Section 2 Video

We've been at it again with the Go Pro.  

See a video of our second leg from Khartoum to Addis Ababa -
Click here to watch it.

Kid Rock

Anyone cycle touring in Africa knows that, in Ethiopia, the kids throw rocks at cyclists.  In this beautiful country with warm and friendly people, it is upsetting that this is the commentary that precedes it.  You hear this long before you enter the country and you imagine it can’t be that bad.  Experience has taught us otherwise.

In Ethiopia, especially compared with Sudan, there are people everywhere.  Not only in the villages, but walking between them; tending cattle, carrying water.   There are 85 million people in this country and we think we’ve probably already seen about 20 million on the roadside. The vast majority of people are merely interested by us. Adults smile, nod and occasionally welcome us. As a bare minimum the children generally stand and wave excitedly, screaming “YOU! YOU! YOU!” (often with two hands) You cannot fault their persistence.  They run, full pelt off the hillside: ‘Where are you go? Where are you go?’ they chant at us.  ‘Addis Ababa’ we respond.  ‘Addis Ababa’ the chorus mumble back. 

Beyond this the most dominant shout is “Money! Money!” This demand comes from all angles at all times, often accompanied by a grubby paw thrust in our direction.  We put our Englishness aside (money is not a topic to be discussed) wilfully misunderstand and wave a cheery ‘Hello!’  For the majority of the time, this usually gives them the response they are after. However, the incessant monotony and energy-drain of having to wave and be cheerful to excited children for six hours a day (the challenge of the cycling aside) is extensive.  We do this to try and fend off the potentially worse outcome.

Outside the villages the kids are mostly barefoot, sporting interesting haircuts.  They puncture the quietness of the countryside with their shouts.  This has a Doppler effect as we ride past, getting noisier and then fading as the shouts of the next group kick in.  Some take up the challenge and run alongside us.  On the uphill in particular these children are hard to shed, lolloping alongside us, regardless of our responses the questions and demands still coming (Ethiopia doesn’t produce long distance runners for nothing).  

Local entrepreneur meets local barber

Beyond the shouts for money, what we have been most disappointed by are the rocks.  Whilst 95% of the children and their big grins are a joy, the remaining 5% are not. And 5% of a big number is still a big number. Some of the children pick up pebbles – they just want to hear the ‘ping’ as they hit our spokes. Whilst a bit concerning when they come your way, that is fine and understandable.  We have tried to give the others the benefit of the doubt: however, the image of the sheer malice in the eyes of some of the children who aggressively throw rocks the size of grapefruits at our backs and our bikes, will stay with us for a long time. 

The fact that some children run away having thrown a rock, that some hide behind trees to throw them with anonymity, mean they know that what they are doing is wrong.   As practised herders, they have extensive experience of using stones to keep their goats and cattle in line, their eyes are well in and their arms well calibrated, meaning they are often on target.  Some of our riders have been spat at, had sticks shoved in their spokes, been hit in the face by a rock big enough to chip their tooth and split their lip, requiring stitches. It is unjustifiable. And it means that the absolutely stunning scenery we are passing through is constantly tempered by us spying kids in the distance, picking up rocks, ready for us.   

Many of the children are working in the countryside and carry sticks and shovels over their shoulders, whips and other such implements.  We have seen children you can barely imagine are able to walk carrying scythes.  Whilst these are tools for the field, given our experience of their aggression, this can make passing a bunch of kids pretty intimidating, and once they all start shouting at you, at times terrifying.

There are different theories as to why they do this, as a basic starting point the lack of education is pointed to; certainly there must be a role for childish mischief, frustration also seems to play its part.  Some link it to the demands for money.  We have heard bad stories of tourists passing through in their SUVs throwing 1 birr (the Ethiopian currency) notes out the window to children – this horrifies us, whilst we cannot understand why you would pester a sweaty rider half way up a mountain and struggling to breathe for money (clearly it is not the moment!), this does perhaps makes us understand the children’s demands a little better.  

Alastair Humphreys, who cycled around the world, wrote that “the huge input of unconditional aid by Western countries, generalised in local minds as ‘white people’, seemed to have bred a generation of Ethiopians who wanted to be rich, but didn’t want or feel the need to put in the effort themselves…too many people felt they had the right to be bankrolled by me. I did not feel as though I was a fellow human being.”  Many of those that we see on the road are working, with wood to transport, water to collect, houses to build, however, whilst shocking, we can understand this point of view.  What is it that is unique about Ethiopia that leads to this behaviour?  Our experience has led us to question the impact that aid has had here.

The Gorge

There are a few major highlights of the Tour d’Afrique and the Blue Nile Gorge is certainly one of them.  A huge chasm cut through the landscape by the Blue Nile, the Gorge is 1,500metres from top to bottom (only 300m less than the Grand Canyon). Lunch was sadistically and spectacularly placed at the top of one side of the Gorge, so we were able to contemplate the impending ride whilst we chewed our sandwiches – we would ride to the very pit of the gorge and then ascend to the crest of the hill on the other side.  The treeline that marked the top of the other side looked back at us tantalisingly. As we finished lunch, we set off on the descent knowing that every metre we dropped without having to pedal, would have to be hard earned coming up the other side.

View of the Canyon from lunch and the road up the other side

The journey down was unpleasant;  the temperature rising, badly corrugated tarmac and some aggressive rock-throwing children (that got a couple on target), made the sight of the Nile, which marked the bottom of the Gorge, a welcome relief, even if it was 47°C down there.

Climbing up the inside of the valley (not for the faint hearted) the road gains its 1,500 metres over a 20 kilometre stretch (a key number to which our expectations were now firmly fastened, God forbid that road be a single kilometre longer).  We rode this as an individual time trial which means that everyone sets out on their own at one minute intervals leaving each of us alone on the road with our thoughts (for thoughts read pain). 

Really it is a ride for survival, but (given our shared disposition for competition) the shadow of the race hovers ever present.   The start of the climb is the most severe, not that it ever really drops off.  For the majority of the time we were riding a 12% gradient, with no flats to provide relief between the corners as you often find on a hill climb (Box Hill eat your heart out).  Overhead the walls of the Gorge stand tall, rising high above but selfishly they offer no shade.

A sign showing the seriousness of the descent!

As you ride you begin to pick out tiny figures on the road ahead.  The target is set and this provides the much needed motivation to keep pushing.  Without that motivation negative thoughts easily creep in, ‘ow; is this really necessary?; when will this end?; ow; where is the truck and shall I get on?; ow ow’ and the like. To distract from these thoughts, and to quantify every tiny advancement made, inane sums fill the time.  So, I’ve done 2km, that leaves 18kmmaking me one tenth of the way there.  Or, I’m doing 7km an hour, if I keep at this average speed, I’ll be done in 1 hour 40 mins, and so on and so forth.

At 10km you round the corner into a village, the tantalising prospect of a coke stop.  Something other than the water that has reached about 40° in our bottles is a strong temptation.  ‘But the race, what about the race?  But my health and survival, not to mention happiness and enjoyment, what about that!?’  As it happens, the kids start hassling and distracting –‘YOU! Pencil, money’ and the other demands we have become so familiar with in Ethiopia, and then the coke stop is gone and your mind has been made up for you.  Ali had the privilege of being mooned in the village (on reflection probably a better option than rocks – it seems more playful than the aggressive rock throwing).

But it’s been an hour and you are only half way.  For lack of any other real distractions, reluctantly, onwards it is then.   As you move up the pack of riders there are fewer people to spot on the road for the second 10km.  As you climb higher, whilst the peak seems smaller, false summits come and go and you start to dream dangerously of actually completing this damn thing.  This is a bad thing to do as there is still plenty of work to do on the road, which winds perilously close to steep drops and requires an adequate level of attention. Looking across the Gorge from where you came, you try and pick the horizontal equivalent spot – ‘I swear I am as high as the top over there…maybe this side is higher…’

Press play to watch a short video of The Gorge, or click here

With one kilometre to go, there were men at work in the road and the tarmac had been replaced with rubble – tough going on the downhill, this was an incredibly unwelcome interruption on the uphill and elicited some justified cursing.  However, the workmen had a far greater respect for our red faced trauma than the kids in the village and some cheers of support went a long way.  Finally, the road bent inland away from the edge and rounding a corner there was Nix, with her stopwatch and the divine view of the finish flag.

Some find the ride easier than others...

Joy at seeing the finish flag

The results speak for themselves!

Bahir Dar

Yesterday we had a rest day in Bahir Dar, known as the Ethiopian Rivieira. This is no great claim given that Torquay professes to be the English equivalent. We are staying on the shores of Lake Tana, the main source of the Blue Nile.  The Blue Nile joins the White Nile  (which originates in Uganda) in Khartoum,  to flow north towards the Mediterranean.

We decided to play the good tourist and took a trip to the Blue Nile Falls, just south of Bahir Dar - they were stunning, even if depleted by half the river being diverted away to power a hydroelectric plant nearby. A nice break from the bike and good to be seeing something that isn't 500m either side of our route.

The Blue Nile Falls

We are now back on the road for a five day stretch to Addis Ababa, which includes a descent, and unfortunately the corresponding ascent, of the Blue Nile Gorge. 

Entering Ethiopia

The change is wholesale.  From the relatively empty open land of Sudan, Ethiopia is brimming with people.  It is rare to find yourself alone on the road.  Whilst the high speed buses that tore up the road have gone, every man and his donkey/goat/cattle can be found walking up the road, threatening to unexpectedly cross at any moment.   Usually they choose to do so half way down a plump downhill, causing us to use our brakes and lose the blissful freewheeling momentum that we have attained.  Somewhat bizarrely, in many of the villages there are zebra crossings every 500 metres or so, but I have yet to see anyone cross within 10 metres of one.  Leaving Gondar one man did step out directly in front of Claire who unfortunately had nowhere to go other than straight into his left leg - resulting in an early morning pile up, (no lasting damage done).

The terrain is also wondrously different.  Away from the Nile, in the open plains of Sudan, it was rare to see a tree, and if we did, they would be low, brown and dry.  In Ethiopia there are any number of different types of tree scattered all over the landscape, big green trees where herdsmen shelter their flock from the sun.  Despite our preconceived notions of Ethiopia as a place where things don’t grow, the land we have been passing is lush and heavily farmed.  There are also hundreds of exotic birds that swoop past and butterfly which drift peacefully past in front of our wheels.

Ethiopian Vistas

The most noticeable difference in the terrain is of course the mountains.  We’ve had several days of climbing over a thousand metres, up over mountain passes and then shooting down into the valleys stretched out below.  Lizzie, at any rate, enjoys the climbs, the steady grind as the road switches back from side to side and you see the vista below shrinking further beneath you. 

"Tomorrow's climb will be THIS big!"

Happily what all of these features bring (villages, trees, hills and crops) are corners.  They mean that the road has to weave its way across the landscape.  No longer do we ride all day being able to see directly what is in front of us hours before we get there.  There is variety and expectation as we summit a pass.  This leads to a much more rewarding and interesting road to ride. 

The more plentiful population also means that we are having far more interactions with people in the places we pass.  Each time we stop we are mobbed.  At camp a magic red line of string demarcates the space which the hordes of on looking children must not cross.  However, they still stand and gawp.  They found their entertainment in copying every stretch that Ali did to loosen up after a days riding - although the glute stretch (left ankle on right knee and squat) was a step too far and they all ended up on their bums.

Pascal made the mistake of allowing one child to touch
his 'magical' iPad...

A Sudanese Summary

After a really tough eight day stretch, combining the off-road with the high temperatures, we left Sudan and entered Ethiopia, where we are getting fully acquainted with the gradients of the Simien Mountains.

We found Sudan to be a country full of warm and hospitable people, untainted the way Egypt was by the mercenaries and touts attracted by the tourist trade. Away from Khartoum, we were never harassed, and where we could communicate (i.e. they spoke some English – our Arabic is still constrained to two phrases!), we were always warmly welcomed.  The pride people displayed in their country was enormous. On two occasions, we were even welcomed by the local minister and at one campsite, the local karate and acrobatic society turned up to give us a demonstration, before we were all provided with a free Coke! 

The local Sudanese Karate Club demonstrate their skills

The contrast between the countryside and Khartoum was considerable – from goat herders and mud huts to 7* hotels and an enormous new shopping mall (it must have been the only building in Sudan with escalators as the shoppers had still not figured them out, pausing each time before uncertainly taking a large stride onto the first fully exposed step – we walked into the back of several people, expecting them to seamlessly walk on as one would in the UK!). It was not all new in Khartoum though, with a lot of colonial architecture clearly visible, although some lovely buildings had been sadly left to decay.

A lot of investment had visibly been made into Khartoum, although little beyond there that we could see. There is a considerable amount of oil in Sudan, mainly in the new southern state, and unfortunately when independence was agreed, no transit price was fixed for the oil to be piped out through the North – the two states are now at loggerheads so the South has simply stopped pumping oil, to both their disadvantages (the South are threatening to build a pipeline through Kenya but this will take at least ten years). This lack of oil revenue has led to inflation of 50% (the US$ was worth 2.5 Sudanese pounds two years ago and is now worth 7) and the beginnings of protests and pockets of unrest.

As well as the economic outcomes from the split, we were interested to hear that the Arab world felt that Southern independence was a loss, as Sudan was the real land of transition between the Middle East and Africa. Whilst in Egypt, we definitely felt we were in an Arab world, not Africa, but as we came down through Sudan, we started to notice more signs of the Africa we recognise, in landscape, food, people’s appearance, and this is even more the case in the South, we heard. So the separation of the North and the South has created a larger divide between the two areas than before.

As well as the oil, Sudan also has gold.  We cycled through a mining area where it was clear that any gold being panned was not being reinvested in the area.  One of our fellow riders, Ali, stopped and had a few cracks of the pick axe.  He found some rock with gold dust on it, and they showed him how you add mercury to gather the gold.  The miners were so taken with him that they let him keep the rock.

Whilst in Sudan, we did develop a love for the Chinese – whilst they are exploiting African mineral reserves, gold and uranium in Sudan’s case, it does mean they need to get the stuff out of the country, which means infrastructure is required. And we must say, what good infrastructure. Cycling along a silky smooth new road from Wadi Halfa, at the border with Egypt, to Khartoum, we were very grateful to the shrewd Chinese for doing our backsides an enormous favour. Very selfish, we know…

The stuff dreams are made off - thank you China

Sudan is a very Muslim country.  No matter how rural the area, the women were always covered.  Even in the expensive hotels in Khartoum there was no beer to be found.  It was no surprise then that the very first buildings upon crossing the border into Ethiopia were a bar and a brothel!  

Off the Road and Into Rural Sudan

Even though there is a paved road which runs from Khartoum to Ethiopia, cycling the length of Africa apparently isn’t challenging enough so the route which we took looped round the south of this onto a dirt track, skirting Dinder National Park; this gave us three days of off road riding and the chance to pass through some of Sudan’s more rural villages.

It may look like Elysium from Gladiator but
it's not fun to cycle on...

The off road riding was a very different challenge. Each year the roads are flooded, effectively resetting them, and are then reformed by passing cars, trucks and donkey carts, passing through all the villages. As the year progresses, the road becomes increasingly corrugated as each vehicle going up and down a bump increases its size, eventually creating an incessantly uneven track. This leads to a relentless jarring as you bounce along.  Much more concentration is needed as you are constantly working to pick out the least bad bit of road.  Holding on to the handle bars tighter and focusing on balance as you are thrown about also makes drinking much more difficult – we sometimes found ourselves having to stop just to be able to take on fluids.  The tougher terrain also led to a number of falls by Ali (Lizzie is clearly a better bike handler), as his wheels stopped dead when he hit a patch of looser dirt. At the end of each day, the line for the nurse was extensive due to the large number of falls and crashes.  A vast number of thorn bushes by the side of the road, also took their toll – Ali got four punctures and Lizzie got two on the first day alone.

Ali's elbow after an off-road 'incident'

Despite the shorter distances, on these days the kilometres took what felt like forever to tick by, keeping us out much later in the heat of the day, which on two days hit 50 degrees. This was exacerbated by the inability to drink whilst riding due to the corrugations. Below is a picture of Lizzie after the third off-road day, shortly before she was taken ill by some serious heat stroke, which took its toll for the next few days. The dirt all over her is standard from a day’s riding, but the vacant expression was unusual!

A Victorian Chimney Sweep

In these three days we got a look into rural Sudanese life.  Pedaling along paths lined with head high crops, we would pass through tiny villages of mud huts where classrooms of children would come out to cheer us on.  Having not seen any one for miles, we’d come across a herder with his goats, moving them on to find water, or a bunch of camels eating from some roadside trees.  We rode for 100km along a railway line where the tracks were broken and rutted, clearly unused for years, but which still formed a clear highway for the passing traffic of bikes, pedestrians and donkey carts.

If British Rail hadn't been privatised....

One of our fellow riders missed a turn and ended up 30km away from where he should have been, with no water and no idea where he had gone wrong. He stopped in one of these small villages, where he managed to find someone who spoke English, and who knew of the village where we were camping that night. Incredibly, the villager even knew that there were cyclists in the area, through the grapevine. They helped him to eventually make contact with our group, and whilst he awaited ‘evac’, he ate freshly baked bread and local coffee with the village chief – that’s hospitality.  

Desert Camp

For most of Egypt and Sudan we have been desert camping – due to the sparsely populated areas we have passed through it has been rare to pass towns. Routinely, the Tour D’Afrique crew pick a site which they denote with the finish flag, which we usually see along with their truck from a kilometre or two away and start to rejoice that the pain is almost over (for that day…)

A happy cyclist crossing the finish line for the day

The danger in sitting down upon arrival at camp is the difficulty of getting back up to perform the daily chores – clean the bike, stretch, ‘clean’ ourselves and pitch the tent. However, this is made easier by the prospect of some good soup, prepared by the staff, to be gobbled once our chores are done. Pitching the tent has become an exercise in ‘honing the critical path’ we have shaved off a good two minutes off our time since we started. However, the slightest breeze whilst doing so ensures an evening, night and morning of pulling half the desert out of all our belongings.

If we are lucky, there may be some facility to wash ourselves – forget Armitage Shanks, however. This ranges from a dip in the Nile to the unknown miracle of a man appearing from somewhere  with what we affectionately call a donkey shower (because the donkey drags the water, not because it showers us).

Cleaning off a day's dirt & grime in the Nile

One plus of the desert and the scarcity of people is that any spot can be considered fair game for the bathroom. In the morning, under a beautiful sunrise, people traipse back from the distance carrying a shovel – an entertaining sight.

The aforementioned shovels

Each morning we then pack up and leave the spot exactly as we left it, perhaps slightly better fertilised.

Watch Out Quentin

Whilst we have been pedalling away, we have been taking quite a lot of footage and have stitched together a video summary of Section 1, from Cairo to Khartoum. Click here to watch it. I don’t think any directors need to worry just yet.

Coke Stops

A crucial part of every day are the coke stops.  Whilst we have continued to cycle through the desert the towns and villages that we have passed have been limited so in the directions we are given each day, the opportunities to break for a Coke stop are marked.   These offer a good opportunity to break up the distance with a bit of shade, interact with some of the people living in the apparently hostile landscape that we are travelling through and inject some very welcome sugar into our over worked bodies.

Another example of directions for the day:

Wind Farm to Desert Camp
[Wind Farm was in fact a desert camp, renamed because of the huge Haboob that blew in – local terminology for blowing an f’ing gale.  Optimistic as always, we assumed that the Haboob would blow itself out in an hour, so we asked a Sudanese man hanging out in his hut when it might end – his response was ‘never’!]

0km – Right out of camp [crucial instruction to follow – an Irishman and a Kiwi left to their own devices managed 5km back the way we had come the day before]

47km – Village

82km – Lunch

109km – Coke stop

147km – Police check

148km – Camp

The resonance with one of the charities which we are supporting is not lost on us (see our previous blog post on Cola Life. Click here for more about ColaLife, or alternatively see more on our Charities Page.

The ability to source Coca Cola (often not as ice cold as we might like – but who is complaining!) in almost any small village, collection of buildings, or even just a single roadside shack is astonishing. 

See below for a particularly remote stop:

A remote Coke stop

These are often manned by a group of men or boys who seem rather intrigued by us

The oral rehydration salts which Cola Life seeks to distribute to these places to combat dehydration is also something that we are recognising the importance of on our trip.  Admittedly we aren’t making things easy for ourselves, cycling 140 odd kilometres a day through the heat, but we have started taking sachets at the end of each ride to keep our salts up.  

Coke crates

Water – the giver of life

In a country where water is so scarce we are really able to see its importance and it’s playing an important role in our time in Sudan.  Fitting then that we should arrive across the water – travelling by boat across the Lake Nasser.

As in Egypt, it is possible to see the dramatic impact of the water from the Nile.  Where there is water, life blossoms and things grow; where there is none, the vast sandy expanse of nothing stretches on.  By the Nile we see people, livestock, plants and (as mentioned above) flies.  Where there is no water all of the above are scarce.  It was only once we arrive in Dongola and slept under a shady tree filled with the chatter of birds that we realised we’d not seen a single bird for days on end.

One of the features of Sudan we have noticed is that by the roadside you often see a collection of large urns at places where a bus might stop and in towns.  These are filled with water from the Nile and then the seeds of fruit such as dates and prunes are left at the bottom.  These are supposed to attract the dirt, cleaning the water.  The water is then available for anyone to drink.  A gift to the community, these are often looked after by individuals in memory of a loved one, much as in England we dedicate a park bench in a spot with a good view. 

Urns for water

As cyclists we intimately feel the need for water.  We have the capacity to carry 3.5 litres on our bike which we replenish at least once, if not more frequently, a day.  To be able to do this, we watch our usage carefully and don’t have water for cleaning. You can feel the impact on your whole body as you start to dehydrate, your mood darkens and feel yourself weaken, sometimes you even notice yourself licking the inside of your mouth to find moisture.

While on the bike our own hydration is key, water is also a precious resource for cleaning.  The Sudanese have a good system of sinks by their cafes and restaurants where hands are washed before and after consuming a good tasty bowl of fava beans or chicken.

Lizzie getting carefully stuck in..

Water is certainly precious.

Khartoum

After 1,900km on the road and three weeks in the tent we have found ourselves in a remarkable bubble of luxury in Khartoum. We've been kindly hosted by Alyson and Ayman who we were put in touch with by a friend. Through talking to them about the economics and politics of Sudan we feel much more informed about the country we observe from the road.

The separation of South Sudan has had important consequences for both the North and the South, but, not unsurprisingly, one of the main points of contention that remains is oil. The South has the oil, but the pipeline to transport it to the outside world runs through the North. The separation agreement between the two failed to include a decision on the transit fees by which this would take place. The North now demands fees which the South considers too high, and they have responded by turning off the taps on the oil supply. In such a situation, both sides lose out and no-one profits from the oil. Consequently, inflation is high (currently around 50%), and everyone pays the price for that. It makes more sense to us now why hotels want payment in dollars, in hard cash.

Also during our stay, we were put in touch with intrepid explorers Tim and Sharon who are cycling 'North to North' (from the top of Norway, via Cape Town and Chile to Alaska). They have been unfortunately waylayed in Khartoum for some time after Tim had his bike stolen - a devastating occurrence for a touring cyclist. However, with a new bike apparently days away, the pair were very upbeat and it was great to chat with them and hear their stories from the road. As unsupported travelers they carry a lot more weight on their bikes than us, so when our legs are burning in the Ethiopian mountains, we will think of them a few days behind us. An inspiring couple, we wish them luck on the rest of their journey.

Tim and Sharon

                                                               CLICK HERE to follow their blog

As we pedal along, we try to explain what we are doing to the people we meet - they are staggered that we have cycled from the nearest town, let alone Cairo, and there is little point saying we are cycling to Cape Town as they simply don't believe us! Within Sudan, we have been telling them we are cycling to Khartoum - it will be nice from tomorrow to start saying Addis Ababa.