Itinera mundi mentisque

I had a rare opportunity to visit another spectacular country after my conference trip to Ethiopia. Vibeke, Andy and Maria had recently moved to Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, which was just an hour flight from Addis Ababa.

The old town of Sana'a is really like straight from the Book of One Thousand and One Nights. It is a quite large area, which as a whole is listed world heritage by UNESCO. Well, this picture taken on top of the main gate does have some modern features, but in some of the narrower streets the whole scene is totally medieval.

One of the most memorable parts of the 3-day visit was a day trip to a nearby attraction, the Dar al-Hajar 'Rock Palace' in the little village of Wadi Dhar. The palace, which the second last Imam had built as his summer residence, was amazing itself, but even better was the experience in the village.

While we were walking there, the locals got really curious, and finally we ended up being invited for 'tea' to one of the local houses. Instead of just tea, we got served a complete lunch. A genuine demonstration of the famous Yemeni hospitality! There are many more pictures from the village, palace, and Sana'a in the photo gallery.

The 9th Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis was organised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. All the conference related information can be found behind that link, so I am not going to details about that part. Instead, I say a couple of things about ither aspects of the trip. As you can see from the photo, the food looks delicious. And it not only looks so, but is very nice. On culinary criteria, I could definitely consider living in Ethiopia.

I went to two trips outside Addis: the pre-conference tour that was part of the programme, and another one that some of us organised after the conference. It made me feel somewhat nostalgic, since some of the sceneries and other things looked very much like in Timor-Leste.

More Ethiopia pictures in my photo gallery.

There is also a huge (really!) number of pictures around the conference at the GTAP site.