Early out of Murelle and back up to Paradise Lodge on our way back north to Addis. Retraced our route through the trackless, well barely, rough, dry, scrubby desert country. This is a region of termite mounds which are scattered in surprisingly large numbers across the countryside in addition to something else that fascinated me. This was the presence of a flower called by the locals a bottle flower, blooming in large numbers on a plant whose stem was smooth and gray and somewhat bottle-shaped, which like the termite mounds, were scattered throughout the dry scrub....

Uneventful flight last night and in fact it left 1/2 hour early as by then all passengers had checked in. It appears that we were the only flight from the airport that evening, so I think that everyone wanted to shut down and go home for dinner.

Very nice to be back in the Addis Sheraton, which seems to be the major hotel in the city for foreign dignitaries and business people, and in fact, we arrived on the eve of a meeting of the African Union which is headquartered in Addis and our hotel is apparently where many of the delegates are staying. As usual massive amounts of security, in the streets around the hotel and all the way to the airport there are armed military every 50 metres or so on both sides of the road and the luggage and personal checks at the hotel entrance were unusually thorough, turning up stuff in our luggage that airport security had not found or did not care about. Surprisingly for a Sheraton the hotel is large, marbled, impressive and expensive. However it has come to feel like home....