Day 143

Sleeping location: Mud hut in unknown village, 12.06N 39.23E, Ethiopia
Distance (km today/total): 27 / 10738
Estimated climb (m today/total): 1400 / 74200
Mountain completed: 40/42km

Day in three words: Dirt is pain

We were awoken by the chickens parading round the tent and the baby goat frolicking, which certainly beats an alarm clock. We decided to have breakfast a little way down the road so they didn’t feel like they had to give us any more food, so we packed up and left pretty quickly. The matriarch wouldn’t accept the money we offered, but we did manage to give them some Sudanese popcorn, which was hopefully a nice treat for them. They were absolutely lovely and further proof of the cliche that those who have the least usually give the most. 

Unfortunately out breakfast plan was foiled by Rebecca realising she had developed a flat tyre overnight. To avoid the awkwardness of fixing it right next to their compound, we wheeled the bikes round a couple of corners and found a spot under a tree. Of course the standard audience appeared, including most of the kids from the compound, so Rebecca tried to make it very clear that her bike was broken so they didn’t think we hated them. The audience also included a cow which started hungrily licking my shoe, the filthy deviant, until it was shooed (or perhaps shoed) away. The inner tube replacement took ages due to the stiffness of the tyres and a further issue with the rear QR skewer, so we didn’t get away until 10am*. It was immediately really tough going, with lots of 15-20% ramps on loose dirt, requiring maximum concentration. Annoyingly we kept dipping back downhill and losing some of the height we’d gained. The scenery was incredible though, with mountains and valleys falling away as far as the eye could see. There was implausible terraced farming on almost every surface. 

During a quick lunch of biscuits and bananas we had the amazing sight of two enormous vultures soaring just above us, which lifted spirits briefly, but they were absolutely hammered by the next section, which was 4km of absolute Albania-level hell. Rutted track, loose stones everywhere, steep gradients, it was mostly unrideable and pushing through the stones was tortuous. The thin air made the intense effort even harder and we both experienced a lot of pain and soul-searching. With 10km to go we stopped to chat and discussed if it was even possible for us to get up there ourselves. As if conscious that it had been too hard on us, immediately after this the road presented us with a much easier section of mostly rideable dirt and sensible gradients. Shortly after this began we saw the top for the first time, a series of dark mountains shrouded in cloud. 

At 2700m was the bizarre sight of a church in the middle of nowhere, with loads of people wearing white sat around outside it. Then round the corner was the even more bizarre sight of a procession of maybe 200 people, all in white, heading towards the church and filling the entire road. I had to pull over and wait for them to pass, and for once in Ethiopia I was as interested in the locals as they were in me. There were men reading bibles whilst walking (trip hazard on this surface?), then a big drum, then loads of colourful umbrellas and flags. I had to say selam (“peace”) what felt like a million times  and got mostly confused but friendly replies**. We kept on going and the road stayed tough but mostly rideable, albeit very slowly and carefully. It was so quiet, we saw fewer than 10 vehicles all day and the road was even empty of people for the most part. By the end of the day we were getting very high and the views back down to the valley floor were amazing. 

About 3km from the top we were caught up (!) by some of the worshippers coming back from the church. They helped Rebecca push her bike up a particularly tough bit, but I stubbornly kept pedalling and furiously pushing when I had to unclip. We all went up the track to their village, a tiny little place at 3300m, and as it was close to sunset we asked about sleeping there. There was flat ground by the school and we asked about pitching out tent there, but they found us a small mud hut and insisted that we sleep in there, which was actually useful as it was really cold up there. It turned out that the hut belonged to a smiley lady, but apparently she had another hut to go to, so it was OK. Everyone was very helpful in getting out stuff up to the hut then offering us water and food (the latter of which we refused as we already felt bad). The guys were the best English were from the school, so we offered some money for books etc, but they wouldn’t accept it. The generosity of the people on this trip continues to amaze. We put loads of our clothes on and made some hot chocolate, thankfully the lady appeared to cook inside so we didn’t have to venture out to use the stove. For dinner made absolutely loads of pasta with sardines and tomato and demolished it in minutes. We were asleep by about 9pm - we had only done 27km and it had absolutely destroyed us. 

*And the replaced inner didn’t even seem damaged, which suggests that the whole job was totally unnecessary 

**Rebecca was a bit behind and had some aggro from one of the guys at the back, who took exception to something and grabbed her arm for a while