Day 132
Sleeping location: Unknown hotel, Enticho, Ethiopia
Distance (km today/total): 69 / 10304
Estimated climb (m today/total): 800 / 67100
Views: infinite
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 amazing views of distant rocky peaks, and a couple of tombs which I went in; these were also very basic compared to Egypt, and also totally dark and quite spooky. After this I walked all the way round the hill, enjoying the constant beautiful views and quiet pathways, plus a not so quiet section where I had to scramble down a steep slope to complete the loop. Along the way I was accosted by a boy who tried to sell me gold cross for “money for pen” then just straight up started asking me for a pen. Why would I have a pen? Why did he want a pen?
We packed up and left Aksum for noon. After a small climb out of town we we treated to amazing views of the rocky peaks of the morning, which we were heading towards, then a wickedly fun descent down to the town of Adwa. Adwa didn't seem to be ready yet, as it was mostly half finished buildings, but we did find one building that was completed enough to give us a coffee. On the way out of town we saw two bulls locking horns, forcing a small child to flee. After Adwa we climbed up through the rocky peaks, then had another fantastic descent down into a valley. It was all staggeringly beautiful, with huge rock formations on either side, lush vegetation (including some eucalyptus groves) and a wonderful peacefulness. In the valley we had several shouts for money from kids, which hasn’t happened much so far in Ethiopia. Interestingly the most shouts came in places with big signs trumpeting that a western country had paid for something in the village*. At one point a few stones skittered across the road near me, but I chose to ignore them so I don’t know how big/near they were.
After a climb up out of the valley we came to the turn off the main road that was on our planned route. It very quickly became clear that the “asphalt” road was actually a bumpy dirt track. We did a few km before realising that 150km of this could be really problematic and cause us to be late to Mekele. The main road route was 50km and 1000m of climb extra, so with heavy hearts we decided to take it and turned back. As I was annoyed I was quite rude to some children and then felt bad about it. Happily the first 20km of main road was amazing, winding up and down through the peaks, with enormous rock structures on either side as the sun set. The scenery was again stunning, to the extent that I am running out of superlatives to describe it.
We made it to the town of Enticho by dark and quickly found a moderate but cheap hotel. There was commotion nearby, focussed on a big church, so we went in and found everyone sat on the floor, being given communion bread and wine. We sat down for a bit but avoided the bread and wine because we didn’t want to fill up on Jesus before dinner. On a wander round town we found the best snacks in ages, some orange wafers and pineapple biscuits with Cristiano Ronaldo on them. Back at the hotel we had a few beers and some shiro/injera, followed by spaghetti, which came on another injera in a festival of carbs. Suddenly we realised that it was absolutely BELTING it down with rain, the first since the night we arrived in Africa (near Suez). Thank goodness we chose the main road, as the dirt roads may have turned into an impassible quagmire after this. About 10pm we heard music and went out to investigate. It was coming from the church, where about 100 people were singing and dancing in the garden. There was some other, more boring/pious music coming from the church. It was all very atmospheric and interesting and we stayed and soaked it in for about 15 minutes.
*Of course I am not saying that foreign aid is bad; the annoyance of a few cyclists is worth it if the village gets a new school or well or whatever
We packed up and left Aksum for noon. After a small climb out of town we we treated to amazing views of the rocky peaks of the morning, which we were heading towards, then a wickedly fun descent down to the town of Adwa. Adwa didn't seem to be ready yet, as it was mostly half finished buildings, but we did find one building that was completed enough to give us a coffee. On the way out of town we saw two bulls locking horns, forcing a small child to flee. After Adwa we climbed up through the rocky peaks, then had another fantastic descent down into a valley. It was all staggeringly beautiful, with huge rock formations on either side, lush vegetation (including some eucalyptus groves) and a wonderful peacefulness. In the valley we had several shouts for money from kids, which hasn’t happened much so far in Ethiopia. Interestingly the most shouts came in places with big signs trumpeting that a western country had paid for something in the village*. At one point a few stones skittered across the road near me, but I chose to ignore them so I don’t know how big/near they were.
After a climb up out of the valley we came to the turn off the main road that was on our planned route. It very quickly became clear that the “asphalt” road was actually a bumpy dirt track. We did a few km before realising that 150km of this could be really problematic and cause us to be late to Mekele. The main road route was 50km and 1000m of climb extra, so with heavy hearts we decided to take it and turned back. As I was annoyed I was quite rude to some children and then felt bad about it. Happily the first 20km of main road was amazing, winding up and down through the peaks, with enormous rock structures on either side as the sun set. The scenery was again stunning, to the extent that I am running out of superlatives to describe it.
We made it to the town of Enticho by dark and quickly found a moderate but cheap hotel. There was commotion nearby, focussed on a big church, so we went in and found everyone sat on the floor, being given communion bread and wine. We sat down for a bit but avoided the bread and wine because we didn’t want to fill up on Jesus before dinner. On a wander round town we found the best snacks in ages, some orange wafers and pineapple biscuits with Cristiano Ronaldo on them. Back at the hotel we had a few beers and some shiro/injera, followed by spaghetti, which came on another injera in a festival of carbs. Suddenly we realised that it was absolutely BELTING it down with rain, the first since the night we arrived in Africa (near Suez). Thank goodness we chose the main road, as the dirt roads may have turned into an impassible quagmire after this. About 10pm we heard music and went out to investigate. It was coming from the church, where about 100 people were singing and dancing in the garden. There was some other, more boring/pious music coming from the church. It was all very atmospheric and interesting and we stayed and soaked it in for about 15 minutes.
*Of course I am not saying that foreign aid is bad; the annoyance of a few cyclists is worth it if the village gets a new school or well or whatever
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