Day 151
Sleeping location: Campsite, Hayk Lake, Ethiopia
Distance (km today/total): 39 / 10996
Estimated climb (m today/total): 600 / 78500
Bird life: abundant
Distance (km today/total): 39 / 10996
Estimated climb (m today/total): 600 / 78500
Bird life: abundant
Day in three words: Happy New Year
It was New Year’s Eve, except it wasn’t, because we had chosen to be in pretty much the only country in the world that doesn’t celebrate it the same day as everyone else. Ethiopia has a different calendar so it was actually the fourth month of 2012, and a Tuesday, and nobody but us cared about celebrating.
We did get to start the day with a gorgeous descent into the beautiful green valley that we’d entered the prior evening. Then we went along the valley bottom, then into rolling green hills that mostly rolled upwards. It was all very nice and mostly peaceful. The only bit of aggro I got was quite confusing. A small child by the side of the road made the money sign, so I shook my head, so he tried to run right behind my bike, so I turned and gave him a Look, which stopped him (it usually does, I think the kids are quite scared of me). I could then see him picking up a stone, but I was moving quickly enough that I knew it would just plop sadly onto the road given his weak little throwing arm. When it did that I stopped again and gave him a cheerful wave, to which he replied with an equally cheerful wave. Odd. Mid morning I saw a sign advertising the building of a “sandwich reservoir”, which is an interesting concept. Is it to store sandwiches, or made of sandwiches? If the former surely the sandwiches will get squished, and if the latter surely the water will make the sandwiches all soggy*.
We stopped in the town of Hayk for lunch, where on the way in a kid tried to race me on his bike and promptly fell off. Tortoise always beats the hare. The availability of draft beer and a pleasant ambient temperature, plus some tasty sizzling beef in a clay pot, meant we stayed too long, drank too much beer and had an animated conversation about politics. We then decided to stay at the nearby lake for NY as there were allegedly lodges and a campsite there. On the cycle there I was confused to see a big hairy monkey in the middle of town, which in turn seemed very annoyed to see me and bared its teeth a bit. I am not sure why it was there. By the lake we found a campsite with a restaurant and bar which seemed lively enough to be a good place to stay. We had a dip in the (muddy) lake and then watched the numerous birds doing their thing. There were coots (boring), weird brown ducks, kites, egrets, cormorants, black and white kingfishers, a pelican, and a horde of 20-30 enormous Maribou Storks wandering around causing general terror.
After dark we went back to the bar area, which was now very empty. The security guard, who seemed to be drunk and was carrying a rifle almost as tall as he was, spoke the best English so was our go to guy for everything. We got some beers and then asked about food, which led to a confusing situation with wotte (curry) and what, but some fish wotte did then arrive, and was moderate. At 8.30pm the music was abruptly switched off and the last people left, along with the bar staff. We picked up some takeaway beers and took a table back to our tent, where we played cards and consequences and drank fake whisky until midnight came around. Rebecca suggested we climb a tree for actual midnight, but chose a fiendishly hard one, so as the new decade ticked around I was still awkwardly trying to shimmy myself up there. As with all new years nothing actually changed, but I guess this marks a rough halfway point of the trip, and also means that it will be finished “this year” not “next year”. Philosophical. Happy new year everyone.
*This reminds me of a similar thing from the UK, the “Queen Elizabeth II Storage Reservoir” near Heathrow. It always makes me imagine loads of Queens wandering around in there, perhaps bouncing off each other and the walls like the lemmings in the game of the same name.
It was New Year’s Eve, except it wasn’t, because we had chosen to be in pretty much the only country in the world that doesn’t celebrate it the same day as everyone else. Ethiopia has a different calendar so it was actually the fourth month of 2012, and a Tuesday, and nobody but us cared about celebrating.
We did get to start the day with a gorgeous descent into the beautiful green valley that we’d entered the prior evening. Then we went along the valley bottom, then into rolling green hills that mostly rolled upwards. It was all very nice and mostly peaceful. The only bit of aggro I got was quite confusing. A small child by the side of the road made the money sign, so I shook my head, so he tried to run right behind my bike, so I turned and gave him a Look, which stopped him (it usually does, I think the kids are quite scared of me). I could then see him picking up a stone, but I was moving quickly enough that I knew it would just plop sadly onto the road given his weak little throwing arm. When it did that I stopped again and gave him a cheerful wave, to which he replied with an equally cheerful wave. Odd. Mid morning I saw a sign advertising the building of a “sandwich reservoir”, which is an interesting concept. Is it to store sandwiches, or made of sandwiches? If the former surely the sandwiches will get squished, and if the latter surely the water will make the sandwiches all soggy*.
We stopped in the town of Hayk for lunch, where on the way in a kid tried to race me on his bike and promptly fell off. Tortoise always beats the hare. The availability of draft beer and a pleasant ambient temperature, plus some tasty sizzling beef in a clay pot, meant we stayed too long, drank too much beer and had an animated conversation about politics. We then decided to stay at the nearby lake for NY as there were allegedly lodges and a campsite there. On the cycle there I was confused to see a big hairy monkey in the middle of town, which in turn seemed very annoyed to see me and bared its teeth a bit. I am not sure why it was there. By the lake we found a campsite with a restaurant and bar which seemed lively enough to be a good place to stay. We had a dip in the (muddy) lake and then watched the numerous birds doing their thing. There were coots (boring), weird brown ducks, kites, egrets, cormorants, black and white kingfishers, a pelican, and a horde of 20-30 enormous Maribou Storks wandering around causing general terror.
After dark we went back to the bar area, which was now very empty. The security guard, who seemed to be drunk and was carrying a rifle almost as tall as he was, spoke the best English so was our go to guy for everything. We got some beers and then asked about food, which led to a confusing situation with wotte (curry) and what, but some fish wotte did then arrive, and was moderate. At 8.30pm the music was abruptly switched off and the last people left, along with the bar staff. We picked up some takeaway beers and took a table back to our tent, where we played cards and consequences and drank fake whisky until midnight came around. Rebecca suggested we climb a tree for actual midnight, but chose a fiendishly hard one, so as the new decade ticked around I was still awkwardly trying to shimmy myself up there. As with all new years nothing actually changed, but I guess this marks a rough halfway point of the trip, and also means that it will be finished “this year” not “next year”. Philosophical. Happy new year everyone.
*This reminds me of a similar thing from the UK, the “Queen Elizabeth II Storage Reservoir” near Heathrow. It always makes me imagine loads of Queens wandering around in there, perhaps bouncing off each other and the walls like the lemmings in the game of the same name.
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