September
1926
A road leads into Abyssinia through French Somalia. Therefore, after obtaining a visa to Eritrea I turned to the French consul in Rome with a request for a transit visa through Somalia. The consul stated that a transit visa did not guarantee entrance to Abyssinia; but nevertheless, after having seen my passport with Syrian, Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian visas, he decided without second thoughts to immediately issue a transit visa, valid for a few days, through French Somalia, where a railroad runs from Djibouti on the coast of the Red Sea to the capital of Abyssinia, Addis Ababa. To find a steamer sailing to Djibouti, it was necessary to return to Marseilles from Rome and to cross the Mediterranean once more, but such is the custom in our time. One can only dream that mankind could return to the time of Marco Polo, when a traveller without visas was able to cross continents and oceans to the destination planned by him and be received everywhere as a welcome guest.
The voyage from Marseilles to Djibouti lasted for 9 long days. I passed Alexandria, Cairo and Port Said. At this time Gudzoni was working successfully in Egypt but I had only the pleasure of visiting the harbour cities and of observing the shores of Egypt during the passage through the Red Sea.
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I read Vavilov’s comments about Abyssinia with great interest. I traveled to Ethiopia in 2002 to the birthplace of coffee and visited with coffee farmers and the Biodiversity Institute in Addis Ababa. Luckily for me, the visa process was easier – I was living in Abu Dhabi at the time and there was no Ethiopian embassy, so I had to send my passport to a neighboring country where Ethiopia maintained an embassy.
Once there, I was welcomed and found people throughout the country to be very gracious. The countryside, looks much the same as the Vavilov’s photos in Five Continents. Unfortunately there has been little meaningful development and the global coffee market has done little to enrich coffee farmers.
Thank you for the vicarious journey.