Articles tagged with: Ethiopia Bike Trip
037 – Debre Markos
A Close Look at my Tormenters
The next day’s cycling passed in what had become a familiar pattern. There were some enjoyable moments. These tended to be the ones where I could block out the children. And there were the not so enjoyable ones when I turned into the raving lunatic. I got so distraught I could have fallen to my knees and pleaded with them …
036 – Into The Gorge
It was still dark at 5:35 in the morning when I stepped outside my room. There was a hard cold wind blowing but the sky was clear. I could see the stars.
Occasionally I heard the sound of one of the big dinosaur trucks roaring down the road. Traffic had started. Like me they were making the trip into the gorge as early as possible, hoping …
035 – Goha Tsiyon
Dula Deterrent
The map of Ethiopia which I’d bought in Canada was proving extremely inaccurate when it came to the names of towns, their positions and the distances between them. But I’d learned to trust it when it came to topography and so I wasn’t surprised when immediately outside of Gomando/Fiche the road began to climb. According to my map I would climb to well over …
034 – Gomando
“Father, father, where are you go?”
Five minutes into the new day and I already had my first entourage of children. They didn’t call me “ferenji”, however. Not even “you you.” It seems I’d been promoted. I was now “father.” “Father, father, where are you go?” cried the children.
All in all I thought it a great improvement. The ‘father’ denoted a certain respect and the ‘where …
033 – Muketuri
The Land
The next morning the manager and the two young men watched with mute disappointment as one by one I carried my bags out into the street and attached them to my bike. Their eyes followed each one with a “give me” appeal that for once went unvoiced.
It was a bright and cold morning and Sululta’s main street was already filled with farmers tightly wrapped …
032 – Addis Abeba to Sululta
Traveller as Hunter-Gatherer
I took it slow when I finally dragged myself out of bed. I had no definite destination for that day. My goal was simply to break the inertia that had started to grip me while waiting for the rainy season to end. Even if I only made it to the far side of Addis and slept in a new hotel it would be …
031 – “Hyena! They eat you!”
I was about to crawl into bed around 10:00 p.m. I was fully packed and organized and overloaded. Suddenly Tadale saw me about to sneak into my room.
“Douglas! Are you fine?” he bellowed and shook my hand. The momentum carried him into my room, the last place I wanted him on the eve of my departure for Gondar. The inevitable happened when he saw my …
030 – Special People
The Ethiopian premiere of “Endurance” turned out to be interesting in ways that I didn’t anticipate, but which I think Abiy did. He seemed to have misgivings from the first and it had nothing to do with the 150-birr ticket price as I’d thought. His fears that he did not belong at this event seemed justified right at the first. In fact it was pretty …