Sunday 24 February: Day 41
Today, physically, I came very close to the end of my tether. Partly I suppose it was because for the previous 30 hours fluid has been draining out of me every hour in the worst case of diarrhoea I have ever had. In retrospect it probably would have been wiser to delay and get my strength back, but we finally reached Marsibit (260ks from Isiolo) in eight and a half hours, riding in the blazing sun over one of the worst roads I have ever driven on, full of rocks and corrugations and bull dust for the entire day; a bike-breaker of a road, a spirit-sapping road. But we made it (only half way, though - another 250ks of the same to the Ethiopian border).
We will rest up tomorrow, and tackle that section on Tuesday - we, physically, and the bikes, mechanically, need a rest.
At 8.30 we reported at the police barrier to join the convoy, but it had already left half an hour before. "But you can catch it up,'' the policeman said - and then he tried unsuccessfully to get some money off me.
At first, as always, the road wasn't too bad, but that is usually because one is fresh and the world rosy. Physically I was feeling OK and even had tinges of the old joy of riding coming back. This was what we had come for: Africa in all its harsh rawness. The dirt road stretched ahead across a flat land with, every now and then, a massive mountain, pale blue and rocky, thrusting itself out of the ground. It was a starkly beautiful landscape, devoid of people or habitation. And then we saw camels, a large herd, crossing the road ahead. At intervals along the side of the road we came across Samburu tribesmen, who wear a dark red toga-like garb and carry spears. Their faces are sometimes painted in intricate patterns of yellow ochre, their fine features set off with beads and silver jewellery, head-bands and feathers. One could almost call them beautiful, but in a proud masculine way. They were dignified and when I asked whether I could photograph them, they refused; one young girl - about 15 - wanted to attack me with a fist-sized rock when I proposed a photograph along the side of a deserted stretch of road where she was walking with her goats!
On the road, our troubles started when Gareth fell badly, injuring his leg. I had lost a Jerry can which hooked on a high ridge of loose stones and went rolling across the road spewing petrol. (These longitudinal ridges are built up by convoys of trucks and, if one hits them at an angle, it takes all one's strength and skill to keep the bike from going over. In the direct sunlight before and after midday, they are almost impossible to make out and blend with the dusty whiteness of the road.) Behind me, Gareth braked hard, unfortunately favouring his front brake; the front wheel dug in and over he went. He was up quickly but there was blood on his knee where his jeans had been ripped. We got the bike up - it takes both of us to lift a downed bike - one water bottle badly crushed and my Jerry can holed. Gareth stripped off boots and jeans. The flesh had been deeply torn away on his left knee and the palm of one hand. He accepted my ministrations with his usual stoicism.
At about 11.30 we came across a big bike, front wheel missing, propped up on rocks. As we stopped, a large man emerged from the shade of a thorn bush, tools and kit spread about in the sand. "You got a spare tube?" he called.
We nodded and dragged our spare front tube from inside our spare tyre.
His name was Carl, an Australian biker on a round-world trip. He had been riding with five other bikers - American, German and Danish - in a loosely cohesive group and was at the back, travelling at about 80kph, when his front tyre went flat. Somehow he managed to keep the bike up, found rocks to elevate the front wheel and had spent the last two hours trying to repair the tube. The others hadn't come back. He said a few words about his companions in choice Australian dialect, mostly beginning with 'F'. On his petrol tank was a formal-looking sticker which said:
WARNING
Remember to put fuel in the tank.
Try to wear a helmet.
Ride like a twat.
Australian humour!
He'd used up all his patches, taken the tyre off and replaced it about nine times (with accompaniment of choice language, I'm sure!) and even tried to stuff his spare rear tube (18-inch) into the front tyre (21-inch) and had decided to attempt to get a truck back to Nairobi.
We quickly fitted our spare tube, replaced the wheel and rode on together.
Perhaps it was my exhaustion taking its toll on my concentration, the appalling road and the weight on my bike, but during the day I fell three times, twice hard, ripping my knee open deeply and grazing my arm. We bandaged me up and the blood and the shock made me physically ill. The road seemed never ending. Gareth's brake shaft rattled off but we managed to find a bolt to replace it; not quite the right size but it will do; Carl's one brake caliper rattled loose and was lost, the aluminum mounting and remaining disk badly worn. We managed to fit a spare, with more lying in the dust and heat to repair it.
And as 3 o'clock moved slowly to 4 and then to 5, I found myself weakening. I had difficulty kick-starting my bike; the falls and the heat and the strain of trying to keep the bike up had taken a tremendous toll on my physical reserves. What was so touching to me was the way Gareth noticed and, without fuss, helped me, quickly offering to kick-start my bike when he saw me struggling. I accepted gladly. Two or three kicks and, if the bike hadn't started, I was almost too exhausted to lift my leg, especially with the heavy boot attached, let alone give the tremendous kick required to start the big thumper. I found that I was having difficulty holding my head up and every muscle in my body cried out for rest.
Then Carl's bike broke in half, the frame snapping on both sides.
It was that kind of road.
We waited with him, knowing that, for him at least, it was the end of the trip. Fortunately, it wasn't long before a truck trundled along and the driver agreed to cart the bike the last 50ks to Marsibit. We left Carl and rode on.
We finally reached Marsibit after 5 as the sun was setting, and checked in to the local hotel. There we met the other 5 riders - two Germans on a KTM and a Tenere, an American on a BMW, and a young Dane riding a rather tired XR500. (They were a little sheepish about their desertion of Carl, but insisted they thought he was in front and had ridden ahead. They claimed that Carl had only two speeds regardless of the road conditions: full speed or stop, and I can believe them!)
For a long time I lay on my bed, unable even to wash. But we made it, thank the Lord!
Monday 25 February: Day 42
A day of rest, of lying on beds reading and allowing our (mainly MY) exhausted body to recover. I have no energy at all and can eat little.
We lay in until late; Gareth made toast and marmalade for breakfast and then we found a garage to weld the cracked jerry cans, checked the bikes over carefully and cleaned the air filters. Then we rested until lunch. Rested again until 3.30 then we loaded the bikes, throwing out the one water bottle and Gareth taking the tent to lighten my load, then filled up with fuel ready for an early start tomorrow, if possible before the sun gets too hot.
Reliable sources say the road from here to Moyale on the Ethiopian border is worse than from Moyoli to here and only 10ks shorter. We plan to ride slowly and carefully, caring for both ourselves and the bikes - the tyres especially because now we are without a spare front tube.
The group of 5 bikers are also leaving for Moyale tomorrow, but they travel much faster than we do so we will not suggest riding together.
They plan to reach Europe via Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, boat to Greece, boat to Italy and home. They are shunning Egypt because of its reputation for hassling overlanders. Despite my cunning self-validation of our carnets, my gut feeling is to do the same.
We will see.
Tuesday 26 February: Day 43 - 8000ks - 40%
I write this from my room in Moyale - Ethiopia. We are showered and clean (first wash with running water since Nairobi), our stomachs are full of spaghetti and hot chili sauce (called wat), I am happy and fulfilled and at peace with the world!
What is interesting writing this diary day by day is that it reflects my mood swings with the immediacy of the moment, which an account of the trip in retrospect would miss. After an intervening gap of time one tends to gloss over the hard times, the despair and sickness, and only remember the highlights. I am finding that this trip is an emotional roller-coaster, although now that we are across the equator, in a truly 'foreign' part of Africa (Kenya is still very civilized) and 40% of the way through, we are at peace about making total fools of ourselves as we were for the first few weeks. The bikes seem to have settled, although Gareth's rattles and clanks along, and my heart doesn't leap into my throat if I catch a hesitation in my engine or notice that Gareth has stopped on the side of the road behind me. Somehow, I am sure, we will make it.
Just which way we will go, though, is still a problem - I noticed today that our carnets exclude the Middle East and Greece. Back to square one.
Anyway, to today. Strangely enough, this day came close to being the best day of our entire trip so far. A joy of a road; a motor cycle traveller's delight of a road! But let me start at the beginning.
We awoke to the mournful wail of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. It was still dark outside. I had not slept well, knew it was 5am and time to get up, but lay for another 15 minutes enjoying my bed. Woke Gareth (as always - he sleeps with the pillow over his head and simply cannot wake on his own!) and we ate a breakfast of hard boiled eggs bought the evening before while we packed. Our ripped knees - ugly wounds, Gareth's flesh ground away deeply and mine ripped open and needing stitches - we bound tightly with all the bandages we have, trying to give protection in case of another fall.
The five other riders were also getting ready and, as we prepared our bikes together in the dark courtyard under the sleepy gaze of the night watchman, there was that feeling of excitement one gets when a child, getting up in the dark to prepare for a long holiday journey. By now Gareth and I are seasoned travellers (and have the wounds to prove it!), and felt able to take our place in the loose camaraderie of the group. The others decided to wait for first light and to have coffee first, but Gareth and I set off on our own, anxious to get away and make the most of the cool of morning, knowing too that we would probably be riding slower.
As we rode through the dark deserted streets, dusty and littered, I felt the old twinge of joy I so often feel when starting off the day, the unique pleasure of riding a motor bike along little-used roads through a wild and foreign country, the cool air blowing against my face, the excitement of the unknown ahead. My body had recovered well and my stomach was fine. It was good to be well again.
And then a massive Fiat truck and trailer pushed me off the road, overtook in the dark and, before he was past, cut in. My dim yellow headlight showed nothing but the clouds of dust thrown up by thundering wheels within inches of my shoulder, the road was rutted and covered with large stones and thick ridges of sand and suddenly I realised that unless I took evading action the trailer was going to hit me. Swerve into the blackness on the left and into the soft shoulder, the bike lying down with my leg under it while the truck lumbered away into the night. So much for slow and careful!
The police barrier loomed up in the darkness. Already about five trucks and trailers were lined up for the convoy. We parked and made our way to the police shack.
"When does the convoy leave?" I asked.
"Maybe 7.30 - 8," the soldier said.
Bitterly disappointed, Gareth and I sat down in the dark to wait. Around us, truck drivers were drinking sweet black tea served by a woman with a child on her back. I wished she would offer me a cup. Already the sky to the east was lightening, but a cool wind had begun to blow clouds across the sky from the east - perfect for riding.
After 10 minutes of frustrated waiting, we approached the soldier again. He told us that the shifta usually attack about 6ks down the road - and he pointed to a hill in the distance. "But they won't attack motor bikes," he assured us.
"Could we go on ahead on our own?" I asked, looking at Gareth who nodded.
"Yes," he said casually. "Once you're past that hill you should be alright."
In a trice we were on our bikes and picking our way carefully along the dark road, hoping we wouldn't come across a line of rocks blocking our way!
We passed the 6-kilometre hill as the sun rose. The semi-desert landscape was beautiful as only it can be in the late evening or early morning. We paused to look into a large volcanic crater below and to the left of the road - an eerie sight in the pale dawn light - and then on again, making good time on a smooth dirt road.
The land flattened and the semi-desert turned into pure desert - rocky and desolate, not a blade of grass and only a few stunted and dusty acacia trees to break the desolate monotony. We had entered the Chalbi Desert, the road was remarkably good and, as I rode, I thought, as I had done before in Malawi and Tanzania: This is what we came for! This is Africa - far from the tourist routes, deep into the desert, a slightly frightening but incredibly beautiful place.
And then the 5 other bikers caught us and we stopped together for a break. The Germans lit cigarettes and Greg offered around a packet of dates. What a nice bunch they have turned out to be: Greg, a Californian on a BMW 1000, two and a half years into a trans-world trip, engineer, late 20's, impish grin; Torbin, a Dane, young (23) with a long fringe over his eyes. He speaks with a laid-back drawl and smiles shyly. He rides a rat-bike - an old XL500 which he bought in South Africa, welded a rack on the back and ties everything on with ropes and straps. All the left-overs go on a frame pack on his back. Then "The Germans", two men in their late 20's and a girl. They ride a KTM 620 and a Tenere 600, both men tall and dark and big, typical trans-Africa biker types, bearded and dark-glassed! These strapping specimens make me realise that really I am too old for a trip like this and Gareth is too young! Put our ages together and divide by 2 and you get 31 - still a bit old, but I think we compliment one another.
On that point it is so good to see how Gareth and I have settled into an easy familiarity with each other - something I so badly wanted at the start of the trip. Our silences are relaxed. We speak when we need to. I no longer worry about what Gareth thinks of me. I know, as I hope he knows, how I feel about him, although we have never said. It doesn't need saying. My pride and confidence in him as a person is total and complete. He is, in most ways, a young man now and I would find it almost impossible to reprimand him or tell him off or treat him like a child. He is his own man and I am proud of him. And despite my age and Gareth's youth, the other riders have accepted us as part of them so that, after a while, the age differences no longer matter.
And so, throughout the six-hour journey into more and more desolate desert, past wild camels and delicate dik-dik who pick their way across the road as if on tip toe, and the carcasses of animals dead from the drought, we 7 riders came together and separated and came together again in that loose companionship of the road that we had heard so much about but have not experienced until today. The Germans are a small group within our group, Greg and Torbin loosely connected, having met twice before and spent some time together in Nairobi, Carl the Australian fallen by the wayside, and the two of us. We now belonged, although nothing was said. We passed through into Ethiopia together, found a guest house together, nothing formal, nothing planned, just a meeting of like minds with a similar love of motor bikes and adventure travel. I think we'll stay with them a while.
A brief comment on African border posts:
Bureaucracy, particularly third world bureaucracy, is like a game of poker played by travellers and petty officials who attempt to convince themselves and others that the charade that is played out in the scruffy little offices in the hot sun and dirt at borders really means anything! Stories of passports being examined with studious seriousness while upside down are all too real. Three, four and even five forms are filled in at various unmarked offices, each asking for exactly the same information and watched over by the same bored officials. And everyone knows that no one will ever read them or even compare the information on them.
Sometimes I deliberately fill in on the forms a variety of information sucked on the spur of the moment from my thumb. Greg sometimes filled in "Brain Surgeon" or “Nuclear Scientist” on his forms opposite Occupation.
Throughout the trip I used a fictitious address and phone number, playing the game with a calculated deference. Although, I must admit, that all officials we encountered were friendly and not once were we solicited for a bribe.
Wednesday 27 February: Day 44
The change from Kenya to Ethiopia began about 400ks from the northern Kenyan border as the rift valley vegetation faded to semi-desert and then the pure desert of Kaisut and Chalbi. Camels appeared staring contemptuously out of the bushes; English almost disappeared; the Muslim religion became prominent with Islamic verses in flowing Amharic script on the walls of small roadside shops; the features of the people became more Arab than negroid, both the men and women slight, spare of flesh, delicately boned. The women wear brightly coloured loose clothing, almost like the Indian sari, covering the head but leaving the face clear, the skin light brown and beautiful so that, against the arid and dusty landscape, the women move, carrying water and fire wood, like bright jewels that do not cease to delight the eye. The sight reminds one of Biblical pictures of women at wells, a Madonna-like serenity of movement and facial expression. Men walk about hand-in-hand in unaffected, asexual familiarity, often with a teeth-cleaning stick in their mouths like a cigar or chewing bright green leaves, a mild drug.
So far the people in Ethiopia seem very poor, many living in little huts made of bent poles covered with grass and, sadly, discarded plastic, so that they look from a distance like so many half tennis balls rather the worse for wear. There are no bicycles at all anywhere near the southern border and very few cars. In the remoter regions, men can be seen carrying spears whilst others stand silently on the roadside with old bolt-action rifles across their shoulders. They carry the weapons with such dignity that, when seeing them, there is not the fear that a man further south with a weapon in his hands would instil. But that's a purely subjective opinion and might not bear any resemblance to fact. One simply FEELS safer here.
Today is a rest day, a wash and mend clothes and repair motor bikes day. It would be so easy to fall in with the timeless life-style of these young travellers who have no ties and no timetable, but we simply can't. In a way Gareth and I have APPROACHED their lifestyle and have valued every moment of the opportunity, but we (or rather I) DO have ties and time DOES press on us. They are happy to spend 5-6 weeks, maybe 2 months in Ethiopia; we can really only spend 10-14 days. We are not on holiday; we are travelling from South Africa to Wales; my wife and daughter are waiting for us. I cannot act as if I am on holiday, as much as I would like to. It would be so easy to be drawn into their lifestyle, following the will-o-the-wisp, chasing adventure around the next corner, the world your stamping ground, meeting and parting and meeting again in another part of the continent, sharing anecdotes and experiences, a loose camaraderie, pouring over maps, "I heard about..." someone says..."Watch out for...", "they say you can get through by ship there...or maybe there...put the bike on a truck..." and the talk goes on like whispers of mist in the dawn.
So, we will probably travel with the group tomorrow and then face reality and press on to Addis Ababa as they take their more leisurely way.
Later in the afternoon, dirty and tired, 3 young women - Dutch and Israeli - arrived on a truck. They too have joined us, fellow travellers, and we share experiences together.
I will try to sleep this afternoon. I am not sleeping well at all - stifling heat and the drone of mosquitoes, constant noise from the ubiquitous and tyrannical radio, played to distort the speakers, wailing out a repetitive beat which gets into the bones. My nights are hell.
Thursday 28 February: Day 45
The Ethiopian people we have met so far have been delightfully friendly and open and seem not to suffer from the begging habit one sees so often further south, despite being desperately poor. Gareth and I have just returned to our rooms in a most pleasant guest house in Yabelo, 250ks into Ethiopia, after walking about the town.
A rather disconcerting trait of the Ethiopian children and even some adults is to shout out, the moment they see you on the street, a loud and peremptory "YOU!" (A variation of this is a rapid repetitive calling "YOUYOUYOUYOUYOU!") At first a little affronted at the seeming rudeness, our feelings were soon disarmed by the delightfully open, friendly smiles that were beamed upon us when we responded. It was engaging and special, if a little trying on the nerves, especially the loud "YOU's"! Often a child would stand close and take your hand in the street. This was a pleasant variation to the, "Hey, my friend -" with which we were greeted throughout Malawi and Tanzania and which usually was the opening gambit in an attempt to remove some of our money. I bought sweets and handed them out to a crowd of children who then followed us through the town, laughing and shouting, like Hamlen children.
The town's dusty streets were lined with typical small shops and Guest Houses and restaurants, the streets themselves clogged with goats which seem to have right of way into houses and shops and which eat anything they can find.
It was lunch time when we first arrived here and we had a huge meal of some meat which wasn't beef or lamb or pork or chicken so I didn't ask - spicy and tasty, served with a salad with vinegar dressing and two rolls. Afterwards we had a cup of sweet black tea. We left a message with the owner to direct the other bikers to our Guest House when they arrived which he did.
An interesting observation we made about the Ethiopians is that, although the people and country are poorer than their countrymen further south, the society seems to work better. The guest houses are cleaner, running water that runs, electricity that works, food that is piquant, roads in very good repair and a functioning telephone system. Our guest house has daisies and bougainvillaea and, in a corner, a grape vine growing over a trellis; a deep cistern stores water underground and a roof-tank gravity-feeds the showers. In the south, very little seems to work - "It is brokken."
Later: Supper with the Germans and Torbin the Dane (Greg has gone on ahead). Ate tasty meat and veg stew and salad and rolls and sweet black tea and discussed our travels and where we hoped to go. Gareth and I have decided to do our best to get into Sudan - probably by ship to Port Sudan from Eritrea and then to Khartoum and try to get a truck into Lybia because of the soft sand. This is the desire of our hearts. If that fails then at least we will have experienced northern Sudan; at least we will have tried. If our carnets were validated for the Middle East, then then we could try the route via Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Greece, Italy and home or even Greece and overland via Eastern Europe. We just know we are not ready to give up and ship from Eritrea to Italy; that does not fit in with the spirit of the trip.
Afterwards Gareth and I walked back to the guest house through the dark flickering streets, smelling the strange warm smells of Africa, the lamp light glowing in the little street shops, inside yellow and cosy and muttering with life. Above, a million stars so bright and so tangible one could almost touch them. The night air was cool and I am completely well again; I looked up and thanked God, as I have done so many times before, for this incredible experience He has allowed us.
Friday 29 February: Day 46
Another side of Ethiopia was revealed today as we rode 330ks north towards Addis. The weather was still delightfully cool and we followed a narrow tar road of indifferent but acceptable quality through a red land thick with thorn bushes which encroached on the road. Save for a few camels and isolated people, it was almost a deserted land - no cars, no trucks, no bicycles on the road and miles of semi-desert landscape broken by hills. Then we climbed higher to 3500m, the thorn trees gave way to eucalyptus which were imported in the early days for firewood and now taking over, the camels disappeared in favour of goats, and people and vehicles clogged the roads. It became dirty. Passing a truck filled to bursting with humanity, a man spat on me. I felt violated, not so much by his spit, but by the intention behind it, like a slap in the face, a deliberate undeserved insult. I could not help reflecting on what I had done to deserve it - my white skin perhaps, the fact that I was more wealthy? I didn't know.
It was a long day's riding and I felt again the loveliness of the road. It was so special with our new-found friends. Again, as so often before, I wanted to press on and on to home, suggest to Gareth that we ride all day and reach Addis early tomorrow morning, save a day. But then tomorrow is Saturday anyway so no visas can be obtained...
Finally we stopped at 3.30 at the town of Shashemene. No water. After a rest and a read, we walked up the main street into the bustle and the noise and the dust, horse-carts, wheel-barrows, beggars, trucks and taxis, video shops and music shops and bars and shoe-shine boys and peanut vendors and booths selling everything, and second-hand tyres piled showing their canvas, and goats. Always goats. In the branches of a dead tree overhanging the main street, about fifteen Egyptian vultures roosted and, as we walked by, a man defecated in a storm-water drain just off the main street...
Saturday 30 February: Day 47
Fifty kilometres out of Shashemene, we passed lake Langano. A dirt road led towards it but we rode on. I thought of exploring it, decided against it and then, after about a kilometre, stopped Gareth and suggested we turn back. As it was we would have reached Addis by 1.30 and, being Saturday, could really do nothing until Monday. There, alongside the lake and parked next to a massive 6X6wd MAN truck (complete with micro-lite and off-road bike) was Greg and his BMW! He was having breakfast with Brigitte and Stephen, two Germans cycling from Tunis to Cape Town, and, after coffee, Gareth suggested we stay here until tomorrow instead of pressing on to Addis. So we set up our tent, swam in the surprisingly cold lake, played boule with the German truck driver and his Ethiopian lover, lazed in the shade reading and generally living the good life! I had to keep on telling myself it was Saturday because part of me wanted to be on the road, putting distance NORTH under the tyres!
The driver of the MAN truck, Lothar, mid-30's, is also hoping to go through Sudan to Libya, also wanting to keep well clear of Egypt, but he, like us, will need a Libyan visa. His solution: "If I can't get one in Addis, I'll just fly back to Germany and get one there..." Money can do many things but, hopefully, perseverance and innovation and perhaps a little deviousness will do it too (I hope!).
It's amazing what we are learning about getting round in this world: fill in any vaccination you haven't got on your vaccination card and sign it yourself; if possible, have a stamp made and give yourself a visa; and, now that I have located Greg, (his suggestion) get hold of a colour photocopier and some cardboard of the right colour and make a complete set of carnets using his as a template with our details. We shall see.
Sunday 31 February: Day 48
Spent a pleasant evening last night with the German cyclists and Greg eating soup and drinking strong black coffee (which Gareth calls "wake-up juice"!), solving the problems of the world.
This Ethiopian coffee (called Boona), served black and sweet in small handle-less cups, is the most delicious I have ever tasted. The Ethiopians themselves claim that coffee was first introduced to the world from their country and are rightly proud of it. The drinking of it is sometimes elevated to the realms of ritual, a process which takes about an hour and involves grinding the roasted beans and brewing the coffee over a slow charcoal fire, the room hazy with pungent incense, the mud floor of the hut covered with aromatic leaves and straw.
The 220ks to Addis were completed without incident on a blustery day, the wind whipping up dust and hazing the distance. The road was flat, bumpy and pot-holed, the pedestrians and animals and trucks and taxi drivers suicidal as usual.
Addis is a sprawling town set amongst hills and, after numerous enquiries (roads are not named in Addis) we found the Bel Air Hotel, haunt of trans-Africa travellers. Sphagetti for lunch in the Encounter Overland "garden" where we met Yo-Yo, the Encounter Overland driver, a Frenchman, who sports a T-shirt with copulating red devils on the front. While we were eating, Greg arrived on the BMW and, about twenty minutes later, Lothar in the MAN truck.
We are all going to a Bob Marley remembrance concert in town this afternoon.
Monday 1 March: Day 49
The Bob Marley concert (with four of his children billed as special attractions) was typically and predictably a farce. We travelled into town in a rickety taxi of Russian make, half-turn play on the steering wheel, roof separating from the body, meandering our way between cars and pedestrians (the driver using the "Who Dares Wins" philosophy practised here in this country!). At the "stadium" there was a great deal of noise, a few thousand people, Rasta flags and enthusiastic calls for peace, love and brotherhood. Oh, yes, there was some execrable music too. Of course, none of the Marley family arrived. Greg suggested the organisers had been smoking too much dagga and forgot to invite them...
This morning after a cup of ginger tea, Gareth and I hired a taxi and set off for the Sudanese Embassy. It was closed off by a sheet-metal gate, but as we arrived a small door opened and we were ushered inside and led to a tatty gate house. Here, instead of signing a book and proceeding to the embassy, we filled in badly photocopied forms, left two photos and were told all should be well in 2-3 days - they just needed to fax Khartoum. Why a fax should take 2-3 days and why we filled in the forms in the gate house I did not enquire, but that is Africa.
Next, the Libyan Embassy. Again we were met at a sheet-metal gate.
"Wait, I will ask," the gate-keeper responded to my query concerning a visa.
Ten minutes later: "The Libyan consul is away at a meeting. You can come back in twenty days -" (I joke not!)
Needless to say I argued for a long time, not losing my temper, requested permission to speak to someone face to face (he offered a telephone number) but to no avail. All diplomatic activity at the Libyan Embassy has ceased for 20 days and I am not allowed to speak in person with anyone. Again, this is Africa...
And so, it is another two-day wait. I find myself getting increasingly frustrated at the delays - I just want to be on the road, making progress, and yet every day's travel seems to be hindered by bureaucratic delay. Our way seems clear into Sudan, but there is no guarantee that we'll get through to Libya. This kind of uncertainty is most frustrating because, if we are blocked at the Sudan border, we will have to return to Ethiopia and try again elsewhere, with equally no guarantee of success. As it is, we can't get into Sudan from Eritrea, but have to back track to Ethiopia and enter via Gondar - the only border crossing open. But this will necessitate a re-entry visa into Ethiopia. Furthermore, Lothar is planning to go the same route as us in the MAN truck, but his timetable is much more relaxed so will be even slower. I would love to travel the Sudan/Libya route with him, but feel that he will be taking too much time. We need to get on.
Tuesday 2 March: Day 50
This morning we headed south for 90ks, following a small road inland which led to a village at the foot of Mt Zukwala, an extinct volcano 3700m high. We were directed to a track which wound and zig-zagged steeply for 10ks right to the top where there is a functioning Coptic mission complete with large round church and dormitories for 400 monks. Blissfully unaware, we visited the women's dormitory village overlooking the crater lake and were invited into a large room. Inside were mud ovens and stoves cooking injera, the sponge-rubber-like bread made in large thin discs the size of a tea tray, made from fermented teff. Not a word of English was spoken, but we were invited to sit and offered injera and delightfully cool water. Old women watched us with shy smiles through the smoke which hazed the room, high-ceilinged and unfurnished except for the raised mud platform around one side on which we were sitting, the hard clay softened by a folded goat skin. In one corner was a pile of cooked rounds of injera at least a foot high.
I asked permission to take a photo but was politely refused. Attempting to take photographs of scenes like this always makes me feel like a brash tourist boorishly intruding on personal lives, but photos ARE an important reminder of the beauty of one's experiences and, although I always try to get permission for a personal photo, even if granted there is always a sense of intrusion.
Once outside, an old man met us and led us down to the lake. He informed us he was a Christian, pointing to the Coptic cross around his neck. One's religion here is very much something to be declared, people often opening a conversation by declaring themselves Christian or Moslem, and inside homes and shops will be scripts from the Koran painted on walls or gaudy pictures of Jesus or Mary or St George slaying a plump dragon which lies on its back and seems to beg for mercy...
The lake was blue and tranquil and surrounded by large pines. Standing in the silence of the bowl it was difficult to imagine that thousands of feet below on every side, the land stretched flat and yellow, the ground stubbled with the remains of the teff harvest, large yellow hay stacks like loaves of bread outside each small habitation and cows with their muzzles tied threshing the pinhead-size grain from the straw.
Close to the lake a thick mat of grass floated on the water which undulated as we walked on it. From the surrounding trees the hoarse choking sound of a bird echoed like the cough of a baboon.
We free-wheeled down the mountain because Gareth was low on fuel. From the village came the sound of a stationery engine which we located. It was milling a mixture of grains brought in small sacks by women, the miller pale with dust in the shadowy room. The engine was Polish and Gareth inspected it with his usual interest.
Then back to Addis where I phoned the Sudanese Embassy. "No reply yet, maybe tomorrow or the next day..."
And so, once again, we wait.