Food, Prices

Was one of the nicest surprices. The national meal is injara, slightly sour "gummy" pancake from some flour. We have eaten in two variations. Firstly it was in a hut in mountain village Gich where after the coffe ceremony we continued with some pancakes and injara. It was very "naturalistic". The woman soaked injara by hers hands into the hot milk, smashed it and served. Complete family and us poked this warm, sour and spicy mass by hands... Surprisingly we hadn't any stomach problems. Even more surprisingly during the whole stay in Ethiopia nobody from us suffered with stomach problems despite we have eaten quite often in restaurants. Also for water we used filter only. Probably it was because we were applying "internal desinfection" by the Czech national spirit - plum brandy.
Secondly we have eaten injara in Fin Fine restaurant in Adis where you picked up roasted beef pieces by injara.
Next traditional thing is a Coffe ceremony. In Gich village they made it for us "from the scratch" - washing and roasting of the green beans, crunching in cannon cartrige and boiling with water. The coffe was served in small cups.
Apart of coffe everywhere you can buy non-alcoholic drinks (Pepsi products are dominating) and beer. The beer is one of the safest methods how to fill in liquids into body. There is a dozen kinds of beers in Ethiopia. Worth of notice is "Bedele" and "Harrar" which is made by the czech receipes. Next nice thing are "Pastry shops" , patisserie with good selection of cookies, pansy and cakes. Coffe maschine is also there. Classic "coffe" is like our espresso with a lot of sugar. "Coffe with milk" is more like capuccino. Sometimes they are seling burgers or juice from fresh fruits. In Ethiopia is a lot of beef so steaks are very popular and cheap meal (8B). Beef following fish and than is chicken which is more expensive and seldom.

Some tips, which we tested: ADIS ABABA - restaurant "FinFine", more luxurious, in rustical style, but prices are O.K., draft beer for 2B, natinal injara with beef pieces 15B. "Soul Kid Patisserie" - excellent brekfast, also hamburgers and pommes.
BAHIR DAR - "Tana Paestry" in 1st floor, newly opened, excellent steaks and fish for 8B, even better "Ethiopian National Soup" for 4B. In ground floor cookies + refreshing juice from fresh oranges for 3B.
GONDAR - restaurant in hotel Quera, "paper" steak, fish quite O.K. (10B), clean, calm ambient.

Ethiopia is a very cheap country. For two weeks was enough 150 USD (all spendings + souvenirs, but w/o flight tickets Adis-Lalibela-Gondar). Some price examples (1USD=8,27B):
bread small 0,25B, medium 0,5B
beer draft 1,5-2B, bottled 0,3l 2,75-5B
water glass "Ambo" 2-2,5B, plastic 8-12B for 1,5litre
meal 6-10B
cake 0,75-1,5B
coffe 0,5-1,5B
minibus town 0,75-1B
taxi outside Adis 5-10B, Adis 10-15B
accomodation "bottom" 8-15B/os common showers, 30-50B/os room with WC/shower
entrance 15B (monasteries, Blue Nile waterfalls), 50B (Gondar castle), 100B (Lalibela!)
entrance Simien - 30B/48hod entrance, 20B camp site, 30B/den scout, 70B/den guide, 20B/den mule
6-day trek cost us 30USD/person (without mules and guide) - a real bargin for Africa !!