Day 149
Sleeping location: Toronto Pension, Weldiya, Ethiopia
Distance (km today/total): 74 / 10895
Estimated climb (m today/total): 1400 / 76900
State: weak
Distance (km today/total): 74 / 10895
Estimated climb (m today/total): 1400 / 76900
State: weak
Day in three words: Quite the ordeal
I slept awfully due to headaches, frequently required toilet trips, dogs barking apparently outside the window, and a weird atonal church chant that went on for ages at about 5am. In the morning we were both feeling unideal but decided to push on, in part because the room wasn’t exactly a luxurious place to recuperate in. We started with a bit more steep up and down, then settled into a long climb up a wide river valley, 1000m over 20km, all on loose dirt of course. The surface was mostly free of rocks but it was sometimes difficult to get traction on the steeper bits, especially with 11000km old tyres. We made painfully slow progress.
The kids were an absolute nightmare as they wouldn’t leave us alone and I was struggling to keep focus on just the riding. Aside from the usual demands for pens and money, Rebecca also had the usual mild stone throwing and theft of things from her rear panniers (I think they are more wary around me as I’m big and scary). Because of the tough going and our weak states we needed frequent rests, but when we stopped people would always appear and either hassle us or just stand metres away and stare. It was awful and a few times all I could do was sit with my head in my hands, whilst people stood and stared of course. When we finally reached the village at the top we were reunited with that underrated commodity, tarmac. We had done 150km on mostly dirt, packing a crazy 4000m of climb into that, and it had by some way been the toughest portion of the trip. We got more crowds here but found our salvation in a cafe run by a nice lady who brought us tasty food and sweet tea and generally looked after us.
Restored, we set off into a big descent, 1500m over 30km, down a road clinging to the mountainside through lots of trees and clouds (and cows). It felt totally different this side of the peak. The tarmac on the descent was a bit bumpy and kept turning into pockets of dirt, but it was a pretty damn fun descent all in all. Once it levelled out there was some light climbing for 15km, but by this stage I was totally dead and it was really hard work. I arrived in Waldiya, a pretty big town in between lots of steep hills, ahead of Rebecca and found us a moderate room with the bonus of actual hot water. Carrying Maggie up the stairs was the final ordeal and after that I curled up in bed to wait for Rebecca. After arriving, and enjoying the hot water of course, she went out to a local burger/pizza place to pick up some food for me (the star). Whilst there she had a burger that she claimed was the best food she’d had in Ethiopia, and brought me back a vegetable pizza which was basically just a load of fried strips of vegetable on a pizza base. It seems they’d run out of cheese. It was weird but not bad.
I slept awfully due to headaches, frequently required toilet trips, dogs barking apparently outside the window, and a weird atonal church chant that went on for ages at about 5am. In the morning we were both feeling unideal but decided to push on, in part because the room wasn’t exactly a luxurious place to recuperate in. We started with a bit more steep up and down, then settled into a long climb up a wide river valley, 1000m over 20km, all on loose dirt of course. The surface was mostly free of rocks but it was sometimes difficult to get traction on the steeper bits, especially with 11000km old tyres. We made painfully slow progress.
The kids were an absolute nightmare as they wouldn’t leave us alone and I was struggling to keep focus on just the riding. Aside from the usual demands for pens and money, Rebecca also had the usual mild stone throwing and theft of things from her rear panniers (I think they are more wary around me as I’m big and scary). Because of the tough going and our weak states we needed frequent rests, but when we stopped people would always appear and either hassle us or just stand metres away and stare. It was awful and a few times all I could do was sit with my head in my hands, whilst people stood and stared of course. When we finally reached the village at the top we were reunited with that underrated commodity, tarmac. We had done 150km on mostly dirt, packing a crazy 4000m of climb into that, and it had by some way been the toughest portion of the trip. We got more crowds here but found our salvation in a cafe run by a nice lady who brought us tasty food and sweet tea and generally looked after us.
Restored, we set off into a big descent, 1500m over 30km, down a road clinging to the mountainside through lots of trees and clouds (and cows). It felt totally different this side of the peak. The tarmac on the descent was a bit bumpy and kept turning into pockets of dirt, but it was a pretty damn fun descent all in all. Once it levelled out there was some light climbing for 15km, but by this stage I was totally dead and it was really hard work. I arrived in Waldiya, a pretty big town in between lots of steep hills, ahead of Rebecca and found us a moderate room with the bonus of actual hot water. Carrying Maggie up the stairs was the final ordeal and after that I curled up in bed to wait for Rebecca. After arriving, and enjoying the hot water of course, she went out to a local burger/pizza place to pick up some food for me (the star). Whilst there she had a burger that she claimed was the best food she’d had in Ethiopia, and brought me back a vegetable pizza which was basically just a load of fried strips of vegetable on a pizza base. It seems they’d run out of cheese. It was weird but not bad.
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