Ethiopia
Hitchhiking in Ethiopia is a pretty impossible task. The country is extremely poor and hardly anyone has cars. As well, Ethiopians will most likely see a hitcher as having a robbery or banditry motive without forgetting that hitching is an unknown concept and usually only taxis will stop to pick you up. In rural areas 'faranji' might hitch with NGO's or some private cars when public transport is absent, but payment will be expected in matter to contribute with the high cost of fuel.
The country's Car License Plate system is based on a specific system, The colour state the status of the ownership (Blue for Private / Black for Government / Orange for Businesses or NGOs / Red for Taxis). The NGOs plate always starts with a number (35 being the general trend, other numbers simply specify a country of origin of the organisation) while CD (White/Yellow/Black) represents the embassies cars and the first number specifies the country. Also appears on the License Plate the 2 letters of the city of registration, both in latin alphabet and amharic. For example AA stand for Addis Ababa.
Borders
The border with Djibouti through Galafi is at some point only accessible by hitching with the load of truckers doing the road between Djibouti Harbour and Awash, where a payment of about 150-200Birr (from Logiya) will be expected.
There are borders with:
- Eritrea: Border crossing is currently closed since the 1998 war
- Djibouti: via Logiya and Galafi or via Dire Dawa and Gelille
- Somalia/Somaliland: via Jijiga (to Somaliland)
- Kenya: via Moyale
- Sudan: via Metemat, note that Visa are required in advance and take up to one month to obtain.
