Day 133

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 alongside Rebecca on the way up, then alongside me along the next flat/descent, although his English wasn’t great so we didn’t say much. At the start of the next climb he got bored, said bye and absolutely zoomed off. I was quite jealous. The morning’s cycling was great as we picked our way in and out of rugged bowls. The road wiggles up and down the sides at nice gradients, so the climbs aren’t too tough and the descents are great fun. The kids are now mainly shouting “give me a pen” or just “pen”/“pin” as we go past. They can usually be disarmed by telling them you don’t have a pen, or sometimes by preemptively asking if they have a pen, which causes much confusion.

We stopped for coffee in a town just before what we knew was going to be a big climb, 1000m in one go. We were in a massive bowl and could see that the other side was much higher, though it didn’t look 1000m higher. But it transpired that that this wasn’t the only bowl we would have to contend with. We set off up the side of this bowl then reached another one, which the road ran along the side of for a while. Then we entered a series of the most ridiculous switchbacks to get out of this bowl, all curled up like dropped spaghetti. At one point Rebecca was directly below me but about 500m behind on the road. This brought us out into a huge, stunning steep-sided green bowl with terraced farming in the most implausible locations. We kept on climbing up the side, which became hard as the gradient ramped up and the air got thinner. Along here was stopped for a break, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but as this is Ethiopia we were found by some kids within about 10 minutes. They asked for money but were pretty cute. I kept making them run away by pretending to take a picture of them. 

After a bit more climb we levelled out and ran along the edge of the bowl with the standard amazing views either side. By now we were up into semi forest as we entered the last bowl and then climbed up through that. It was a hard final push due to the altitude, but I was distracted by seeing the first monkeys of the trip, grey ones who were frolicking in a big patch of prickly pear cacti. I waited by them so I could show Rebecca but they disappeared exactly as she arrived**. The monkeys, the forest and a rabbit that ran across the road all made this a magical last section. After over 3 hours we finally reached the summit, where it was properly chilly. We were at 3050m, comfortably the highest point of the trip. We popped on some warm clothes and full finger gloves (in Africa!) and set off down the 500m descent into Adriget, which was BRILLIANT. The road wound its way down the side of another enormous bowl and there were dozens of wonderful sweeping bends to fly round. I loved every second.

By the time we reached Adriget it was almost 4pm and we still had a way to go, so we had a quick banana/biscuit refuelling stop and then set off again. On the way out of Adriget we saw the aftermath of a gruesome accident where a lorry had hit four sheep and basically popped them. The road from here was less spectacular than before, and we wound our way slowly out of a shallow bowl. It took quite a while and it was almost sunset by the time we reached a small town with a hotel, 20km short of Freweyni, our goal for the day. I suggested stopping here but Rebecca (wisely) said we should push on, so we set off as dusk fell with a colourful sunset on our right. It was mostly downhill so we reached Freweyni about 7pm having only cycled in full darkness for a few km. The town had only one “proper” hotel which was quite big and fancy, but we figured we deserved it after such a big day (and it was still only a tenner). 2100m of climb is the joint highest of the trip so far. The hot shower was absolutely wonderful and we had a beer in it to celebrate our achievements. Along with yesterday, this has been the best cycling I’ve ever done. More please Ethiopia.

*It did
**She got to see a big one on the next descent, so it was ok 

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