We traveled by land from Hawzien to Mekele - and easy 2 - 2 1/2 hour drive on mostly paved road. Mekele is a very new city relatively speaking and it is very progressive. You can see and feel the difference from where we have been as soon as you reach the outskirts of the city. Instead of dusty, rocky streets congested with sheep, cattle and donkey traffic, it was paved and looked very industrial. The first thing you see is a huge cement plant and then a truck assembly factory and then as you get into the city itself it is obvious that things are different here. Men in business suits, women dressed for the business world (not carrying anything on their backs or their heads), clean children and no one yelling 'farengi, farengi, farengi'. It was kind of like stepping out of one time warp into another.
The Yordannes Hotel is still quite new so had 'amenities' like a whole roll of toilet paper, TWO towels, although one was bath size and one was a hand towel:) But, clean and rather well maintained, which is not typical here .
We had two leisurely days here. The main reason for coming to Mekele at all was to see the famous salt camels coming into market. They arrive from the Danikil loaded with salt that is then cut and dispersed all over the world. Unfortunately we never did get to see this. The market area here has been 'modernized'. Instead of completely open air they have built pretty ugly concrete and corrugated tin buildings with small 'kiosk' like areas that vendors set up in. The main market area is active all week long but we never did find out where the animal market has been moved to. I would have been very disappointed if we had not already experienced the presence of camels in Axum. About the only other thing to do in Mekele is visit Yohannes IV's palace which is now a museum. It is very interesting with lots of great artifacts from the last 3-4 Emperor's of Ethiopia. We learned that Yohannes great grandson (I am guessing here) is in his 80's and lives in Washington, DC. Apparently he had attempted to renew the monarchy in Ethiopia but failed so now he works from a distance perhaps his grandchildren have aspirations ....???
We enjoyed the less dusty, quieter environs. I especially love checking out the women dressed in their beautiful traditional dress - white cotton dresses trimmed with the most beautiful, colorful embroidery and always a matching shawl/scarf. I bought a 'netela' in the market which we will add to our 'wall of textiles' in Pagosa. I don't know how they stay clean - I would be a mess in mostly white! The women here really do their hair in the most elaborate braids of all shapes and sizes. We stopped to watch some women on the street doing hair and they are lightning fast doing braid after braid after braid. It was tempting to have them try it on my hair but my thin, limp hair would look really bad.
We had some of the best Ethiopian food here. In fact, we went back to the same restaurant both nights because it was so good. Geze Gerlase is a traditional kitfo restaurant. 'Kitfo' is the word that signifies they serve several raw meat dishes. Not my cup of tea but Richard tried raw beef cubes on the second night there. Crazy you say?!! Well, when you think about it, it might be safer here than in the US. First of all, the meat is fresh daily because they go through so much of it. Secondly, (bear with me here) it is cut in a cutting room right in the front of the restaurant so you can see who is handling it, how it is being handled and the room is tiled in spotless white tile, floor to ceiling. I am not a raw or even rare meat fan but Richard loves it. He enjoyed it immensely while I looked the other way and most importantly there have been no ugly side effects!!