Alarm was set for 6.15 am as we were due to leave the Mana Hotel at 7.30 am for the airport with the official need to check in 2 hours before departure.

Had better to take that photo of Benjamin's Coaster speedometer. 113,860 km. Take away the 111,964 meant we had travelled approximately 1,896 km in 14 days … well it was really 13 days as I am not counting the short distance this morning to the airport. That plus the 2,427 kms on the South tour and the 1,050 km going east meant that I had travelled by land some 5,373 kms / 3,338 miles in my month here.

After the first security check point had time so I brought a Kono tribe wooden 3 figure carving which I had seen throughout this trip out of my remaining birr. Haggled the price from 300 birr down to 160 burr which would probably be much more than if I had brought one locally in the Konso area. But as the 3 figures were free standing, it reminded me of a similar wooden carving that I got from Malawai in 2009, I didn't want to have carted it throughout the trip as I had no hard tube to protect the 3 figures. I had to work out what to so cut the bottom of a 1 litre plastic water bottle to put over the statue. Hope it works. (It did.)
 

 
In the first secured waiting area was a wide open door out to the airport forecourt. Anyone could have walked in or out. Then through a second security check and here it was shoes off. Leonie had to take her glasses off as that triggered the walk through security metal detector but her silver earrings that she had on were ok. Strange. Love the photo saying that we can take up to 1 metre of wire on board, but no longer!

Eventually the Ethiopian Bombardier Q 400 twin prop plane left at 10.10 am, which is Saturday 8.10 pm Auckland time, for the first of 4 sectors back to Auckland. With a scheduled touch back in Auckland New Zealand at 2 pm on Monday afternoon, that's 42 hours airport to airport. Courtesy of Qantas / Emirates they are putting my up overnight in a Dubai hotel but I then have an overnight flight to Australia. Plus I will probably survive on airplane food for what to me is the next 3 days!

Below was the still dried parched brown terraced fields with their round threshing circles dotted the landscape for the hour's flight back to Addis. Coming into Addis I tried to pick out sights that I had visited a month ago with Genet.