Hawassa and Shashemane
Hawassa is a very pleasant lakeside town. It is about 275 km from Addis Ababa on a good tarmac road (about 5 hours drive). The former capital of Sidamo region, the coffee is excellent, as you would expect. There are two lakeside hotels – the former Wabe Shabelle hotels have been privatised. One of them, the Midroc Zewed Village Hotel was being rebuilt when I visited, though you could drink coffee at the lakeside. But people rave about the Lewi Piazza Hotel (see Bradt Guide for details). We had a very good Italian meal at the Dolce Vita restaurant, also recommended by Bradt and rightly so. Shashemane is 25km from Awassa. It is a much less attractive town – more a transport junction and cross roads. It was near here that the Emperor Haile Selassie gave a plot of land to Rastafarian families and there is still a big Rastafarian community here. (Some of the local Ethiopian kids speak with a rich patois accent.) We stayed at the Zion Train Lodge in Shashemane, run by a Fr