“Half a million in silver, did you say?” “In Maria Theresa dollars. Worth a hundred thou’ in quids.” He held up a gleaming coin, broad as a crown, with the old girl double-chinned on one side and the Austrian arms on t’other. “Dam’ disinheritin’ old bitch, what? Mind, they say she was a plum in her youth, blonde, buxom, just your sort, Flashy- ” “Ne’er mind my sort. The cash must reach this place in Africa within four weeks?”…Aye, it’s an interesting country, Abyssinia.
-Flashman on the March, George MacDonald Fraser
The tour had not gone well. My group was composed of complainers and laggards. A volatile mix. Some worse than others. Plus the travel agency had not done its job. Our local guide had never been to where we were going, and he did not speak the language. In the Horn of Africa, you need more than one. And either French or English is the lingua franca, depending on the country. Few Ethiopians speak French. Why would they ever go to Djibouti anyway?
On the last evening when we flew into Addis from Hargeisa, with rooms booked at a hotel until our flight home at 3am, the guide had already left us, we had not been met by anyone else, I didn’t know what hotel we were booked into, and the agency’s telephone was not picking up. The complainers complained, the laggards lagged. It was getting later and later. We finally sorted it out and got to the hotel, where we had no reservations after all and I had to promise that the agency would be good for it.
Drinks on the house, said I. I was angry, the trip had been a bust, and I wanted someone to pay for it. For two weeks of hell.
I admit that I did most of the drinking, me and the 80 year old Texan (see April 29). Johnnie Walker Blue. I told the ladies to have the French champagne. The barman gladly poured away, no one was signing any chits, and it got closer to 3am. Finally the local agency’s owner showed, full of smiles and best wishes for a safe flight home. I told him that we’d left a bill at the bar for him to pay, since we hadn’t taken our rooms, and they were included in what the trip cost. OK said he.
Once back home I got an irate call from the US travel agency owner, who before leaving had told me how great his Ethiopian counterpart was, that he would handle everything, that he knew what you needed before being asked. He told me I’d left behind a one thousand dollar bar bill for the local guy to pay, and he was passing it on to the US guy. What was I thinking, the US guy asked me. How much drinking can eight retired Americans do after 10pm?
Ihab, I replied, it sounds like you got took by the oldest Ethiopian bar scam there is. And I bet your friend the local agent was in on it too. Aye, an interesting country, especially when someone else picks up the tab.