jonnywhite

I feel justified in making this a long one as it may be a couple weeks before I can connect again.

The road goes ever on. I now find myself in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. It’s a busy city with the largest market in Africa, where you can buy absolutely anything. An AK47 costs $50USD or ($430 Birr), a camel costs slightly more. A friend and I discussed buying both and a few kilograms of bananas and taking over Ethiopia, but decided to stick to the bike.

Following 310km in two days on paved road leaving Bahir Dar since the last post, we descended and climbed the Blue Nile Gorge, which is allegedly the grand canyon’s equal (as claimed by a proud rider so don’t quote me on that). The gravel downhill (a little under 1.5km in altitude lost) was intense but gleefully accompanied by shouts of exhilaration while passing cars and transports, and the gravel uphill (a little over 1.5km in altitude gained) was grueling and did a number on the legs, but both were quite beautiful. Two more days of hills brought us to Addis Ababa. A Dutch rider with more electronic gear than most spaceships informed me that we climbed over 7km in those 5 days and although I am wiped, it was a pleasure. I will emphasize again what a green and varied landscape Ethiopia boasts, contrary to my previous conceptions which were based on 1980’s Sally Struthers infomercials with kids in desert mud huts covered in flies. There are, in fact, lush hills covered in crops, plains covered herds of goats and cows, more exotic and predatory birds than you can imagine, and breath-taking scenery at every second turn; to go with the kids and flies.

Speaking of the Ethiopian kids, they have gained the focus of many of the riders, though not in the way Sally Struthers might like. There are so many children that we have to put up a string fence around our campsite and lunch stops to keep them at a reasonable distance. They come from nowhere and line up in rows (behind the string fence when it is there, surrounding you when it is not) to stare at us. Some call the occasional ‘hello’ and sometimes we’ll play with them or take their pictures and show them, to their fascination (they were flabbergasted by the video camera and I had half a village chasing me to get on screen and see the viewfinder), but mostly we have our business to go about and they just stand and stare and stare and stare. Last night the ones in the back were pushing the ones in the front into the ‘fence’ and we had to hire local ‘security’ to keep the kids back, which they did by chasing them with sticks.

On the rides we are chased continuously, mostly by kids but also by adults, and asked ‘Where are you go?!’ about 100 times a day, which if you answer, they ask again. They do not speak a word of English but delight in making you react, like a child poking a trapped animal with a stick to see what it will do. The one thing they do understand concerning white people is how to beg for money aggressively. More common than ‘Where are you go?!’ is “You! Gimme money! One Birr! You! You!” (repeat 1000 times). And those are the good kids. The bad ones throw rocks.

When they do, the best thing we can do, allegedly, is chase them to their parents and explain (charades) what they’ve done so their parents can discourage them from throwing rocks at later riders. I have done this with success previously, chasing kids down on the bicycle and making the parents understand what happened. The parent apologizes and berates the kid and I ride off. After being hit by a decent size rock today I tried to chase down a group of kids on foot. You may know that many of the fastest Olympic runners area and have been Ethiopians… these kids absolutely fly. I’m a full grown lad and a semi-athlete (I actually thought of myself as an athlete before the following incident). Upon being hit I threw the bike down and took off across a field after the group of what looked to be 6th to 9th graders who had thrown the rocks. I was left panting in the dust before I’d finished my string of what would have sounded like very creative, emphatic, and accented gibberish to them. While I am hit very rarely, some of the riders who come through, after most of the group has passed without giving them any money which the locals seem to expect from traveling white people (even those going by at 30kmph on a bike), are hit much more often. We are struggling to ride theses distances as it is day after day while camping, as well as to keep our composure at having the same things yelled at us and requested from us by everyone we pass. The rocks have pushed a few people over the edge and minor flip-outs are not uncommon now. The road goes on.

Something else interesting is happening to add to the challenge of the trip on top of the toughness of the last several rides, the kids and their rocks, and the fact that we are climbing all the time now to reach our highest altitude of the trip tomorrow (3100m and thankfully a rest day). As I write this for future posting, we are camped in Ethiopia one day’s ride from Addis Ababa. Until tonight we had not seen a drop of rain since arriving in Cairo. No one puts their fly over their tent or takes any preparations the occasion of rain, it is fairly unheard of this time of year. We are, by now, very comfortable in out tents and most do not look for a room nearby even if they are cheap and available. Tonight there is a rain and hail storm the likes and fury of which I have not seen before, even in Halifax. There is one rider who set up his tent on top of one of the expedition trucks for lack of space on the ground and we are sincerely concerned that he may be washed off. I happen to be one of 5 lucky riders tonight who snagged a room near the campsite. The room for the night cost 12 Birr, about 1.75 Canadian, and is a concrete cave with a tin door, not much more spacious than my tent, but the reading light and the plug to charge my electronics made it worth the expenditure in my mind. My mind has not changed since. I anticipate an interesting and cranky morning, if not an interesting night sheltering refugees, as the remaining 45 of our crew are camped on a nearby lawn. While I must pack up and wait to see what happens, I will follow up in the next paragraph for you, so read on.

Well they are a hardy bunch. I did not receive any refugees. The tour director said that the first thing he did when it started hailing was make a snowball and the guy who set up his tent on top of the truck climbed down to a local dining hall where he found some beers and some fellow riders and they waited out the storm. It was all jokes this morning and the ones who did get wet, true to our typical form for anyone who is suffering, did not complain so as not to bring down the group or seem like a whiner.

So all’s well and I’m in the groove most of the time now. Audiobooks make the bad days bearable and music pumps me up when those fail. Most of the time, however, I appreciate how lucky I am to be here. Take care my few and dear readers and I’ll post next time in Kenya, probably in a couple weeks.

Yours truly in the Sahara, thanks Theresa (TDA's South African PR guru), who is always sneaking around with the camera, for the shot.

A big thanks for comments posted - I have a hard time replying because the net connections here seem to have particular trouble with certain things, among them letting me administer the site - but I always get them eventually and very much appreciate them.

Ethiopia is truly beautiful. We’ve ridden through the highlands, are now beside lake Tana, and are on our way to the capital, Addis Ababa. While certainly numerous, the people are generally friendly and helpful and love having tourists around to play with, kids especially. Although they often come up to you with a really fake sad face and hands out, but if you smile, or pull their hood over their eyes, or pick them up and carry them around, they have a blast and think it's just great that the aliens are playing with them - and forget all about their act. Not to trivialize the poverty but handouts are by no means a solution - kids get beaten up if others see them getting things, so it's better just to make them smile.

I’ll start on a proud note. I had by far my best finish (2nd place) yesterday on a few lucky coincidences. I sometimes ride hard from the race start to set up a video shot of the riders coming along in a pelaton if there is nice scenery. I can generally hammer ahead off the start for 20 minutes, before my legs wear out, and I get the shot but it costs my legs dearly later in the day. Given the awesome scenery and climbs in the Ethiopian highlands on the previous 2 days, I wanted to get a good lead and then set up to film a big snaking climb up a mountain… but there were no mountains and no really notable scenery. I was feeling good and was riding with Big Urs, a fun Swiss guy who was pushing ahead for the win that day, so I just carried on pushing it and came in about 10 minutes behind him. The man’s an absolute machine and I can’t keep up with him on the hills…yet. Urs and I had actually taken such a fast lead that another rider thought he had won as he passed all the regular top finishers (who were luckily taking it easy that day) until he got to the finish to find Urs and I having a well-earned juice. He blew his top. Since this is the first I’m mentioning about finishing places, I should probably share that I normally come in between 10th and 20th, much later if I’m having a bad day, and I’m really not here to race. I don’t expect many repeats of top finishes and my legs are killing me, but I did have fun pushing myself and thought I’d share it with anyone who cares to read.

On another topic, life on the road can be a little lonely. Most of us don’t have our loved ones here to share Valentines day with… but we do have each other – for better or for worse. Christo, one of the African Routes crew, mixed Staminade (a South African version of Gatorde that we drink about 100 litres of per day) into the oatmeal so that we woke up on Valentines day to pink oatmeal. The only trouble with the cute gesture was that the taste was absolutely appalling. It was compared by numerous riders in texture appearance and other properties to, well, vomit. The thought was there but it made for a number of cranky riders with complaints that were awfully funny in retrospect, when they couldn’t stomach their breakfast before a 120km day.

All's well and we're off to Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa over the next 5 days and 580km.

"That's the way things work in Africa, mostly they don't" - Eddie from African Routes

We got into Gondar, Ethiopia, where we are perched on a mountain on the lawn of a hotel, just before dark last night. The ride was over 100km on dirt and gravel and we gained over 2km in altitude (that's a lot of climbing on a bike). It was also the last day of a 7 day stretch of riding. On rest days (today) we usually wash, do laundry, eat, charge our machines, and email, however the power was out in the town so we could do none of the above. No one here but us is bothered - for them, sometimes things work, somtimes they don't.

Finishing Sudan was much of the same, sand and dirt and desert, great people, dirty camping, and even a little pavement now and then. The border crossing into Ethiopia is a bridge overrun with donkeys, goats and people at all times who are free to cross whenever they want but are supposed to be on the appropriate side, depending upon their citizenship and visas, at night. The Ethiopian border station was a mud hut with one desk and a bunch of kids running around outside wanting to change your money. We had a crazy Sudanee guy follow us for 4 nights and try to sneak in with us, he would tell officials he was with us, we would tell him to go away, and he would freak out and say it was his land, we weren't welcome, and many more offensive things, while trying to follow us. Upon corssing the border at the end of a day's ride, we stayed at a farm of sorts, with bulls and goats roaming through our tents, but the farm was also a brothel. We were supposed to be allowed to shower at the brothel but couldn't. Our tour director was up half the night trying to keep cows from running over his tent, while local kids hit them with sticks to try to scare them into the tents. Welcome to Ethiopia.

Anytime we stop we are surrounded by 100 kids who just stare at you. On the road they yell 'youyouyouyou' and chase you, some throw rocks. Allegedly when we get further south we have to put a perimeter up around our campsite and there will be 6 rows of people just watching on all sides until dark. The kids can throw rocks quite hard and can run quite fast. It's a really tough blow to the ol' self-esteem at the end of a day like yesterday when your legs are shot and you are trying to climb a huge hill and a seven year old without pants on is running beside you yelling "youyouyou gimme money gimme money". Your response "Get away from me! I'm a serious adventure athlete and need to concentrate on this hill!" does little but make him laugh and more of his half-naked, malnourished friends decide this is the greatest thing they've seen since the day the white people came on bicyclies last year and join the train and try to unzip your bag while you ride. Add to that dodging trucks, goats, bulls, and donkeys, and you've got a heck of a ride. The front line view of the living conditions provide a lot of insight as well. I have a lot of social comments to make but will just say for now that enducation to limit the number of kids families are having is much needed, as well as to allow women to reap the benefits of the work they do.

Jokes aside and political comments aside, it is beautiful and breathtaking here. Ethiopia allegedly has some of the oldest geography and hills in the world and I will get some pics up soon. The ride is going well, I had my toughest day last week but am able to say that it is good for me when I get a chance to catch my breath and am regularly mind-boggled by life in Africa. The layers of the cyclists and staff are peeling back and the tour is getting interesting on a lot of dimentions. Although I'll be beat again tomorrow, I'm feeling good today and can appreciate what I've got and what I'm gaining in doing this. Thanks for reading, I hope you are well, and I'll post again soon.

This is my Irish friend Paul, chilling in his red box after a ride. We keep everything we have access to for 5-8 days at a time in these boxes and live out of them (tent, sleeping bag, mat, clothes, food, biking gear). It is a good way to stay organized with 42 riders and the only way for gear to keep stuff intact on the rough roads. It takes some getting used to though.

I spoke earlier about how quickly people adapt. I have adapted since writing the last segment but decided to post it anyways for dramatic tension (Will he make it? Will he quit and go home?). Now writing from Khartoum on a rest day, we have but 5 cycling days left in the Sudan. While I found the first few Sudanese desert days very trying, I am now accustomed to the inconsistent roads, 40-45 degree afternoons, and dirty living. My mom thinks that music is the ultimate drug, and although our tastes differ more than slightly, cranking the tunes while cycling has definitely helped me push myself a little more, which has helped me get into and enjoy the riding. Abetting my frustration with the riding in those first few days were the facts that I had traveler's illness of the unpleasant variety for seven days as well as a cold, and the fact that I had my first decent crash of the trip (we fall over in the sand all the time but this was a pretty good one on a gravelly downhill). My bike and I made it through with just a few repairs and bandages and it has not kept me from riding.

We hit some pavement in the past few days as we approached Khartoum and had a fun cheered-on convoy ride into the city this afternoon with police escorts as well as appointed 'big ugly riders' (guess who) blocking traffic at intersections. Khartoum is a sprawling city, not very clean or organized by western standards, but is the mecca of this area. We had a dinner courtesy of the Sudanese 'cycling association', which is apparently made up of generals escorted by pickups full of riot troops, and the function of which is to boost the generals' egos by having them applauded by tourists. It's a strange way to promote cycling but is perhaps an apt example of the political problems in this area.

We have found the Sudanese common people fantastic. Friendly, hospitable, interested, and willing to go out of their way for you. We are constantly asked to stop and go to their houses, wherein if you go in you are brought whatever food they can muster, told stories, your hair is braided, and they are disappointed when you tell them you cannot stay the night. The communication is a roundabout process similar to a never-ending game of charades with lots of questioning smiles and uncertainty about what, if anything, has been understood. The Sudanese government, however, is more like the former example. Or the following: We had a rest day in Dongola six days ago, a tiny town with very limited facilities, but when the 'officials' heard we were coming they came up with an 'entry tax' just for us, which gets bargained and argued over and causes all kinds of discomfort and I have a hard time believing that the citizens ever see a Dinar of it. More important concerns aside, we did, however, manage to find yogurt in Dongola, which was a major highlight (I ate 3 liters). The first liter was paid for by one fo the regular incredibly firndly locals, who spoke a little English, as I didn't have the currency and couldn't access an exchange. He wouldn't accept my American dollars, even knowing what they were and where he could change them. He simply said "you are tourist, you are welcome" and shook my hand. Great people, poor political organization.

And so the trip goes on. Nothing about our regular day is really shocking as we progress, we have hit a routine. Up in the dark, pack tents, oatmeal or gruel for breakfast, ride to the lunch truck for sardine, tuna, or peanut butter sandwiches; fruit; and energy bars; and then ride to camp, set up tents, hang out or have private time, a rider meeting going over plans for the next day, dinner, and then bed. Exhaustion, sun, dehydration, sand, no toilets, no showers, and most interactions, are all by now standardized. The funniest thing about it is that I the power of the group. Nobody complains because everyone else is going along. The dishwater is filthy but no-one complains, we are hungry after riding but no one complains, we all have our cranky moments but very few people complain… the internal mental reaction is that: "if no one is complaining then this must be acceptable, I am just a wuss and should suck it up".

Also, despite the dicomfort, we are all here for an adventure and I don't know that we would want it any easier way given the option. If it was easy everyone would be doing it. This of course raises the question of what the heck is wrong with all of us (I'm not even jesting) and it is one that I am puzzling over. If you don't know, I have been filming, which is coming along really well, and will have a documentary of the trip and some particularly interesting characters on it at the end to share with anyone interested. The question of what is wrong with us is a definite theme and there will be more to come on that later…

A pretty good road in the Sudan. There are no pictures I can upload of the bad ones as we are all to hot and sandy to take them, and when there is a dust storm the camera has to stay away. I have some great video to share later on.

I'm sitting in my tent after the second day in the Sudan, writing this down to send later. I have decided that the name 'Tour D'Afrique' is deceptive. It should be changed to something more descriptively accurate like 'Tour de Suffering'. While we do see 'Afrique', you hardly notice it because you are suffering so much. Sudan so far is hell – actually more literally like Mordor (for LOTR aficionados). There is nothing but sand, rock, and dust. The rocks are lava rock formations and broken pieces of them, which have their own beauty when backed just by desolation, for a little while… but then it's just hot, dry, and sandy and you get thirsty, sandy, and angry. The roads we are on are not roads. About 3 trucks have passed us in two days, 2 of which I later passed when they were broken down. The sand and rocks that make up the paths take on a washboard texture at from the wind. So we either get jackhammered on the washboard or ride in sand all day (90km today) or both. Some parts are smooth and the sand is somehow better packed but these make up about 1% of the ride. When I say the roads are not roads I mean it – there are actually frequent side roads where a truck decided that the main path (whom we call 'Mr. Lumpy') wasn't good enough and just drives alongside it through the desert wherever they think the ground might be firmer or less corrugated. Oftentimes these secondary paths are better for us, sometimes they are much worse. You will often see cyclists ahead or behind just walking across the desert because they were on a path that turned out to be crap, only to find that the new path they took instead is also crap.


Typical desert camp in the Sudan. You can see our two support vehicles that lug our tents and food, traveling slower than the bikes over the sand and rough stuff, and the tents.

The desert camping is OK. I sleep more than I ever have and could use more. I am out like a light at 8:30pm for all the night until 6:30am except for 3 or 4 bathroom breaks. The food is getting better with our cook working now instead of the Egyptian goons. While I am exhausted and often disgruntled on the rides I am sure I will make it because I did it yesterday and today and barring any (more) major health issues, I should be able to keep it up.