Scott's Cycling Adventures

Today was our last full day in Ethiopia. It’s hard to believe we’ve almost finished our third full country. Like normal, our border crossing days will always be interesting and it may be a few days before I’m back up and running with a new SIM card. If I’m lucky my Ethiopian SIM will still work tomorrow since we will be camped close to the border inside Kenya. 

Some things of note today…lunch was a lot of fun. The lunch truck ended up parked next to a pack of VERY thirsty goats and they just couldn’t be contained and kept away from the hand washing station. The TDA staff tried valiantly to contain and coral them but it ended up being fairly comical watching them running back and forth trying to keep the goats controlled. Eventually a small amount of our valuable drinking water supply was sacrificed to lead them away from the lunch spot until their owners returned with water for them. 

The other thing of note was a small suicidal tortoise that I saved from certain death. It was sitting right in the middle of the road just waiting for death by speeding bus. I picked it up and moved it to the bushes on the side of the road. Hopefully it was the right side of the road and it doesn’t attempt to cross back. I was actually surprised to see a tortoise in this area. I figured it was much too dry to support tortoise life. I have no idea where it would find a sourced of water. 

This is probably going to start sounding familiar, but today was an amazing ride! Despite my fears of the road being horrible, it was absolutely perfect. I think I saw three potholes over the entire 121km we rode. We had some amazing scenery and some amazing hills. I set a new personal best land speed record of 77.7 km/hr. That was incredibly exhilarating. If you told me a year ago I’d be going over 75km/hr on a bicycle I’d have told you you were nuts.  The perfect road and long straight or gently curving downhills made it possible. 

The scenery was again stunning. I don’t understand why Ethiopia isn’t more of a tourist destination. The Blue Nile Gorge should be enough of a draw on its own, and that’s only a tiny part of this beautiful country. 

Our lunch stop had us right in the middle of an area that had some humongous termite mounds, some of them standing twenty feet tall, or more. 

We’ve ended the day in a small town with a few hotels. It almost feels like a rest day. We’re camped on the grounds of one of the hotels and have access to power, water and showers! You should have seen the filth that came off my body! 

Today was our second planned bus day in Ethiopia, and boy am I glad we were not riding. The roads were hellish! Up until today most of the Ethiopian roads have been pretty good, but man…I’m surprised the bus hasn’t fallen apart from the pounding it’s taken over the last 200+ kilometres. It probably would have taken four days of brutal cycling to cover this section of nightmarish road. One can hope we are past the worst of it, but from the sectional preview board we got a few days ago, the road description “paved-ish” doesn’t inspire confidence in the conditions improving. 

On the other hand, the scenery has been great. We’ve transitioned again to a new “zone”. At the start of the day we were in a very dry environment where all the plants and trees were very small leafed and very focused on water conservation. Now, we are in large rolling hills covered in very large green leafy plants and trees. This area obviously sees a lot more rainfall than where we were at the start of the day. Oops, I left my rain gear in my permanent bag (we only get our permanent bags on rest days). 

Today was a speedy short ride. We had a generous tailwind almost all 108km, and I arrived in camp just a bit after 11am.

The camp is named “Ostrich Camp” and it is another great one. It’s just inside Abijatta-Shalla National Park and it’s filled with…wait for it…ostrich! Ostrich, and lots of other animals. I went for a short walk a few hundred meters away from camp and came across a family of warthogs, guineafowel, and Tana gazelle, not to mention dozens of stunningly beautiful birds. This really is Africa! 

Cough cough, hack hack! Today was a dusty, dirty, exhaust filled day. I feel like I smoked 6 packs of cigarettes. We started our day with another convoy to get out of Addis, and the roads were packed with early morning traffic. We crawled along behind black smoke belching busses trying not to breathe. The convoy was supposed to be 26km long but after about 16km we got clear of the main traffic, and the highway that had been under construction was now open. We were set free from the convoy a full 10km early. The brand new section of road was three lanes wide (both ways) and was s nice steep downhill, so we could get some serious speed flying down the highway. I keep thinking how absurd some of this is. You could never cycle on the highway in North America, but here no one bats an eye as you zoom past the donkey cart in the slow lane. 

For the next 60km there was a strong headwind that was picking up lot of dust and sand. I had to pull over and use my buff to filter the air. Just after lunch our route made a right turn and or strong headwind turned into a nice tailwind. That pushed us quickly to our camp for the evening. 

Tonight we are camped on the shores of a fairly large lake. Off in the distance both east and west, are two fairly large hills. They look like the remnants of two VERY old volcanos. The camp itself is surrounded by dozens of massive Storks. They must have a eight foot wing span. I really hope they don’t poop on my tent!

We are having a short, one day rest here in Addis Ababa. Our accommodation is the Addis Golf Club, right in the middle of the city. Before you ask, no we were not allowed to pitch our tents on the fairways, although I suspect if I asked they would have let me set up on the driving range. Target practice anyone? I few of of us actually went out for a nine hole round of golf, and it was a lot of fun. Club policy required us to have caddies, so that was new for me. I don’t golf that often, and I’ve never played with a caddy. It was weird having someone  carry my bag and making club suggestions, but I understand why they were required. Part job creation, part guide. The course was a bit oddly laid out and getting from one hole to the next wasn’t always obvious (the course was wedged into the space the old airport used to take up, so they were restricted in space). 

On a more sobering note, three people had their cell phones stolen while out and about in the city, (not while at camp) which is a real drag since all modern cell phones basically become useless bricks once stolen. Most of us use our phones for photos so in addition to the hassle and cost of replacing the phone, all those wonderful pictures have been lost. It’s been a wake up call for us all. I’ve backed up all the photos I’ve taken so far to a second device, just in case something similar happens to me.  At least at the end of the trip we’ll be able to share our photos via the internet so some of those memories can be restored. 

(Wifi at the club was useless so still no bandwidth to upload photos, maybe next rest day)

We did something a bit different today. After cycling 93km towards Addis Ababa we stopped just short of the city and waited for all the riders to catch up. We then formed a large cycling convoy as we rode the last 14km into the city. We had TDA vehicles in front and in back as we cycled painfully slowly (8-18km/hr) downhill into the city centre. It may have been slow but it was interesting to do something different for a change. We were cycling on the main highway into Addis, so there was the potential for dangerous traffic, but honestly it was much less busy than I was expecting. I suspect part of the reason was that it would have taken about three whiteboards of directions and six rolls of flagging tape to get us into our rest day location, had we done it the normal way. 

One thing that struck me on the ride in, was the lack of people. One would think that as you approached Ethiopia’s biggest city, there would be more and more people. However there were several gaps devoid of people. I’ve gotten quite used to the constant barrage of “you you you”, “money, money, money” (not the ABBA song!) and “where are you go?” from the kids along the route. It made me realize how much I miss the solitary, quiet sections in Sudan and Egypt. There is something special about riding along in total silence with only the sound of tires on road, wind on ears. Still, you can’t beat Ethiopia for its beautiful vistas and rolling hills. 

(Photos to follow)

I managed to survive the night camped on the edge of the cliff. I wasn’t washed away or misstep while having a midnight bathroom break. The overnight rain did last for several hours and sprinkled on and off till early morning, so we all had to pack our tents soaking wet.  It’s good practice for some of the countries we’ll be going through in rainy season. 

Because of the rain the air was nice and fresh to start the day. It was also nice and cool for riding. Once again we had another short day, only 86km and about 1100m or climbing. Peanuts compared to yesterday. The majority of the ups and downs were over rolling hills and farmlands. Once again the scenery was spectacular.

We hit two milestones today, the 3000km cycled mark, and the highest elevation on the tour (3122m above sea level). Most people don’t realize how high Ethiopia gets. I can definitely feel the effects of altitude here. 

Since the ride was short I arrived in camp before noon, which gave me plenty of time to open up everything and get it dried and aired out. We are camped beside what is periodically a small river. Right now, in the dry season, it’s not much more than a large puddle. It was handy for washing the dirt and mud off of some of my gear. After laying everything out in the grass, the warm afternoon sun dried everything very quickly. It’s going to be a very comfortable evening. 

(Pictures to follow)