Day 166
Sleeping location: Forty Springs Hotel, Arba Minch, Ethiopia
Distance (km today/total): 129 / 11912
Estimated climb (m today/total): 600 / 88000
Mangoes: infinite
Distance (km today/total): 129 / 11912
Estimated climb (m today/total): 600 / 88000
Mangoes: infinite
Day in three words: Still got it
Because we had chosen to stop in Sodo, and perhaps to prove that we could still cycle a long way if, like, we wanted to, you know, we had over 125km to cover to get to our rest day location of Arba Minch. Happily we were about to descend from the highlands for the last time in Ethiopia, meaning that we kicked our ride off with about 40km of steep then gradual downhill, which was very fun (apart from a camouflaged speed bump which gave poor Maggie quite the jolt) and very fast. This took us down through an almost British landscape of grass and bushes towards the distant shining Lake Abaya. We levelled out on a flat quiet road which was near but not by the lake, which closer up was unshining and weirdly red (due to sediments).
On the downhill we went through one village with unfriendly vibes, where a man really annoyed me by just following me and laughing, but then we passed a sign welcoming us to “The Land of Arts and Peace”* and suddenly everyone was lovely. Everyone in the little villages waved and smiled and for some reason said “OK!” all the time. At times children would shout from the undergrowth and you wouldn’t know where they were, which created a lot of confusion and was I’m sure very similar to how the American troops felt in Vietnam**. We stopped for lunch in a town where the schools were just kicking out for their own lunches, and were swarmed by hundreds of excitable kids. Even when we retreated to a cafe they poked their heads over the fence and through the gate like the zombies in Night of the Living Dead. I shook hands with a couple and then about thirty excitably came forward and I had to do a lot of hand shaking; I then immediately ate a samosa, so it’s no wonder I keep getting ill. There’s still a lot of begging going on, but people are asking rather than demanding, and mostly they don’t speak English so you can pretend you don’t understand and wave or high five. In an idle moment on the road I did a begging calculation: I reckon on average 50 people a day ask for money in Ethiopia, so if I gave each one a pittance of 10 Birr (25p) that would cost me 500 Birr. My daily budget for Ethiopia is 600 Birr.
Down by the lake the vibes became tropical and there were some exciting plants and animals, including some hornbills, two mongoose (mongeese?) and a mother and baby baboon. There was a lot of fruit growing going on, mostly bananas and mangoes. We seemed to have arrived in the middle of the mango harvest and the road was full of laden carts which reminded me of the apple harvest back in Turkey. We stopped in a town where they were being dumped onto the village green in piles and covered in straw, presumably for storage. There were so many that the kids were using them as projectiles on each other, and one guy tried to throw one to me (not, for once, at me) whilst I was cycling, but it fell just short and Rebecca had to collect it from the road. We wanted to buy some fruit but when we stopped everyone rushed round trying to get us to take their mangoes and bananas, and it was hard to pick just one person. Even after we had been seen buying mangoes, and after I had demonstrated that my wallet was now totally empty, people still crowded round trying to get our money. We did end up with about 8 mangoes (including the free one) and an enormous papaya for 75p though.
After this was a gorgeous section of riding over lush hills then skirting close to the lake, both of us desperately but unsuccessfully looking out for a hippo or crocodile. We reached Arba Minch by 5pm, ages before sunset, and celebrated our general cycling excellence by stopping for juice, coffee and cake. After filling up we realised that our earmarked hotel was in fact 4km away and up a massive hill. Hotels in AM are more expensive because farenji stop here on tours, so we got a mid range room for a high end price, but it did at least have a mosquito net (there are a LOT of the wee beasties around) and draft beer for 40p.
*Although the translation may be suspect, as another language had a 7 instead of a normal letter
Because we had chosen to stop in Sodo, and perhaps to prove that we could still cycle a long way if, like, we wanted to, you know, we had over 125km to cover to get to our rest day location of Arba Minch. Happily we were about to descend from the highlands for the last time in Ethiopia, meaning that we kicked our ride off with about 40km of steep then gradual downhill, which was very fun (apart from a camouflaged speed bump which gave poor Maggie quite the jolt) and very fast. This took us down through an almost British landscape of grass and bushes towards the distant shining Lake Abaya. We levelled out on a flat quiet road which was near but not by the lake, which closer up was unshining and weirdly red (due to sediments).
On the downhill we went through one village with unfriendly vibes, where a man really annoyed me by just following me and laughing, but then we passed a sign welcoming us to “The Land of Arts and Peace”* and suddenly everyone was lovely. Everyone in the little villages waved and smiled and for some reason said “OK!” all the time. At times children would shout from the undergrowth and you wouldn’t know where they were, which created a lot of confusion and was I’m sure very similar to how the American troops felt in Vietnam**. We stopped for lunch in a town where the schools were just kicking out for their own lunches, and were swarmed by hundreds of excitable kids. Even when we retreated to a cafe they poked their heads over the fence and through the gate like the zombies in Night of the Living Dead. I shook hands with a couple and then about thirty excitably came forward and I had to do a lot of hand shaking; I then immediately ate a samosa, so it’s no wonder I keep getting ill. There’s still a lot of begging going on, but people are asking rather than demanding, and mostly they don’t speak English so you can pretend you don’t understand and wave or high five. In an idle moment on the road I did a begging calculation: I reckon on average 50 people a day ask for money in Ethiopia, so if I gave each one a pittance of 10 Birr (25p) that would cost me 500 Birr. My daily budget for Ethiopia is 600 Birr.
Down by the lake the vibes became tropical and there were some exciting plants and animals, including some hornbills, two mongoose (mongeese?) and a mother and baby baboon. There was a lot of fruit growing going on, mostly bananas and mangoes. We seemed to have arrived in the middle of the mango harvest and the road was full of laden carts which reminded me of the apple harvest back in Turkey. We stopped in a town where they were being dumped onto the village green in piles and covered in straw, presumably for storage. There were so many that the kids were using them as projectiles on each other, and one guy tried to throw one to me (not, for once, at me) whilst I was cycling, but it fell just short and Rebecca had to collect it from the road. We wanted to buy some fruit but when we stopped everyone rushed round trying to get us to take their mangoes and bananas, and it was hard to pick just one person. Even after we had been seen buying mangoes, and after I had demonstrated that my wallet was now totally empty, people still crowded round trying to get our money. We did end up with about 8 mangoes (including the free one) and an enormous papaya for 75p though.
After this was a gorgeous section of riding over lush hills then skirting close to the lake, both of us desperately but unsuccessfully looking out for a hippo or crocodile. We reached Arba Minch by 5pm, ages before sunset, and celebrated our general cycling excellence by stopping for juice, coffee and cake. After filling up we realised that our earmarked hotel was in fact 4km away and up a massive hill. Hotels in AM are more expensive because farenji stop here on tours, so we got a mid range room for a high end price, but it did at least have a mosquito net (there are a LOT of the wee beasties around) and draft beer for 40p.
*Although the translation may be suspect, as another language had a 7 instead of a normal letter
**If any Vietnam vets are reading THIS IS A JOKE DON’T SHOOT ME
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