There are times you can learn more from letting yourself be high-jacked by a hustler (temporarily) than you can remaining safe. Just be sure you have prior experience with Narcissistic pseudo-gangsters so you know when to bail and how to cut things short.
Because sometimes you need contrast to understand what you’re looking at. It can be both sad and exhilarating to step outside your norm and discover the wonderful cafe that serves organic vegetarian food and gives its profits to feed the poor is actually a run-down whore house behind high metal locked gates. THIS is when the fun begins and the thinking gets QUICK.
Addis Ababa … contrast the churches that date as far back at least as early as the 1st Century and against the poverty so raw it stops your breath … conceiving the reality for some, that if you don’t hustle, you don’t eat.
While Ethiopia is a VERY safe country for travelers, one does have to use discretion and hopefully that will be the only time I allow myself to taken on a journey to the Dark Side. ((chuckle… I was out of there in 5 minutes… but what I saw will deliciously remain in my memory forever…)) I now have a deeper sense of Ethiopian life.
Black Traveler 