Travel, Accommodation, Local Information
Travel
Awassa's airport code is AWA. If you fly internationally with Ethiopian Airways to Addis Ababa (ADD), the connecting flight to Awassa is cheap. There are two flights per day from Addis Ababa to Awassa, one at 8am and one at 1pm.
A cheap shuttle from Awassa airport to the conference hotel and back is being organized. You'll need to let the conference chair know your flight details. More information will be available in the conference registration pages. Here are the current shuttle bookings - please email me (Geoff Sutcliffe - geoff@cs.miami.edu) if anything is wrong or changed:
| Arrivals | Departures | ||
| 15th 8:55am ET155 |
Sepideh Asadi Guillaume Davy Madalina Erascu Antonio Gonzalez Burgueno Max Haslbeck Antti Hyvarinen Matteo Marescotti Mantas Simkus Rene Thiemann Margus Veanes |
18th 4:40pm ET156 |
Vincent Rahli |
| 15th 4:10pm ET157 |
Nachum Dershowitz x 2 Geoff Sutcliffe |
19th 4:40pm ET156 |
Gorka Suarez-Garcia |
| 16th 8:55am ET155 |
Krzysztof Apt Gilles Barthe Sabine Bauer Rachel Ben-Eliyahu-Zohary Jaroslav Bendik Zarathustra Goertzel Holger Hermanns Steffen Hoelldobler Mikolas Janota Martin Jonas Steffen Jost Jean-Pierre Jouannaud x 2 Tarek Khaled Pavlos Marantidis Simon Robillard Lukas Schweizer Jan Strejcek Martin Suda Alexander Svozil Przemyslaw Walega Piotr Witkowski Florian Zuleger |
20th 4:40pm ET156 |
Gilles Barthe Holger Hermanns |
| 16th 11:40am ET175 |
Benjamin Farinier Yue Niu |
21st 4:40pm ET156 |
Furio Honsell Chuan Jiang Yue Niu Damien Pous Paventhan Vivekanandan |
| 16th 4:10pm ET157 |
Matthias Baaz Udi Boker Maciej Ciesielski Robin David |
22nd 10:10am ET154 |
Sepideh Asadi Rachel Ben-Eliyahu-Zohary Udi Boker Nachum Dershowitz x 2 Benjamin Farinier Zarathustra Goertzel Antti Hyvarinen Orna Kupferman Matteo Marescotti Simon Robillard Tamar Tamir |
| 17th 8:55am ET155 |
Orna Kupferman Damien Pous Gorka Suarez-Garcia Tamar Tamir |
22nd 4:40pm ET156 |
Krzysztof Apt Sabine Bauer Guillaume Davy Madalina Erascu Antonio Gonzalez Burgueno Max Haslbeck Steffen Hoelldobler Mikolas Janota Steffen Jost Tarek Khaled Pavlos Marantidis Alexander Svozil Rene Thiemann Przemyslaw Walega Piotr Witkowski |
| 17th 4:10pm ET157 |
Furio Honsell Subhajit Roy |
23rd 4:40pm ET156 |
Lukas Schweizer Geoff Sutcliffe Margus Veanes |
| 18th 8:55am ET155 |
Vincent Rahli | ||
| 18th 11:40am ET175 |
Chuan Jiang |
Visas
If your main purpose of travelling to Ethiopia is to attend the conference, you need a conference visa. If you also plan some tourism in Ethiopia, please contact your local Ethiopian consulte for instructions - you should be able to simply come as a tourist.
For all those people I have arranged conference visas, the paperwork is now all ready. You should have received an email from me with instructions (if not please contact me (Geoff Sutcliffe - geoff@cs.miami.edu)). You can either apply at your designated Ethiopian Consulate - they have the approval note from Addis Ababa to grant you a conference visa, or you can apply through the evisa system. For the latter, the paperwork you need is online.
Accomodation
The conference hotel is Haile Resort in Awassa. We have negotiated a reduced rate of USD82.00 per night (including taxes), for single and twin rooms. Breakfast and WiFi is included. Book by emailing sales3@haileresorts.com or hrhmkt3@gmail.com (I suggest email the first with CC to the second). Payment is accepted using Visa or MasterCard (no Amex), or bank transfer.
Tourism Before and After the Conference
For tourism before and after the conference, we recommend Abundant Bale Mountains Tour and Travel, run by Zinaye Tesfaye (the local organizer for the conference). You can email him at balemountainstour1@gmail.com or zinaye3@gmail.com. If you'd like to talk to Zinaye, his phone numbers in Ethiopia are +251913348925 and +251913086991. Zinaye has provided some tour itineraries he can offer for tourism after the conference. If we can get several people on a tour together it's cheaper, so email me (Geoff - geoff@cs.miami.edu) if any tour interests you and I'll link up people interested in the same tour.
Health
The conference is in a modern resort, so there are minimal risks. See the CDC page for some recommendations.
Safety
We are aware of the US State Department's travel advisory. Please be assured that Awassa is not in any of the areas mentioned, and there is no need for any concern. Our local arrangments person emailed us "I can say with hundred percent of certainty Ethiopia is fully safe. Nothing to worry. I was talking to you before about the most remote areas where I took my tourists, which are totally safe now. Even there has been never a problem in Awassa.".
Local Information
The town has multiple ATM machines where cash can be withdrawn, and the hotel also accepts credit cards.