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...