Day 127
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)
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 revealing but would have been unthinkable in the last three countries we’ve visited; it’s already clear that Ethiopia is going to be very culturally different.
The road to Himora was closed in a small town for some kind of bike race, where a load of young men were zipping around on battered old bikes in faded lycra. The bikes were so basic that I could possibly have given them a run for their money on a fully loaded Maggie. When we stopped we were surrounded by a mob of curious children, which is going to be a theme in this country. Luckily a young guy on a bike offered to show us a way round, so we followed him down bumpy dirt streets for a couple of km until we got to the main road on the other side. Himora was a sleepy town near the triple point of the borders with Eritrea and Sudan - I even managed to pick up Sudanese phone signal again, which was very confusing as it set my phone’s clock back an hour again. We found a decent hotel, with no AC or hot water but it was clean and cheap, and plotted the admin we needed to do.
First up was officially registering in Ethiopia at the immigration office. After asking around we were bundled into a tuktuk, which took us there even though it wasn’t actually that far. It was closed for another half an hour so we went to a nearby cafe, where we met a Sudanese guy called Abdul. His English was good and he was quite a joker, he said he was in Ethiopia for “beer and chicks” and gave us some of the khat he was chewing huge amounts of. Khat is a plant that I think is a UK class C stimulant, but it just made us both a bit sleepy. After getting our passports stamped, amusingly on the day after our stamp out of Sudan (where WERE we??), we headed to the government internet shop and bought some SIM cards and data. The government controls the internet here so it was quite an official process, we both had to register with our passports and a photo. In the “education” dropdown of the screen we were listed as “illiterate”.
The next admin was not really admin, I just wanted to check out the border with Eritrea as I had a vague idea that the two countries have a complicated relationship*. The border was a big river but it turned out that the bridge across was very, very closed and had a couple of soldiers who waved us back when we got too close. Later on we met an Eritrean refugee who told us that it had actually been open this year but had closed again a few months ago. The next admin was to get my very shaggy hair cut. This took ages, even though it seemed to look the same for the final 75% of the experience, but I did also get a bonus beard trim, a head massage/wash and a back massage from a terrifying looking machine. This all cost 75 Birr (under £2)**. After the massaging I was so relaxed that I almost knocked the barber’s chair over when I sat in it.
The final admin, to celebrate all the successful admin, was to have our first beer for about three weeks. The first one, a Dashen, went down well but wasn’t actually that great. Thankfully there are loads of different varieties to try out***. As it was Saturday night we went on a bit of a bar/food crawl in order to sample Ethiopian food and drink (beer). At one place we played menu roulette, which appeared to have hugely backfired when a plate of chunks of raw beef arrived, but they were actually very tasty. After some confusion over the times shown in a couple of places we discovered that Ethiopia has DIFFERENT TIME. The “zero hour” is at what we would call 6am, which runs for 12 hours then goes back to zero at what we call 6pm. This kind of makes sense in a country where the sun always rises and sets about 12hrs apart, but it’s bloody confusing as both clock systems are used in different places. At 9pm/3.00 Rebecca went back to the hotel and I went to a sports bar and watched the second half of the Manchester derby with about 200 guys in almost total darkness and silence. They really get into their football here.
*This was a profound understatement; in fact they engaged in a bloody war in the late 90s and the official cease fire was only signed last year.
**Rebecca also got her undercut redone here, which took about 2 minutes and cost her 35 Birr, tee hee
***Spoiler: none of them are that great either
The road to Himora was closed in a small town for some kind of bike race, where a load of young men were zipping around on battered old bikes in faded lycra. The bikes were so basic that I could possibly have given them a run for their money on a fully loaded Maggie. When we stopped we were surrounded by a mob of curious children, which is going to be a theme in this country. Luckily a young guy on a bike offered to show us a way round, so we followed him down bumpy dirt streets for a couple of km until we got to the main road on the other side. Himora was a sleepy town near the triple point of the borders with Eritrea and Sudan - I even managed to pick up Sudanese phone signal again, which was very confusing as it set my phone’s clock back an hour again. We found a decent hotel, with no AC or hot water but it was clean and cheap, and plotted the admin we needed to do.
First up was officially registering in Ethiopia at the immigration office. After asking around we were bundled into a tuktuk, which took us there even though it wasn’t actually that far. It was closed for another half an hour so we went to a nearby cafe, where we met a Sudanese guy called Abdul. His English was good and he was quite a joker, he said he was in Ethiopia for “beer and chicks” and gave us some of the khat he was chewing huge amounts of. Khat is a plant that I think is a UK class C stimulant, but it just made us both a bit sleepy. After getting our passports stamped, amusingly on the day after our stamp out of Sudan (where WERE we??), we headed to the government internet shop and bought some SIM cards and data. The government controls the internet here so it was quite an official process, we both had to register with our passports and a photo. In the “education” dropdown of the screen we were listed as “illiterate”.
The next admin was not really admin, I just wanted to check out the border with Eritrea as I had a vague idea that the two countries have a complicated relationship*. The border was a big river but it turned out that the bridge across was very, very closed and had a couple of soldiers who waved us back when we got too close. Later on we met an Eritrean refugee who told us that it had actually been open this year but had closed again a few months ago. The next admin was to get my very shaggy hair cut. This took ages, even though it seemed to look the same for the final 75% of the experience, but I did also get a bonus beard trim, a head massage/wash and a back massage from a terrifying looking machine. This all cost 75 Birr (under £2)**. After the massaging I was so relaxed that I almost knocked the barber’s chair over when I sat in it.
The final admin, to celebrate all the successful admin, was to have our first beer for about three weeks. The first one, a Dashen, went down well but wasn’t actually that great. Thankfully there are loads of different varieties to try out***. As it was Saturday night we went on a bit of a bar/food crawl in order to sample Ethiopian food and drink (beer). At one place we played menu roulette, which appeared to have hugely backfired when a plate of chunks of raw beef arrived, but they were actually very tasty. After some confusion over the times shown in a couple of places we discovered that Ethiopia has DIFFERENT TIME. The “zero hour” is at what we would call 6am, which runs for 12 hours then goes back to zero at what we call 6pm. This kind of makes sense in a country where the sun always rises and sets about 12hrs apart, but it’s bloody confusing as both clock systems are used in different places. At 9pm/3.00 Rebecca went back to the hotel and I went to a sports bar and watched the second half of the Manchester derby with about 200 guys in almost total darkness and silence. They really get into their football here.
*This was a profound understatement; in fact they engaged in a bloody war in the late 90s and the official cease fire was only signed last year.
**Rebecca also got her undercut redone here, which took about 2 minutes and cost her 35 Birr, tee hee
***Spoiler: none of them are that great either
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