Day 134
Sleeping location: Asimba Guesthouse, Mekele, Ethiopia
Distance (km today/total): 84 / 10494
Estimated climb (m today/total): 1000 / 70200
Treats: whisky, wine, big bed
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 in the mood for kids asking for stuff so mostly just pretended not to hear/understand or just waved and smiled.
After this the road fell down off the plateau down some fun switchbacks with impressive cliffs on the right. A gradual descent took me down to Wikro where I stopped for coffee. Here an American guy on a nice unladen bike appeared, said hello and mentioned that he’d swapped numbers with Rebecca and we could meet up in Mekele. As quickly as he’d arrived he was gone*. From Wikro I cycled through a dry landscape of long climbs and shorter descents across terrain that was beautiful but suffered in comparison to the last couple of days. It was fairly mundane cycling and the wind made some bits into a crawl up what were relatively gentle gradients.
At the top of the last climb the view opened out across a bowl far below, hemmed in by cliffs and containing the surprisingly sprawling city of Mekele. To get down here the road went through a series of sharp switchbacks, which were fun and provided some extra adrenaline due to the bumpy surface and some loose gravel. At the bottom was the start of Mekele, but it was another 9km on bumpy roads until the guesthouse that Beth had booked. It’s run by a British man called Chris who’s retired here with his Ethiopian wife Saba, and it was very comfortable and relaxed. It felt the most like home of any place I’ve visited since my parents’ house in Turkey. Rebecca arrived before too long and we sat in the garden with Chris and had a chat about all things Ethiopia. Beth and Sean didn’t arrive for ages so Rebecca and I got stuck into the exotic things available at the guesthouse bar. They eventually arrived at 8pm after a bit of a nightmare journey from Aksum**. It was really nice to see some familiar faces again. We went out for some tasty Ethiopian food at a restaurant recommended by Chris, where we had some utterly delicious clay pot lamb and a bottle of surprisingly decent Ethiopian red and swapped stories about our travels so far.
*In the end we didn’t meet him and we still don’t really know what he was doing here
**Still only took them 9hrs though, vs our three days
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 in the mood for kids asking for stuff so mostly just pretended not to hear/understand or just waved and smiled.
After this the road fell down off the plateau down some fun switchbacks with impressive cliffs on the right. A gradual descent took me down to Wikro where I stopped for coffee. Here an American guy on a nice unladen bike appeared, said hello and mentioned that he’d swapped numbers with Rebecca and we could meet up in Mekele. As quickly as he’d arrived he was gone*. From Wikro I cycled through a dry landscape of long climbs and shorter descents across terrain that was beautiful but suffered in comparison to the last couple of days. It was fairly mundane cycling and the wind made some bits into a crawl up what were relatively gentle gradients.
At the top of the last climb the view opened out across a bowl far below, hemmed in by cliffs and containing the surprisingly sprawling city of Mekele. To get down here the road went through a series of sharp switchbacks, which were fun and provided some extra adrenaline due to the bumpy surface and some loose gravel. At the bottom was the start of Mekele, but it was another 9km on bumpy roads until the guesthouse that Beth had booked. It’s run by a British man called Chris who’s retired here with his Ethiopian wife Saba, and it was very comfortable and relaxed. It felt the most like home of any place I’ve visited since my parents’ house in Turkey. Rebecca arrived before too long and we sat in the garden with Chris and had a chat about all things Ethiopia. Beth and Sean didn’t arrive for ages so Rebecca and I got stuck into the exotic things available at the guesthouse bar. They eventually arrived at 8pm after a bit of a nightmare journey from Aksum**. It was really nice to see some familiar faces again. We went out for some tasty Ethiopian food at a restaurant recommended by Chris, where we had some utterly delicious clay pot lamb and a bottle of surprisingly decent Ethiopian red and swapped stories about our travels so far.
*In the end we didn’t meet him and we still don’t really know what he was doing here
**Still only took them 9hrs though, vs our three days
Comments
Post a Comment