Immediately we were embraced by the Ethiopia Skate crew and we ended up checking out of our hostel and checking in at the Addis Skate house How you know you are at a Skate house:  The Youth:  Addis Ababa  After a couple days my friend and I headed out of the city and traveled south to Hawassa where the 2nd skatepark was built. Addis is pretty urban but as soon as you get out it gets real rural real quick, but also insanely beautiful.   We had the hotel recommendation and the wrong number for the skater who runs the skatepark at the Youth Center from the Addis skaters but we were again heading into the unknown. View from Progress Hotel Lake Hawassa:  Hawassa Skatepark is at the Hawassa Youth Center, a guy by the name of Jimi Karlos runs it and is probably one of the most inspiring people I've ever had the pleasure to meet. Before the Addis Skatepark all the skaters would skate at a bus stop, one day Jimi got off the bus and saw people skating, inquired about what it was, now fast forward 5 years he runs a Youth center with a skatepark bigger and better than most cities in the US. What no one had told us(mainly because this was very recent) was that Jimi had build a ramshackle orphanage at the Youth Center. So when we arrived to the skatepark the first thing I saw was 200+ children behind a barbed wire fence. Most of the kids were around 8-12 years some with nothing more than a oversized T-shirt and flip flops, some with nothing at all. My friend and I started skating the park and slowly all the kids came over, stood at the edge and watched us in silence, it was pretty gnarly putting on a demo for 200 orphans in Ethiopia. Eventually Jimi showed up, we introduced ourselves and had a great session with him.  All the skateboards in Ethiopia come from somewhere else, no skateshops and way too expensive to order online. Lucky I had a pretty generous baggage allowance so I managed to bring over 15 decks, a couple sets of wheels and other misc parts. Jimi has 25 skateboards for 200 kids to use, seeing the level of stoke in these kids who literally have nothing(no parents, no clothes) was forever inspiring.  We took a tour of Shashamane the next day, which I feel really dumb for not knowing more about Rasta culture but it was super cool we went up to the hot springs and smoked a bunch of weed.  Buna is life  Cutie   The last day we were in Hawassa we got a bag of concrete and helped fix up the skatepark. Amazing experience.     We got on the bus and headed back to Addis. Electricity and internet were pretty spotty our whole time in Ethiopia, there were national exams taking place and apparently the only way they know how to combat people cheating on the test is to shut off the internet so we had become pretty used to days without any communications. Saturday the 22nd was one of those "how did I get here?" days, we skated all day with our new Ethiopian best friends and then ended up at house party with a bunch of other foreigners.  Sometime during the party the DJ stopped the music and somebody mumbled something about a shooting and that if you want to go home, go home or stay here it's safe. Honestly I didn't really think much of it, I was pretty drunk but all the locals didn't seem too worried so I wasn't either, we walked back home that night. Without outside communication and not speaking the language it was pretty difficult to get any information about what was happening. One of the skate kids was like "they killed the Chief of the Military" and they were talking about how poo poo was going down in the North, still really not concerned. Once we got out of our lil neighborhood I noticed the very large military presence in the streets, soldiers with AK-47s on every corner, roadblock checkpoints, they were stopping all the minibuses and frisking everyone. At that point I was like "Oh poo poo this is kinda real" but everyone was still going about their lives. We spent most of the time in the safety and security of the skate house compound, which we were blessed by the coffee lady who would come deliver us coffee like 3 times a day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amhara_Region_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt  Eventually it was time to move on, my friend flew to Morocco and I flew to Rwanda, I still didn't know what was happening, the drive to the airport was a little tense, military everywhere, lots of detours but eventually I made it. When I landed in Rwanda and had access to communications I got lots of texts from people back home like "hey I saw the news r u OK?" I was in Ethiopia for 11 days and the internet was shut down country wide for 8 of those days. Kigali is the cleanest city I have ever been to in my life. Really beautiful with all the hills  Kigali has a skatepark too run by a German NGO  I spent 3 days toursting and skating around Kigali but then it was time to start my journey home. I had scheduled 7 hour layover in Cairo but the flight was delayed like 2 hours, still made it to the Pyramids.   I had a overnight layover in London, originally I planned on just partying all night then going to the airport in the early morning but I realized that was not going to work because I was exhausted and disgusting so I pussed out and got a hotel. So I didn't really get to tourist that much in London, I managed to get a pint + fish & chips but passed out shortly there after. Big Ben under reno unfortunately.  Southbank legendary skate spot  Then I flew home, back to reality. Went to Africa didn't see any giraffes still had a great time. Highly recommend going to Ethiopia, fantastic country fantastic people. Casual Yogurt fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Feb 14, 2022 |
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Jul 7, 2019 03:21
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 00:41 |
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Holy poo poo dude that's amazing, thanks for sharing.
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Jul 7, 2019 03:50
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Cool trip report. So does that mean you've skateboarded in Antarctica, or does that not count?
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Jul 7, 2019 08:33
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Incredible. Thank you for sharing! And for being a thoughtful tourist 
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Jul 7, 2019 23:19
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hell yes 
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Jul 7, 2019 23:20
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Saladman posted:Cool trip report. Oh poo poo! Forgot about Antarctica! Time to start the Go Fund me for the only Skatepark made of ice.
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Jul 7, 2019 23:48
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Dude, you rule. That's badass.
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Jul 8, 2019 01:55
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Checking in from gbs, awesome thread/trip goon.
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Jul 8, 2019 02:17
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Greets from GBS, thanks for an amazing post! Awesome!
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Jul 8, 2019 19:18
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That’s really cool, thanks for sharing
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Jul 14, 2019 15:17
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Holy poo poo am I glad I stumbled across this thread. What a trip, and what a cool country! I'm hoping you can make to Antarctica and do a IRL "skate or die" session.
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Nov 25, 2019 20:36
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thats rad
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Dec 1, 2019 04:07
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Fuckin awesome thread. I've been venturing Europe the past 5 months and I fuckin forgot my skateboard when I left 😭 in Glasgow now, might pick one up before I leave. Not sure whether I'm gonna head to Africa or the Himalayas
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Feb 15, 2020 16:06
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I guess I'll piggyback on this thread since I went to Ethiopia in some part because of it -- it got me reading about Ethiopia, seeing what an unusual country it was in terms of history and in geography/geology, so I went for a month to check it out, although not skateboarding, and actually not in any overlapping parts of the country besides for Addis. I did get a bunch of cool photos though, which maybe people here will appreciate: Typical mountain landscape (NB: none of these 3 are aerial shots)    Typical desert hellscape (aerial shot):  Wildlife is very limited, the only thing you'll see more than 1 or 2 of is Gelada monkeys, even termite mounds are rare:  Huge contrast between modern cities and the traditional villages, which are rapidly being modernized, at least in Amhara/Tigray (the historical Abyssinian heartland):  Then there are a ton of pretty fantastic churches that I won't bother posting photos of here since they're all over Nat Geo etc, both for Lalibela (the most famous ones) and for the Tigrayan cliff churches (somewhat less famous but still all over the Internet). But for instance the famous Abuna Yematah Guh church is pretty fantastic, and photos are easily found online. Saladman fucked around with this message at 12:47 on Oct 21, 2022 |
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Feb 15, 2020 17:25
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 00:41 |
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Saladman posted:I guess I'll piggyback on this thread since I went to Ethiopia in some part because of it -- it got me reading about Ethiopia, seeing what an unusual country it was in terms of history and in geography/geology, so I went for a month to check it out, although not skateboarding, and actually not in any overlapping parts of the country besides for Addis. Amazing!! Beautiful photos! Very stoked to get others stoked!!!
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Feb 16, 2020 21:37
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