Day 140
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
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 is configured for the old cassette so I am getting some annoying chain slips and unwanted gear changes. It’s a faff to adjust without a bike stand so I’m going to ignore it and hope it goes away. After the climb out of town the Ethiopian “A2” road then presented us with 5km of dirt, gravel and stone track, with no apparent work being done to turn it (back?) to asphalt. This was to become a theme of the day. From here we had a flat ish road through a shallow valley of farmland, with a very stiff crosswind. I stopped in a village to wait for Rebecca and a bunch of kids, all chewing sugar cane, came over and watched me silently, constantly chewing like a herd of cows.
After this we dropped down on a fun open descent which was abruptly ruined when it turned to dirt for a couple of km. This brought us onto a flat plain with distant dramatic mountains ahead. We stopped for a coke/beer (me/Rebecca) at a cafe and hung out with some local jokers who were celebrating Friday with many beers, but were nice to us. One of them informed us that St George was a “driving beer”, which is handy as that’s what Rebecca was having. The next section wound through farmland, and for some unknown reason the kids here kept asking us for a “scritu”, which is an unknown and possibly magical item. Then we got another descent, obviously ruined by another dirt section, onto another plain ringed by small mountains with bigger ones ahead. It was pretty beautiful.
We stopped in Hiwane and found a nice enough pension that I don’t know the name of, which was huge but we seemed to be the only guests. We went out for beers, and ostensibly for food but I wasn’t at all hungry after eating the rest of the enormous club sandwich from the night before. At least my stomach seemed to have sorted itself out (maybe it had missed being on the bike). The bar we chose contained a pair of absolute jokers who loved us. One of them was VERY shouty and would just shout footballers at me and ask if they were thumbs up or thumbs down. The other guy’s English was a bit better, but we still weren’t sure if he was offering to buy us beers or asking us to buy his. He kept saying “I love you” and “I hate you” to us, but in reference to the shouty man, and also had some top bantz about Luke Shaw’s weight. It was fun so we had several beers, but eventually it all became a bit much and we left to get food elsewhere.
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 is configured for the old cassette so I am getting some annoying chain slips and unwanted gear changes. It’s a faff to adjust without a bike stand so I’m going to ignore it and hope it goes away. After the climb out of town the Ethiopian “A2” road then presented us with 5km of dirt, gravel and stone track, with no apparent work being done to turn it (back?) to asphalt. This was to become a theme of the day. From here we had a flat ish road through a shallow valley of farmland, with a very stiff crosswind. I stopped in a village to wait for Rebecca and a bunch of kids, all chewing sugar cane, came over and watched me silently, constantly chewing like a herd of cows.
After this we dropped down on a fun open descent which was abruptly ruined when it turned to dirt for a couple of km. This brought us onto a flat plain with distant dramatic mountains ahead. We stopped for a coke/beer (me/Rebecca) at a cafe and hung out with some local jokers who were celebrating Friday with many beers, but were nice to us. One of them informed us that St George was a “driving beer”, which is handy as that’s what Rebecca was having. The next section wound through farmland, and for some unknown reason the kids here kept asking us for a “scritu”, which is an unknown and possibly magical item. Then we got another descent, obviously ruined by another dirt section, onto another plain ringed by small mountains with bigger ones ahead. It was pretty beautiful.
We stopped in Hiwane and found a nice enough pension that I don’t know the name of, which was huge but we seemed to be the only guests. We went out for beers, and ostensibly for food but I wasn’t at all hungry after eating the rest of the enormous club sandwich from the night before. At least my stomach seemed to have sorted itself out (maybe it had missed being on the bike). The bar we chose contained a pair of absolute jokers who loved us. One of them was VERY shouty and would just shout footballers at me and ask if they were thumbs up or thumbs down. The other guy’s English was a bit better, but we still weren’t sure if he was offering to buy us beers or asking us to buy his. He kept saying “I love you” and “I hate you” to us, but in reference to the shouty man, and also had some top bantz about Luke Shaw’s weight. It was fun so we had several beers, but eventually it all became a bit much and we left to get food elsewhere.
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