Ethiopia

Harry travelled north through Ethiopia in 2025, from Addis Ababa into the Tigray region, to bring a gift to a priest at a remote church. The trip is organised around that errand and the country is what happens on the way.

Observations

From I Entered Ethiopia’s War-Torn Rebel Zone 🇪🇹

• The war nobody covered. The 2020 civil war in the north, between the federal government and the TPLF, killed over 600,000 people — which Harry points out barely registered internationally. A peace deal was signed in late 2022; some leaders rejected it and remain armed, Tigray has fragmented into factions, and Ethiopian troops are still deployed. He calls the situation fragile and says the war could restart at any time, with civilians in the middle.
• Tigrayans consider themselves distinct from Ethiopians culturally and linguistically, which is part of the conflict’s background.
• 80 tribes and 80 languages, making the country unusually diverse linguistically and culturally. People move to Addis from the regions for work and often end up portering goods because there isn’t any.
• Filming is not welcome in the markets. Harry is repeatedly told to stop, and his approach is to keep the camera on himself, explain, and be pleasant about it rather than delete or argue.
• Khat is legal and locally grown — a stimulant leaf chewed and held in the cheek, with an effect after twenty or thirty minutes that he compares to ten coffees. He has also chewed it in Yemen and Somalia.
• Coffee is, in his view, the best in the world. Street coffee runs around 30 birr.
• Inflation is the local complaint. A young shop owner’s answer on the best and worst of Ethiopia: the weather, and that everything is expensive and getting worse.
• Goats are an acceptable gift, and a live one costs around 5,000 birr after bargaining from 10,000. Livestock markets run on specific days.
• Roads north carry checkpoints, where bribes may be expected, and a heavy military presence that should not be filmed.
• Money and costs (2025): a cross necklace 2,500 birr; a shared taxi 500; a street coffee 30; a goat 5,000.

From I Hiked to the World’s Most Dangerous Church 🇪🇹

• What the war left, seen on the ground in Tigray: people displaced who still haven’t returned, schools and infrastructure destroyed, and half-built towns where construction stopped in 2020 and never restarted.
• A fuel crisis severe enough that filling up means buying poor-quality petrol on the black market.
• Checkpoints ask for money — one wanted 4,000 birr at five in the morning — and soldiers on the road should not be filmed.
• Rock-hewn churches: Abuna Yemata Guh sits at 2,500 metres and is reached barefoot without ropes. It was built high deliberately, so that enemies couldn’t find it. Inside are 900-year-old goatskin manuscripts in Ge’ez, written with charcoal ink.
• Bring the priest a gift. It’s expected, and a live goat is a normal answer.
• Ethiopian appearance is distinct, which Harry attributes to centuries of Arab and sub-Saharan African mixing.
• An African toothbrush is a stick with the bark peeled back — no fluoride.
• The tourism argument, from a local: politics is spoiling it, and there is no political problem for a visitor who actually comes.

From Surviving Ethiopia’s RAW Meat Sidequest 🇪🇹

• Never colonised. The Italians tried and were defeated, making Ethiopia the first African nation to beat the colonisers — which Harry thinks is part of why the culture and the appearance of the people are so distinct.
• Christianity arrived here before Europe, and Christian and Muslim populations live alongside each other in a way he says works better than in some countries.
• Ethiopian Airlines is, in his view, the best airline in Africa, with a large hub that makes the country an unusually easy transit point.
• Raw beef is a delicacy with a reason behind it: fires gave away positions in wartime, so meat was eaten raw, and it is now associated with courage rather than necessity. Half a kilo runs 1,500 birr and is eaten torn into bread with berbere, chilli and mustard.
• The coffee ceremony — incense, roasting, and brewing in a jebena — costs around 25 birr including the ceremony, and Harry rates the result above any café coffee anywhere.
• Filming has its own etiquette, explained to him at the khat market: ask first, and don’t photograph what you haven’t bought. See when people don’t want to be filmed.
• Strangers correct overcharging on your behalf. A bystander intervened to bring a price down from 50 to 25, which Harry says he has never seen anyone do for a stranger in any other country.
• Addis Ababa is well planned — wide roads, little traffic, a metro — unlike African capitals that outgrew their streets.
• The conflict is easy to forget on the ground. Harry says the country doesn’t feel dangerous to him at all, while noting Tigray’s continued push for independence and reports of dangerous areas in the south he hasn’t verified.
• Money and costs (2025): street coffee 30 birr; a coffee ceremony 25; half a kilo of raw beef 1,500; a national football shirt 1,500; a cross-city taxi 600–800.