Maggie's Rambles

Sleeping location: Asheton Hotel, Lalibela, Ethiopia Distance (km today/total): 42 / 10780 Estimated climb (m today/total): 500 / 74700 Descent spoiled by being on dirt: 90% Day in three words: A Christmas miracle ‘Twas two nights before Christmas And in the mud house Something was nibbling - A cheeky wee mouse It was Christmas Eve and we really wanted to get to Lalibela, 80km away, by the end of the day, so we set the alarm for 6am and got away for 7am. On going to make coffee I realised that something had nibbled a hole in one of the squeezy bottles I use to store olive oil, the little rascal. By the time we left the village was up and they helped us with the bikes before saying goodbye. They were so nice to us and their beautiful little mountaintop village will live long in our memories. We still had 2km of the climb left, and launched straight into a concerted steep section to get there. I had to do a few bits of pushing but it wasn’t too bad an end to things. At the to...

Sleeping location: Mud hut in unknown village, 12.06N 39.23E, Ethiopia Distance (km today/total): 27 / 10738 Estimated climb (m today/total): 1400 / 74200 Mountain completed: 40/42km Day in three words: Dirt is pain We were awoken by the chickens parading round the tent and the baby goat frolicking, which certainly beats an alarm clock. We decided to have breakfast a little way down the road so they didn’t feel like they had to give us any more food, so we packed up and left pretty quickly. The matriarch wouldn’t accept the money we offered, but we did manage to give them some Sudanese popcorn, which was hopefully a nice treat for them. They were absolutely lovely and further proof of the cliche that those who have the least usually give the most.  Unfortunately out breakfast plan was foiled by Rebecca realising she had developed a flat tyre overnight. To avoid the awkwardness of fixing it right next to their compound, we wheeled the bikes round a couple of corners and...

Sleeping location: Family compound, 12.19N 39.53E, Ethiopia Distance (km today/total): 88 / 10711 Estimated climb (m today/total): 800 / 72800 Mountain completed: 13/42km Day in three words: A generous climb We both slept atrociously due to a combination of a nearby disco and the room absolutely teeming with mosquitos. This culminated in me going on a 3am rampage with a flip flop, during which I killed seven of the little bastards but still missed loads. The music stopped around 4am, having played for about six hours without once altering the beat. The music production software they use here must be a trial version with only limited drum samples.  In the morning we made lots of bathroom coffee in an attempt to wake up, and got away for 9am. On the way out of town we stopped to get some bananas and a man tried to “take” a “photo” of us with a phone that clearly did not have a camera on it.  The morning’s cycling was very nice, across a flat plain with a slight downhill...

Sleeping location: Something Pension, Mehoni, Ethiopia Distance (km today/total): 72 / 10623 Estimated climb (m today/total): 1200 / 72000 Capsized trucks: 2 Day in three words: The wicked rollercoaster Before we set off we fixed some tinsel to our bikes in an attempt to get into the Christmas spirit, it being 21st December already. The fact that it’s a bit cold here definitely helps with the festive feeling.  On the way out of town I got an escort from two boys on bikes, who loved keeping up with me until the hill started, plus some really young kids started chanting “Chi-na! Chi-na!” as we went past. A good start to the day.  The aforementioned hill was a medium sized ‘un, starting off gradually up a river valley through beautiful craggy mountains, then ramping up away from the valley along some steep sections with short descents in between. It took a couple of hours and was hard work, but it was all very beautiful. On the way up were two capsized trucks within ...

Sleeping location: Something Pension, Hiwane, Ethiopia Distance (km today/total): 56 / 10551 Estimated climb (m today/total): 600 / 70800 Dirt sections on 56km of Ethiopia’s apparent second biggest road: 4 Day in three words: That Friday feeling We had another lie in and a leisurely breakfast before finally accepting that it was time to leave, even though we didn't want to, and my stomach still didn’t seem quite right. We had such a good time here, it was a real home away from home to restore some energy. Sadly Saba’s relative had been killed in a road accident the day before so she wasn’t around to say goodbye, but we had a nice farewell with Chris and both parties got some pictures for the memory banks. We set off straight into a huge, very steep hill on the way out of town. It hurt us both after almost six days off the bikes. But still, it was nice to be riding again. Everything was super smooth after the drivetrain replacement, apart from the fact that my rear derailleur ...

Sleeping location: Asimba guesthouse, Mekele, Ethiopia Distance (km today/total): 1 / 10495 Estimated climb (m today/total): 0 / 70200 New components: shiny Day in three words: Much needed rest We set the alarm so we could have breakfast with Beth and Sean before their early transfer to Lalibela. It has been lovely to spend time with some familiar faces, not to mention a lot of fun. They headed off about 8.30am and we promptly went back to bed until noon - might as well make the most of this luxury whilst we’re here. After this we moved the bikes into the garden and set about trying to fit the new chainrings and cassettes that Beth had brought out for us. Immediately it became clear that I didn’t have the right tools for the job, and also no idea of how to remove our cranks, which did not work in the same way as the ones on the internet articles. I asked Chris if he had a torque wrench, which he did not, but he knew a guy who knew a guy who said he’d send a guy over with some to...

Sleeping location: Asimba guesthouse, Mekele, Ethiopia Distance (km today/total): 0 / 10494 Estimated climb (m today/total): 0 / 70200 Planet Dalol is on: unknown Day in three words: Colours are wrong Sleep was terrible due to all manner of noises and disturbances and some lost earplugs, and we were woken up at 4am for some more driving. I was so very tired. We had breakfast about 90 minutes of dark bumpy roads (no sleep) down the road, then set off again in daylight, down through a valley of folded and twisted rock shapes onto a wide open plain. We travelled for an hour or so across rocky desert, then turned off the tarmac road onto sandy desert. Abruptly everything went white and we entered a vast salt plain. It was incredibly flat and uniform. Our driver Terry/Teday took this opportunity to drive across it at 120kph, not on any kind of defined track - classic Terry/Teday.  In the middle of the salt was a big rocky red mound called Dalol. We parked the cars and walked up...

Sleeping location: Unknown guesthouse, Abala, Ethiopia Distance (km today/total): 0 / 10494 Estimated climb (m today/total): 0 / 70200 Driving: approx 8hrs Day in three words: Rock, salt, kids We were awoken at 5.30am to walk back up to the crater. In the dawn light we could properly see its size; it was maybe 100m across and 50m deep, with sheer sides. This crater, and other smaller ones, were all inside a much bigger crater that was maybe 1km across. Each of these are remnants of previous eruptions, which there are a lot of. We walked up a small peak caused by a previous eruption and watched the sun rise over the lava field of swirling black shapes. In the distance were smoking vents and another patch of glowing lava. It was an incredible landscape, lifeless and like another planet.  After an hour we asked back down to “base camp” and had breakfast, which involved loads of pancakes, then drove back along the dirt road to the tarmac road. Instead of going back west we wen...

Sleeping location: Near the top of Erta Ale volcano, Ethiopia Distance (km today/total): 0 / 10494 Estimated climb (m today/total): 0 / 70200 Lava lakes in the world: 8 Day in three words: Gate to hell  Breakfast at the guesthouse was very tasty and we shovelled down muesli, bread, jam, honey eggs and coffee like we hadn’t eaten such things for months, which we hadn’t. We were picked up about quite early for the tour of the Danakil Depression we were going on with Beth and Sean, but due to a load of faff we didn’t actually leave town until late morning. The four of us were in a 4x4 with our driver, who had a name sort of like Teday but we mainly called him Terry as he seemed more like a Terry. We drove up out of Mekele then down a gradual, then less gradual, descent down a road that would have been incredible on a bike. The landscape was a very beautiful one of vigorously rolling hills down into rifts and cliffs. We came out on a flat plain at 1500m and stopped for lunch ...

Sleeping location: Asimba Guesthouse, Mekele, Ethiopia Distance (km today/total): 84 / 10494 Estimated climb (m today/total): 1000 / 70200 Treats: whisky, wine, big bed Day in three words: Last before rest Today was the last of the 15 straight days we have cycled since Khartoum, which we had to do in order to get to Mekele in time to meet my friends Beth and Sean, who are backpacking around Ethiopia for a couple of weeks. The day started with a decent breakfast but the hotel inexplicably didn’t have coffee, so we brewed up in the bathroom using the stove. Freweyni was absolutely bustling this Saturday morning, and there were lots of buses with yellow flags heading south for a celebration that we never managed to get to the bottom of. Early in the riding Rebecca decided that she was going slowly so we agreed to split up and meet in Mekele. The first 20km was pretty uneventful gently rolling farmland. It was blustery but mostly from the side so not too much of a problem. I wasn’t ...

Sleeping location: Ado Hotel, Freweyni, Ethiopia Distance (km today/total): 106 / 10410 Estimated climb (m today/total): 2100 / 69200 Climbs: infinite Day in three words: The Super Bowls The singing from last night was still going on when I woke up at 2am. We aren’t even sure why this is going on, it doesn’t seem to be a religious holiday and it’s Thursday/Friday. In the morning we awoke to the election results, which were disastrous for a leftie like me but strangely I didn’t really care. I don’t love, or even really like, Britain any more and being out of the country makes everything feel less important.  We set off a bit too late considering we were aiming to do over 100km through some very mountainous terrain. Hopefully this wouldn’t cause issues later in the day.* Things kicked off with some medium sized climbs and descents, and on the second of the climbs we were caught up by a local cyclist called Armani, who was riding a very nice Italian carbon bike. He cycled alo...

Sleeping location: Unknown hotel, Enticho, Ethiopia Distance (km today/total): 69 / 10304 Estimated climb (m today/total): 800 / 67100 Views: infinite Day in three words: Superlatives be damned For breakfast we had the spare meal from last night, which was required because apparently our double room only came with one breakfast. We hate this hotel. They then had the cheek to ask us to deliver a letter to their sister hotel in Mekele, for free, which apparently contained a “passport”. We declined. In the morning Rebecca relaxed and I went for a walk around Aksum. The old area was pretty nice, with cobbled streets and colourful houses, and one big square had an absolutely enormous tree in the middle of it which must have been centuries old. There’s a lot of history but most of the remnants weren’t that impressive to look at, especially compared to Egypt. From town I walked up quite cobbled paths into the countryside. It was very pretty and peaceful. At the top of a hill were ama...

Sleeping location: Romadi Hotel, Aksum, Ethiopia Distance (km today/total): 65 / 10235 Estimated climb (m today/total): 800 / 66300 Red balloons: 99 Day in three words: Hills are alive The hotel breakfast was an omelette sandwich, which made a change from injera for once, but bizarrely didn’t include coffee. We left them setting up the ceremony and went out to buy some snacks, then came back to find that the ceremony was still in its early stages. At this point Samuel from yesterday showed up and made things happen, then we sat with him and had coffee. He told us a bit about his life, which was slightly garbled but sounded quite remarkable. His father was a Derg* soldier who he never met, which suggests he might have been the result of a rape. His early life wasn’t fun and he ran away from home when he was about 8, to Gondar, 300km away. Here he was homeless and hooked on weed and khat, before a Dutch nun found him and put him in an orphanage. Now she sponsors him and he has a j...

Sleeping location: Unknown hotel, Shire, Ethiopia Distance (km today/total): 79 / 10170 Estimated climb (m today/total): 1500 / 65500 Net climb: 1000m Day in three words: Long way up We were awoken pretty early by a combination of the room’s insufficient curtains and someone driving a pickup truck around the courtyard, but the hotel owners made up for this by supplying us with THREE coffees and some bread with honey. We overheard one of them saying something with “farenji” and “buna” (coffee) which we took to mean “boy those foreigners really like their coffee”. On our way out of the village we attracted a crowd of kids who ran alongside us, which is becoming a theme but so far they are nice and don’t give us any aggro. We set off into some gentle rolling terrain with a tendency towards up. This was the first day of proper climbing since Jordan, which means having to think about things like gradients and net height gains again. But this is why I cycle; steady accumulation of dis...

Sleeping location: Unknown hotel, Unknown village 14.07N 37.76E, Ethiopia Distance (km today/total): 91 / 10091 Estimated climb (m today/total): 500 / 64000 Decade: 80s Day in three words: What beaten track? The day started with cold showers and, for once, coffee. Coffee is such a big thing here that it’s actually quite difficult to get because there’s a such a ceremony attached to it. It’s all done over coals using special cups and tables and clay jar things. First she (it’s always a she) roasts the beans and gets you to smell them. Then they are crushed and added to boiling water in a clay jar kinda thing. Finally the coffee is poured out into espresso sized cups through some straw, always with a bit of spillage, although I’m not sure this is part of the tradition. If you ask for some food alongside your coffee, the default is popcorn.  We set off into more beautiful rugged scrubland with the standard livestock wandering about. Weirdly there are still loads of camels, ...

Sleeping location: Unknown hotel, Birkuta, Ethiopia Distance (km today/total): 96 / 10000 Estimated climb (m today/total): 800 / 63500 Apparent likelihood of wild camping in Ethiopia: 0% Day in three words: I am China In the morning we became the major exhibit in a human zoo. Two of the hotel cleaning girls looked in on us through the window for about 5 minutes, whilst I did my morning admin in naught but a pink towel. After they got bored we packed up and left Himora eastwards along a very long straight road. There was a slight headwind and we were climbing gradually so we pootled along at 15kph for most of the morning. On this stretch we were introduced to the apparently ubiquitous “town not on the map”, which occurred every 15km or so. These were surprisingly big for places that didn’t exist, and of course had hordes of excitable children to shout at us. The two favourites are “farenji”, which means foreigner, and “China” which apparently means us. I have read that this is ...

Sleeping location: Melano Hotel, Himora, Ethiopia Distance (km today/total): 38 / 9904 Estimated climb (m today/total): 100 / 62700 Beers tried: 4 (all average to poor) Day in three words: An Ethiopian introduction It transpired the clocks in Ethiopia were an hour ahead, so we awoke in some confusion as to what time it actually was, and got up earlier but at the same time later than usual. Maybe 10km after setting off we came across a checkpoint where we were stopped for a bit until an English speaker arrived. He verified our papers then told us that this was the border, so goodness knows where we were overnight. Soon after we stopped at a little cafe which had murals of saints next to big bottles of beer, and ordered our first Ethiopian coffee. It took ages but was tasty despite having loads of sugar added. The lady really seemed to like Rebecca and asked for pictures to be taken of the pair of them, which were amusingly chaotic. She was wearing clothes that weren’t even that...

Sleeping location: 10km south of May Cadera, Ethiopia (probably) Distance (km today/total): 92 / 9866 Estimated climb (m today/total): 200 / 62600 Border formalities: a mere 45 minutes Day in three words: Bye bye Sudan? As expected/hoped it was very peaceful in the night and we slept pretty well. After brekkie we set off along a dirt track that wasn’t on any of my maps and according to komoot was sometimes actually in the lake. It was also very nice and peaceful, with lots of birds and lizards and mysterious rustlings in the undergrowth. After 10km this led to a village and back onto the planned route. However the “asphalt” “road” was in fact a bone shaking rocky track, so bad that we often rode on the small dirt tracks to the side of it. Along here I was stopped by a random guy on a motorbike who demanded to see my passport and look thoroughly at the contents of one of my panniers (but only one). When Rebecca pulled up he sweetened and soon we were allowed to go. I have no idea...

Sleeping location: Field 14.23N 35.94E, Sudan Distance (km today/total): 77 / 9774 Estimated climb (m today/total): 200 / 62400 Lakes on the map: 0 Day in three words: The unexpected ferry We woke up early after a fitful night’s sleep in the furnace and went out for morning coffee and a shopping spree, in an attempt to use up a big chunk of our remaining Sudanese money. We went to multiple shops and stalls but managed to pick up a lot of useful foodstuffs. At one place Rebecca managed to immediately procure a big bag of freshly baked bread, despite the massive queue, so we munched on that as we walked around. One shop had a man who greeted us in French, but when I tried to engage him in conversation it transpired he only knew about 5 phrases and was mostly just saying “foo foo la la” or some other French sounding nonsense. As we were leaving the hotel Hassam from yesterday appeared, but bizarrely didn't seem to recognise me. I must have made very little impression in my ghos...

Sleeping location: Al-Hawad Hotel, Al Qadarif, Sudan Distance (km today/total): 78 / 9697 Estimated climb (m today/total): 200 / 62200 Oddest man award: Hassam Day in three words: In the oven We were joined for breakfast by a giant horde of giant ants who appeared to be on the move past our campsite. They seemed to be carrying eggs so perhaps they were moving house. They were so many that you could hear a sort of rustling as they went by. We set off into a filthy headwind, which was manageable in the trees but very hard work when we were out on the open plains. This kept up for the whole day and made the going really tough, especially as it was another scorcher of a day. The riding was pretty unremarkable, past more scrubland and fields. We stopped for coffee and food at a cafe with a very excitable boy who loudly practiced the five English words he knew on us. He had a video of a giant snake attacking a helicopter on his phone* and was very tickled when I asked him if this had ...