Day 29 - Feb 6

Today was the beginning of the climb.  We climbed 1,300 meters today.  It was a good cycling day.  

It is amazing how the landscape has changed.  Like when we crossed the border from Egypt to Sudan, the dramatic difference between Sudan and Ethiopia is dramatic.  It turned from desert and fairly flat to hilly and very quickly mountainous.  After all Ethiopia is known as the rooftop of Africa.

The beginning part of the day was rolling hills with fair climbs but good declines.  Then the afternoon turned into some serious climbs, long in duration and tough in degree.  There was one climb that kept on going with a 10 percent grade.  Had to take iit down to the lowest gears to make it up that baby!

The kids in Ethiopia are more aggressive than Sudan.  When coming into a village, the kids come running from everywhere.  They swarm the street and start yelling...

You, you, you, you  or  where you go, where you go  or  the ever popular... Money, money, you give money.

Today only a couple of rocks thrown.  :)   The tour guides say more is going to come and the kids will become very aggressive.  Boy, can't wait!

Tomorrow is the big climb day, 2,678 meters of climbing.  I have never attempted such climbing before.  We  will end up above 12,000 feet in elevation by end of tomorrow.  Tour guides are warning about altitude sickness because no one will be used to that. 

 

View from our camp.  The mountains surrounded the camp.

 

Sunset over the trees over the ridge of camp.

Day 28 - Feb 5

Today we left the dirt road and got back on the pavement!  YAY!  Or at least happier.  The pavement was a good upgrade to what we have been on but it was the rough chip seal like we ran into through most of Texas.  

It was a very good day of riding despite the rough chip seal surface.  I started out a bit slow but then started to listen to some of my songs that I had stored.  The pace began to quicken and the bike dancing commenced.  :)

I began passing one rider after another.  Speeding along, dipping and weaving to the music.  It was fabulous.  The kilometers melted before the fidelity of the music.  It was a wonderful thing.  Pretty quickly before I even knew it I had danced away 60 kilometers.  

After lunch it was a quick 34k to the Sudanese border.  We got a quick interrogation and forms filled out and checked and then on the way to the Ethiopian border.  There we were checked for Ebola, finger printed and then off we go.

Once on the Ethiopian side we rode through the town of Metema.  Imagine a border town where on one side it is hard line Islamic law with women having the traditional burka and no alcohol sold or consumed.  The other side of the border is a wide open place eager to satisfy all the pent up vice the Islamic side has suppressed....  that is Metema.  There were bars, stores of all kinds and rooms that you could rent by the hour (accompaniment supplied).  Fairly decadent little town.

Once past the border I was riding for about 4k and heading up a hill towards our camp site.  A pickup truck jeep thing passed me with about 6-8 guys in the back of the truck.  They were all armed with AK47s.  They passed me but stopped farther up the hill.  My first thought was... I am about to be robbed.  They turned their truck around and started to head back towards the border town.  I was relieved... no robbery today.  But then about 50 yards ahead of me they pulled their truck across the road blocking the way.  A guy got out of the passenger side and pulled his semi automatic pistol out and waived it for me to stop.  Also, one of the Ak47 lads jumped out of the back and joined him.  They were yelling things in Arabic and waiving their weapons gesturing to stop.  There was not a uniform, official cap, ensignea or anything official in the group.  So I gestured that I did not comprehend and pedaled faster passing the two nice gentleman.  By now I was about 400 meters to the campsite.  I did not turnaround to look but I did hear yelling.  I pulled off the road at the campsite at a breakneck pace and blew out a tire.  I quickly told the staff member ... We have a problem!  By now the truck full of armed men had pulled into the camp.   The staff member quickly called the Ethiopian interpreter.  Words were exchanged and they pulled their truck off to the side.  Pretty soon a couple of other vehicles showed up with beers, water, sodas and juice for sale.  Also a man who would convert US dollars to Ethiopian Birrs.  We had our own black market.  The interpreter said they were "militia".  Instead of robbing me they found a better means of commerce.  So the story ended happily!

Milestone ALERT

Just finished my second country!  I just crossed the border of Sudan and am now in Ethiopia!

Day 27 addition

I have been staying in fairly good contact with buying SIM cards.  Sudan has been a bit of a challenge as posting a new entry has taken up to 12 hours to load.  But once I get to Ethiopia it will even be a bigger challenge for the first couple of days at least.  Very little SIM card availability and only one phone company. I will try my darnedest but we shall see.

Day 27 - Feb 4

Day 27 - Feb 4

Today was a great day before the heat started cooking.  The roads were still dirt but were more worthy of the term road than yesterday's.  It was a bit of a rough start in that the directions out of camp were not the clearest.  There were groups of cyclists heading all over the place.  A group of us headed out and were cycling for about 6-7 kilometers when we realized we were heading north and west, back the way we came from yesterday.  So turnaround we did and back to camp to get the real start.  Once we got on track the morning and early afternoon went splendid.  The roads were rough but doable, the scenery beautiful, the little villages fantastic.  One village I stopped my bike and was swarmed with kids.  There had to be over 40 kids.  Once they saw a cyclist stop they came running.  I showed them how my bike worked.... brakes stopping the rolling wheel, the gears changing, the bike computer kilometers and per hour.  They would all break out in laughter and scream. You would have thought I was doing magic tricks.  When we come through a village you would swear the carnival just came to town by the excitement in the village.

One village we rode through I would yell ...  Hello, Hello. And the kids would come running chanting Hello, Hello!  When I would answer them with Hello, Hello they would all run away screaming.  Then they would turn around a come running Hello, Hello!  And on and on it went.  They would all laugh and carry on.  It was really cool.

The sun has set and the moon is rising.  I wish you could see it.  It is almost full and is a red orange color coming up over the trees.   Beautiful!!!  What a perfect end to the day!

The tour rider sweep getting people back on track at the start of the day.

The village at the start of the day.

This is the way the women carry just about everything.

A camel grazing just by the side of the road.

Some of the kids from the village.

Kids looking at us as we made a coke stop.

Day 26 - Feb 3

Amazingly enough the roads today were worse than those yesterday.  I did not think it possible but it is true. The roads were really only truly passable with a mountain bike with front and rear shocks, a shock or spring integrated into the frame and greater than 50 mm tires.  Of those I have none!  I went down 4 times.  You ride along looking for a navigable path on the trail (notice I am ceasing to call it a road).  Either you are in the wash out area fighting pre rutted dried mud tracks from the last rain or you are trying to ride high on the side looking for the non corrugated surface.  You have to pay diligent attention at all times or you are going down.  You will be going along trying to pick up any kind of speed (10-12 kph) when you hit a patch were the sand and or dirt has accumulated from the fierce wind.  Once you hit that your front wheel is grabbed by it and either stopped or turned violently.... and over you go.  I am sore and bumped and bruised.  At one point I was down, still clipped into the bike and it was on top of me.  I think villagers a couple of miles away heard me.....  f#%^ this!!!

Even the TDA truck got stuck for hours trying to navigate through some of it. 

I gave up the ghost when my calculations showed that at 10 kph I would not get into camp until after dinner.  Enough I said...  that and it was going to top 120 degrees and the headwind was gaining in strength.  The even better news is that tomorrow is to be more of the same!  Yay!!!

But on to the good part of the day...  We were riding through a village and saw a building where I heard children reciting.  I took a picture and the teacher came out invited us in.  It was magical!  He said he spoke English but he quickly exhausted his 10 words.  There had to be more than 20 kids.  One side of the room was boys and the other girls.  They just kept saying Thank You.  I responded with Your Welcome but they did not comprehend that.  This was a huge event for them.  The teacher took pictures with us as well as the kids.  Then when we were leaving they sang us a song.  I have it on video, it is precious.  But I can't post it to the blog unfortunately.  It was one of those moments I will always remember.  Magical!  What a day...

The village of the school.

The school, kids and teacher.

One of the little school girls.

Another of the school girls.

A sheep herder controlling his flock from a camel.

Day 25 - Feb 2

Today was the hardest day I have ever spent on a bike.  I really mean it.  It was so hot and we rode into a headwind that was 20+ mph.  We rode 88 kilometers which is about 55 miles.  When I first saw the length of today's ride on the board last night my thought was, great a short day to get used to the off road.  Oh was I wrong.  It took me just at 8 hours to go 88k.  I rode between 8 & 16 kph (5 & 10 mph).  The wind and the road (I am being very kind calling what we were on a road) just took all of the speed potential out but required huge amounts of energy just to keep going. 

I know many of my coast to coast riding buddies will say...  couldn't be worse than the times we rode in west Texas with the headwinds.  I will answer that by saying take west Texas temperatures up 30 to 40 degrees, take the road out and replace it with dirt, loose gravel and a corrugated surface like a washboard and you have my ride today.  We were riding in 120 degree heat again.  It is now 7 pm and still above 100 degrees.  OUCH!

But the ride route was great.  I thought that we have been out in the middle of nowhere on the roads we have been riding.  But today gave a new meaning to nowhere.  The loose gravel dirt roads took us to places that time has forgotten.  We road thru villages with thatched roof huts with mud walls and market squares where you could film period pieces from 1800 early English colonial days.  When we would ride into a village within a minute or two we were thronged with people.  Everyone would come to see the foreigners who road in from nowhere.  They wanted to get a picture with us to share with the others.  We could not stay long because we were so mobbed.  

Africa is a very hard place.  It is unforgiving and cruel.  I do not know how these people make a living or an existence out here.  Each day of their lives is a struggle for survival.  Someone said the life expectancy here is early 40's.  

This dirt road has taken us out to areas that give definition to the term in the middle of nowhere.  I have seen it and it is tough.

This is the road thru a small village.

This is the dominant made of transportation.  You do not see bikes as a mode because the roads are tough to walk let alone try to ride.

This is one of the riders I was riding with as he was trying to get out of the throng to get going.

This is a village.  It is on the railroad line.  But the railroad stopped running a very long time ago.

Day 24 - Feb 1

Today turned out to be a 100/118 day instead of the 100/100.  We road 100 miles in 118 degree heat!!!  Yay! 

It was 2 degrees cooler than yesterday.  But today even though longer was an easier day.  Instead of a day long headwind, we had a moderating cross wind to tailwind.  The roads at times were the dreaded chip seal roads or even no road and were jarringly unnerving.  But when the tailwind would come up...  Yippy off to the races.

It is hard to imagine for those up north with blizzard warnings and sub zero temperatures but it is blistering hot down here.  The asphalt is radiating the heat back up at you and the wind is so hot it feels like a blast furnace.  It is not something that you would say.... Hey let's go for a 50 mile bike ride.  :)

For some of my coast to coast riding friends, unlike our trip across the US where we had SAG stops every 18-22 miles with cokes and cold water and snacks...  Here you leave in the morning and ride 50 miles and you have a lunch stop.  Then you ride the rest of the day to the camp site.  When you come to a village you look for a coke stop.  Since they are in the middle of no where, the coke and or water is usually luke warm but it tastes so good anyway.  And lastly as of yesterday on this trip we have ridden enough miles to have put us past the half way point across the US ... i.e.  the boot fence

This trip is way more primitive than the trip across the US.  As the tour company says...  if we made the days shorter and the roads were better and the conditions more suitable anyone could do it.  They want to preserve the Epic nature of the trip.  Thank goodness, I wouldn't want to be comfortable or anything.  :)

Back to today...  all in all a really good day.  I almost got run off the road by a huge bus that as passing a truck.  He was in my lane a coming on fast.  He honked the horn and was mad that I was there.  We rode through so many small villages and towns. I still can't get over how we attract so much attention.  They line the street or crowd around us in a market.  Everyone wants to get a look at us.  We are downright popular when we hit town.

The only real shade tree for miles

A herd of cattle that just about came right thru our camp.

After the cattle came thru this bull came up to the tents and started scraping the ground with his hoof.  He was trying to tell us we set up camp on his domain.  

Day 23 - Jan 31

Yesterday was the rest day in Khartoum.  I had grand plans for seeing the sites and the city but unfortunately it was not meant to be.  I thought I had beaten the illness and was ready to go.  But as soon as I ate, it was like feeding the beast.  I got deathly sick again.  Even up to last night.  I felt fairly good so I ate a big meal to prepare for the days ahead.  Bad choice... I got so sick, I sat on the toilet and held the waste can.  The medics advice to this point was... let your body get rid of it on its own.  At that point I said enough is enough.  I took a massive dose of antibiotics, anti nausea and anti diaharea medicine.   The diaharea medicine makes you drowsy so off to sleep I went.  By morning I felt much better.  So my rest day was spent around close proximity to the "facilities".

I felt so good this morning that I road 90 miles into a headwind all day and heat that reach 120 degrees!  Needless to say it was a long, tough, hot day.  I felt good and fairly strong.  So strong that I road cover for a couple of people who were in trouble with the wind and heat.  Most of the afternoon I rode point and let the draft pull the others along.  Hey, when you have it go with it!

This section of the tour is the toughest of the entire trip as per the head tour director.  It is an eight day stretch without a break.  It starts off with the 90 mile day today, followed by a 100 mile day tomorrow.  Then we have to change tires because we are are going off road for three days.  Then we are back on road and cross into Ethiopia.  The last two days of the eight start the climbing.  Day 7 is a 1,000 meter climbing day of 60 miles and day 8 is a 2,500 meter climb and 64 miles long.

To give you an idea of the climb over the next 15 riding days...  We will have a total of 14,940 meters of total climbing.  That equates to 9.3 miles of up or 49,015 feet or like climbing Mount Everest one and two thirds times in 15 days!  All this in 100+ degree heat...  Oh this is going to be fun!!!  And as everyone is saying, and we are paying to do this!  

Plastic is the demise of the African landscape.  Plastic bags are blowing around everywhere.  I call them the African Tumbleweed.

There is certainly no Department of Transportation enforcing any load codes on trucks.  So many are overloaded and dangerous like this truck.

The landscape and roads have changed since Khartoum.  The roads are so much worse, something akin to the chip seal roads of West Texas combined with the potholes of a post Chicago winter.  The vegetation has become more common and the sand is giving way to dirt and rock.

Well I need to get some rest to be able to tackle tomorrow's 100/100...  100 miles in 100 mile heat!

Day 21 - Jan 29

Well things have solidified for me to an extent if you know what I mean.  I have been taking some anti nausea pills which has brought back my appetite somewhat.  So I am on the mend!

I road the 87 kilometers into Khartoum today.  We did this before lunch.  The closer we came to Khartoum the more the desert was giving up its bareness to acacia trees and scrub bushes.  We had to pass thru several police check points on the road.  They were no big deal because the tour company had already gotten approval for us to pass.  But at one check point there was not only the typical police/military with their small arms and AK47's but just a bit past it was a soldier manning a heavy weapons anti tank/anti aircraft gun.  From what we hear things are heating up here in Sudan.  Doctors Without Borders has ordered all of their people out of the country.  The Blue Nile region is the hotspot as the government supposedly bombed a hospital.  We had to get special Visa Permits when we entered Sudan to be able to take photos.  Part of the Visa spells out that we are not to take photos that are unflattering to Sudan.  And that the police can check our cameras at any time and confiscate them if unflattering photos are found.  I guess that is to control photo journalists.

Well back to the journey into Khartoum...  We had an escort from the Tourism Police when we got to Khartoum.  We had to all gather up and cycle as a tight group with police vehicles front and back as well as others rushing ahead to close off intersections.  We were the event of the year as we entered.  People all stopped and watched as we rode by.  We created one helluva traffic mess.  We passed through very rural markets and shops as we entered the city proper.  When we came to the bridge crossing the Blue Nile... large modern high rise buildings appeared.  It looked like two completely different cities.  One was very poor and third worldly and the other a rich modern one.  It will be interesting to explore it tomorrow.

I am going to rest tomorrow as I am not all the way back to the pink of it as yet.  So i am not sure how much i am going to see.  I am getting a hotel room rather than camping for the rest day. Oh a hotel!!! A room with a real toilet, not a desert you have to dig a hole in or a hole in the floor that you have to strategically hit.  And a bed... this time with a box spring and a mattress.  The simple things of life.

Day 20 - Jan 28

Had a rough night and day today.  I could strangle the little bottle refilling bugger.  I made many "runs" (no pun intended) out to my favorite tree last night to dig a hole and make a deposit.  I marked them by putting a rock on top, that way I wouldn't dig up any prior treasures.  By morning it looked like I had a neat little rock garden.  If I were in need of a colonoscopy, I would be ready to go.    (Only those that have had one would understand). Can't be anything left in there.

Couldn't quite get my self to eat breakfast as the thought of food was unsettling.  I did east a hard boiled egg as I thought it would be quite neutral.  It sat in there like a lead brick.  I did go for the ride today because the thought of just sitting around and riding the truck seemed like a bad idea.  I made it to the lunch stop at 87 kilometers but that was all she wrote.  I stopped at a coke stop about 10K before that because something sweet sounded so good.  I drank about half of the coke and decided that wasn't such a good idea after all.  A couple of hundred yards from the coke stop the lead brick of a hard boiled egg and the coke started a fight in my stomach.  Not sure who won but they both made a break for it on the side of the road.  That cemented my decision to ride no further past the lunch stop.  Well that and it was already in the 90"s, it was heading to well over a hundred and the wind was picking up sand and starting to sand blast.  I feel confident I made the right decision for me.  I heard the voice of my daughter in my head... Now Dad don't be silly and keep going after EFI, you need to take care of yourself and be safe.    So safe I am, take care of myself I did.  :)

Now on to a more positive note...

Here is a picture of Africa's version of a one room school house.  The teacher is teaching a class of boys from the area.  Saw this as I was riding this morning.  The girls are not taught in the same class as boys.

As we are riding along we periodically see groups of camels grazing and feeding on the trees and shrubs.  It appears as though they are wild and roaming as there are no houses or dwellings nearby.

Yesterday we stopped in a local market/bizarre/souk.  It was definitely not a market where they see westerners or women.  Myself and a woman from the trip went into the market.  We were the talk of the place.  People would come from other parts of the area to see the foreigners in the market.  The woman I visited the market with asked if I saw any other women there.  No not a one.  We saw many little nooks of goods for sale.  This market apparently was for all the area people to bring their wares to sell to the other locals.  The butcher had meat hanging on hooks out in the open in the blazing sun and covered in flies.  I watched the butcher sharpening his knife then wipe it off with a clothe.  Then he blew his nose in the clothe, sharpened his knife some more and then wipe his knife with the clothe again.  The health standards are at a different level here.  Brings back the thought of that saying...  whatever doesn't kill you will make you stronger.  They are not dead so they must be ever so strong!

Day 19 -Jan 27

Welcome to hell... or should I say Dante's Inferno.  Last night just before midnight it was still 80 degrees in my tent.  A situation that falls in the category of less than ideal for a good nights sleep.  I finally got to sleep around one.  Then at 4:30 the Islamic call to prayer started over the loud speakers from a mosque in a nearby village.  Well it really isn't the call to prayer.  What it is, is the alert that in a half hour the call to prayer is to happen.  That lasts about 10 minutes.  Then the real call to prayer happens at 5:00 and last for 15 minutes.  This morning was special because someone's alarm went off at 5:45.  Beep-beep,  Beep-beep,  beep-beep.  Well you get the gist of it.  It went on for 5 minutes, it went on for 10 minutes and at 15 minutes I got to the point of ... that's all's I can stands and I can't stands no more.  So I said in a direct voice....  Would somebody turn off their alarm already!!!  There might have been a couple of different words in there.  It was a topic of conversation in the camp and people were guessing as to who did it.  Rather than let the blame fall on the innocent, I stepped up to it.  People said it was deserved and they had been wishing it would stop but....  The comments were that the message was delivered with a certain tone to it.  Oh well, I guess I will have to work on my tone extraction techniques.  But people said they doubt an alarm will go off for a time again!

Back to welcome to hell...  In the afternoon of today's ride the bike computers thermometer read 49 degrees Celsius.  For the non metric peoples that is 120 degrees.  Holy hell it was hot out there today.  89 miles in the heat.  Tomorrow is 90 miles and it is supposed to be hotter.  So eat your heart out all of you stuck in winter with snow and sub zero temps!

And lastly,  a medical update.  The little boy with the hose refilling water bottles at the coke stop and selling them as new, got me.  Let's just say the bottom is falling out of my market.  And we are in a desert camp with no bathroom facilities, heck no nothing...  running water or anything.  So off I go into the desert at a fairly quick pace to dig a hole to do my business, on a regular basis.

:(