Day 155
Sleeping location: Hotel Sunshin (sic), Debre Birhan, Ethiopia
Distance (km today/total): 75 / 11319
Estimated climb (m today/total): 1600 / 83500
Word of the day: Gelada
Distance (km today/total): 75 / 11319
Estimated climb (m today/total): 1600 / 83500
Word of the day: Gelada
Day in three words: Climb like monkey
There were multiple tummy-inflicted nighttime trips to the bathroom and during one I noticed that the toilet was partly discharging out of the shower plug hole, with predictably awful results. By morning it was an absolute state and I felt bad about leaving it that way, but there wasn’t really anything I could do since I, like the person who plumbed the bathroom, am not a plumber. In other strange happenings, I also noticed that my saddle bag was covered in loads of weird hairy caterpillars. I scooped them up and put them outside but when I came to leave they had disappeared. Maybe the local birds had enjoyed a delicious breakfast.
I’d spent the night at 2000m but still had to get up 1200m of pretty much constant climb. The first section was unrelentingly hard work without ever getting silly, so I just plugged away and slowly made my way up. It helped that the road was peaceful and pretty and there were hardly any people to distract me, although I did spend quite a while following a man with a donkey on a lead who was determined not to let me overtake him. I stopped in Debre Sina for coffee having done a mighty 11km in 2hrs. Thankfully, after this things got a lot nicer. The gradients eased and the road climbed steadily up towards massive cliffs with clouds drifting over them. There was a lot of beautiful thick forest and the views back downwards were stunning. It was a wonderful place to be cycling.
This feeling was amplified when I came across three separate groups of monkeys frolicking by the side of the road. They were the same type we’ve seen a few places, and I now know that they’re Gelada, a species found only in the Ethiopian Highlands. The females look like regular monkeys but the males have these wonderful shaggy coats and general air of importance. All of them have pink patches on their chests, which gives them their nickname of the “bleeding heart monkey”. The biggest group was being fed wheat* by some farenji and local kids, and one of the farenji came and said hello, a friendly American guy called Paul. They ran some kind of NGO in nearby Debre Birhan and were out for a day trip as it was Saturday. We chatted for a bit then I headed up for the final bit of climb. I’d been wondering how the road was going to get over the cliffs, but it turned out that it didn’t and there was in fact a pretty long unlit tunnel. I have lights but it was still really disorientating and I was glad no vehicles came through whilst I was in there.
At the “top” I stopped for some lunch, but it turned out that the road continued to climb, albeit more gradually, for a few more km after this. The landscape had totally changed on the other side of the tunnel, and it now consisted of sheep-filled craggy grassy hills that could honestly have been taken from an English national park. This illusion was ruined by the incredible sight of a troupe of around 100 Gelada roaming across the grass, pulling up grass and plants to munch on (they are the only primate that primarily eats grass). The Geleda had helpfully gathered near another incredible sight, which I might have missed if I hadn’t stopped for them. A steep, steep-sided gorge basically cut the hillside in two, revealing the mountains and plains (2000m below) that I’d climbed up from over the last two days. The view was incredible. I spent some time appreciating that, then appreciating the Gelada some more, and felt very privileged**.
From here things calmed down a bit and the ride into Debre Birhan was fairly uneventful. The landscape opened out into a sort of rolling plateau (is that possible?) with the same sort of rifts as back in Shire/Aksum area. The road hugged the hillside and rolled up and down with more of the latter. It was still very quiet and there were hardly any shouts of “money”, which makes cycling so much more enjoyable as you aren’t on edge all the time. I arrived in DB about 5pm but somehow didn’t see any hotels despite google claiming there were loads. After taking the Goldilocks approach again I settled on the mid-range “Sunshin”, mainly because of the name. It was pretty good for the price but bafflingly had no curtains.
Rebecca texted me about 6.30pm to say that she’d made it to DB as well, so we went for a couple of beers and dinner to swap stories about the last couple of days. It turned out she had had a pretty rubbish time of it; major mechanical issues had forced her to stop early the previous day, and today she had ridden impressively hard to get to the same place as me today despite starting about 2hrs behind. The worst news was that she had been hit in the side by a rock, from an adult, unprovoked, about 30km away from DB. It had really hurt her and she was really upset by it, which made me really angry and upset. I can’t understand why anyone would do that. I’m not a violent person but I would have struggled to contain myself if I’d seen it happen. We agreed to stick to the plan and meet in Addis, partly because Rebecca’s bike still needed some work doing in the morning.
*I don’t usually approve of feeding wild animals as it distorts their behaviour, but I did get some good pictures of the monkeys as a result, so I’ll let them off.
**And I was - Rebecca was about 2hrs behind me and saw no Gelada all day
There were multiple tummy-inflicted nighttime trips to the bathroom and during one I noticed that the toilet was partly discharging out of the shower plug hole, with predictably awful results. By morning it was an absolute state and I felt bad about leaving it that way, but there wasn’t really anything I could do since I, like the person who plumbed the bathroom, am not a plumber. In other strange happenings, I also noticed that my saddle bag was covered in loads of weird hairy caterpillars. I scooped them up and put them outside but when I came to leave they had disappeared. Maybe the local birds had enjoyed a delicious breakfast.
I’d spent the night at 2000m but still had to get up 1200m of pretty much constant climb. The first section was unrelentingly hard work without ever getting silly, so I just plugged away and slowly made my way up. It helped that the road was peaceful and pretty and there were hardly any people to distract me, although I did spend quite a while following a man with a donkey on a lead who was determined not to let me overtake him. I stopped in Debre Sina for coffee having done a mighty 11km in 2hrs. Thankfully, after this things got a lot nicer. The gradients eased and the road climbed steadily up towards massive cliffs with clouds drifting over them. There was a lot of beautiful thick forest and the views back downwards were stunning. It was a wonderful place to be cycling.
This feeling was amplified when I came across three separate groups of monkeys frolicking by the side of the road. They were the same type we’ve seen a few places, and I now know that they’re Gelada, a species found only in the Ethiopian Highlands. The females look like regular monkeys but the males have these wonderful shaggy coats and general air of importance. All of them have pink patches on their chests, which gives them their nickname of the “bleeding heart monkey”. The biggest group was being fed wheat* by some farenji and local kids, and one of the farenji came and said hello, a friendly American guy called Paul. They ran some kind of NGO in nearby Debre Birhan and were out for a day trip as it was Saturday. We chatted for a bit then I headed up for the final bit of climb. I’d been wondering how the road was going to get over the cliffs, but it turned out that it didn’t and there was in fact a pretty long unlit tunnel. I have lights but it was still really disorientating and I was glad no vehicles came through whilst I was in there.
At the “top” I stopped for some lunch, but it turned out that the road continued to climb, albeit more gradually, for a few more km after this. The landscape had totally changed on the other side of the tunnel, and it now consisted of sheep-filled craggy grassy hills that could honestly have been taken from an English national park. This illusion was ruined by the incredible sight of a troupe of around 100 Gelada roaming across the grass, pulling up grass and plants to munch on (they are the only primate that primarily eats grass). The Geleda had helpfully gathered near another incredible sight, which I might have missed if I hadn’t stopped for them. A steep, steep-sided gorge basically cut the hillside in two, revealing the mountains and plains (2000m below) that I’d climbed up from over the last two days. The view was incredible. I spent some time appreciating that, then appreciating the Gelada some more, and felt very privileged**.
From here things calmed down a bit and the ride into Debre Birhan was fairly uneventful. The landscape opened out into a sort of rolling plateau (is that possible?) with the same sort of rifts as back in Shire/Aksum area. The road hugged the hillside and rolled up and down with more of the latter. It was still very quiet and there were hardly any shouts of “money”, which makes cycling so much more enjoyable as you aren’t on edge all the time. I arrived in DB about 5pm but somehow didn’t see any hotels despite google claiming there were loads. After taking the Goldilocks approach again I settled on the mid-range “Sunshin”, mainly because of the name. It was pretty good for the price but bafflingly had no curtains.
Rebecca texted me about 6.30pm to say that she’d made it to DB as well, so we went for a couple of beers and dinner to swap stories about the last couple of days. It turned out she had had a pretty rubbish time of it; major mechanical issues had forced her to stop early the previous day, and today she had ridden impressively hard to get to the same place as me today despite starting about 2hrs behind. The worst news was that she had been hit in the side by a rock, from an adult, unprovoked, about 30km away from DB. It had really hurt her and she was really upset by it, which made me really angry and upset. I can’t understand why anyone would do that. I’m not a violent person but I would have struggled to contain myself if I’d seen it happen. We agreed to stick to the plan and meet in Addis, partly because Rebecca’s bike still needed some work doing in the morning.
*I don’t usually approve of feeding wild animals as it distorts their behaviour, but I did get some good pictures of the monkeys as a result, so I’ll let them off.
**And I was - Rebecca was about 2hrs behind me and saw no Gelada all day
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