Ethiopia – http://www.bike2013.com with Tour D'Afrique 2013 Tue, 14 May 2013 08:05:09 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.1.1 Day 22, Metema to Bush Camp, 57 of 91km cycling http://www.bike2013.com/2013/02/07/day-22-metema-to-bush-camp-57-of-91km-cycling/ Thu, 07 Feb 2013 17:41:57 +0000 http://www.bike2013.com/?p=4413 Continue reading →]]> [See image gallery at bike2013.com]
First day of cycling through Ethiopia. Surprising how quickly things changed at the border. Ethiopia is much more populated with many villages. Even where there are no villages, still people most any place you might stop.
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We cycled from Metema, the border town, across five or six villages today. Crowds of kids would stand watching. We were warned that some might have rocks or sticks so, the idea was to proactively engage with “hello” and other waves and gestures before they could get other ideas. Today this worked for me.
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Also different is most of Ethiopia is built on a hill. Lots of rolling terrain to cross with grades ranging from 1-2% to short steep 10-12% pieces. Slowly as we climb to the highlands, it also seems to be getting cooler (hooray!). However, today it was still warm at lunch and so I decided to be cautious and ride the lunch truck on the way in and hence didn’t ride the last 34km.
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These landscapes and extra trees definitely underscore a “we are cycling in Africa” sense and one that we’ve now left the desert – even if it is still dry here.

Tomorrow is a set of big climbs and so I’ll see what I ride on that day. However definitely enjoying the variety that Ethiopia brings.

]]> 12.5763397 36.8623085 Day 21, 100km Doku to Metema http://www.bike2013.com/2013/02/06/day-21-100km-to-metema/ Wed, 06 Feb 2013 15:14:24 +0000 http://www.bike2013.com/?p=4398 Continue reading →]]> [See image gallery at bike2013.com]
Today I rode in the truck and played it safe. I felt a bit better in the morning, but still couldn’t quite tell if I was feeling sick or feeling hungry. I had brief hope of cycling some, so wore cycling gear.
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Hence, after packing my gear I got on the dinner truck. This one stops briefly at lunch but otherwise continues on to camp. We were only 1km from the paved road, which was a relief for those riding today. The countryside had a little more topography and terrain around. It was still grassland areas.

We stopped briefly at lunch truck and then went to the border town: Gallabat (in Sudan) and Metema (in Ethiopia). Sudan had an exit form to complete and then we walked the bridge to Ethiopia where they checked our passports against large paper books. Mine passed the test, though this all took a while and both we and truck had cleared customs. After this we drove to camp on edge of town. I was slowly feeling stronger and even good enough to eat seconds.
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Diesel costs 2 Sudanese pounds per liter here or approximately $1.30 per gallon.

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