Articles tagged with: Ethiopia
Second Prison Visit
My second visit to the prison began very much like the first. I showed up at 1:00 o’clock, and there was a lineup of about twenty-five women at the door, some with young children and many with bundles of food. There were far more motorcycles parked around the door and sidewalk this time, and the lineup was even more of a mess. It also seemed …
Walking Around Naval
I spent yesterday simply walking around Naval exploring and waiting for the charm of the town to reveal itself. The exploring was interesting, as always, but the charm remained elusive.
I had had enough of riding my bike through congested streets, so I set off on foot with my pannier bag converted to a knapsack. I had my camera with me, intending to make it a …
Vaccination Stories
Monday December 31, 2012
7:40 a.m. at the 7-11 on Zhongshan Road in Taipei
Another red-letter day of a sort. A very Doug-style red-letter day: I broke out my Survival Kit from my touring bike. I use the left rear pannier bag as my main bag when I’ve gone on my bike trips. I call it my Survival Kit because it generally contains everything of ultimate value. …
SCIH 004 – Into the Mountains
Monday September 21 4:30 p.m.
7-11 in Chiahsien, Taiwan
It was a good day of cycling. It had many of the elements that make for a good day of cycling – including the feeling that the day was much longer than it actually was. It feels like Tainan was a long time ago. It feels like I’ve been traveling for a long time and over a very …
045 – Gondar
A Ghost in a Silent World
The next morning my eyes snapped open at 4:30. A drunk man was wandering through the Nile Hotel banging on each door in turn, looking, as all Ethiopians seemed to do in the early morning, for a friend. I called out to him when he reached my door and I offered to be his friend if he would go back …
044 – To Infrance
The Escape of the Joads
It was still pitch black when I was woken up by the Joads, their truck, and their rooster. They wanted to get an early start and started warming up their truck at 4:45. Unfortunately it was right outside my door and to my lungs it felt like they’d run a hose from the exhaust pipe directly into my room. I had …
042 – The Blue Nile Falls
Speciation
The next day after a morning trip by bike to where the Blue Nile emerges from Lake Tana I returned to the Ghion to find Martin sitting in one of the lawn chairs on the grass. He was waiting for Andale, his right hand man on his project, and a second man from the Ministry of Agriculture. The two of them had helped him secure …
041 – The Ghion Hotel Crowd
In Search of the ‘Real’ Ethiopia
I woke up in the morning without a very clear idea of what I was going to do that day. I didn’t think I was going to do much. At most I thought I would have a cup of coffee, write in my journal, then ride into Bahir Dar and explore the city. As it turned out I never left …