Time travellers
Hilary Bradt, founder of Bradt guides, first visited Ethiopia in 1976, and wrote home about fleas, unrest and staggering beauty. How different would it be now?

In 1976 I backpacked through Ethiopia during the final stages of an 11-month overland journey from Cape Town to Cairo. I was arrested for discussing capitalism, bitten to distraction by fleas, walked for three days to reach the holy city of Lalibela, and was forbidden to travel at night because of shifta (bandits). Nevertheless, it was one of the highlights of my African travels because of its cultural distinctiveness and gorgeous landscape.
During the trip I wrote home to my parents regularly, describing the highs and lows of our travels. They kept my letters, and I rediscovered them last October, when I decided to return to Ethiopia and see for myself the changes that had taken place.
To read more from the guardian click here.
This is part of the so called PR spin by Western media for their darlings in Africa. Astonishingly, the writer portrayed todays Ethiopia as a democratic country, while at the same time ascribing the current fear and subjugation of the people as a hangover from the ‘red terror’ era. He had better kept silent about the political situation. It spoiled the otherwise attractive article.