Day 1 I was just too exhausted to do anything, a common story on this trip! I wrote about this day on day 2, when I was equally exhausted, but needed some social connection, even if it was delayed by lack of internet. 😉

Day 1 was a big mix of paved and dirt and we started pretty late really, someone was having stomach issues, but we won’t go naming names! We started at like 7:35 or something, long after everyone but Michael, who always relaxes, something many of us could learn from! The day was slow for Birgit, especially on the climbs, but we slowly reeled in people and finished the morning ahead of about 10 people… All who decided to take the lunch truck. The afternoon saw temps back in the 40s despite the apparent mid 20s highs… There was some huge climbs in the day, one of us walked, one of us cycled it all, but it was overall just a terribly challenging day, especially after 6 days off really due to sickness of varying types and rest days!

Our day took over 9.5 hours, with lots of stops of course, cuz we love stops, but god damn it was just killer hot and exhausting! The sweep caught up to us again, but she hates hills so we told them to drop her off at the top and we’d survive. Justin and Bina (staff and married to each other; also two of my favourite people on the trip) kind of hung out in the truck and slowly ascended the hill, taking some pics of us here and there. Being swept stresses Birgit out so much but I don’t mind. Hannah was the actual sweep this day and we found out she was never supposed to have to bike, they told her she was biking after she already accepted the offer.. Cuz there was too few people to staff the tour to regular levels so everyone has to do much more work than normal. Normally the nurse (Hannah) would have just been the nurse, unless they wanted to cycle, sounds like!

I got slapped on the ass too, last village of the day. Birgit told me I needed to gain weight, they mistook me for a girl! lol. It wasn’t super pleasant. Poor women of the world! Was just some idiot kid like usual, but ugh.

Rocks were rare but ever present. Almost worst than the rocks are the kids that run beside you for like 5-10 minutes at a time, yelling the same unknown Amharic phrase at the top of their lungs! I need the Amharic phrase for “Shut up and leave me alone!” It’s hard enough climbing rocky dirt hills without some kid screaming at you the whole time. The novelty of being a celebrity has definitely worn off! They also yell Ferengi (foreigner) and run out of every house and field when we pass. Yes, we are foreigners, thanks for noticing, ahhhh! haha. The other thing they like to yell is “China!” cuz China builds the roads and invests a lot in Africa, so they think we’re China.

Dinner was one of my least favourite meals, lamb stuffing. All bread, little lamb. Oh well.

Day 2 started with 20km of paved that flew by like no one’s business! I think I may have hit 70 km/h on one of the downhills in the morning, and was soaking it up! Then the dirt started that will take us all the way to Lalibela. At km 62 tomorrow (day 3) the dirt road gets much worse, apparently for the rest of the way to Lalibela, so all of day 4!

Overall I guess Day 2 was ok… Took us 9 hours again but we had a significant number of stops. So many that despite Leah officially joining us for the day, she abandoned us around km 95 and we took km 99 coke stop without her, where again the sweep caught us. We take breaks and people get on the trucks, we are gonna a continue to finish last, and we have decided it’s worth it for all the cultural experiences of the towns and the photos we get along the way as well! Being swept is nothing, they’re all pretty casual about sweeping and not pressure at all, just need to convince Birgit that it’s ok! Michael stops every few km and does random amazing exploration on the road or goes into houses or climbs trees or investigates random abandoned buildings and they put up with him. We can take some breaks and get swept, whatever. 🙂

Many more rocks today though none super terrible.. At one village they threw rocks at us then came and sat outside the shop for like a half hour while we enjoyed the coldest coke stop of the entire trip (by and large most of the coke we get (and other sodas) along the ‘highway’ (lol) is warm)… They chased us out of town yelling something. All the experiences rolled into one!

There’s these ropes laid across the road at most villages that are used as some sort of security stop for trucks, so the vehicles can be stopped to be inspected or something… I hate hate hate riding over the rope though when someone is near it. Always worried they’ll pull it up just as I get there and clothesline me. Luckily never seen a kid near one though!

1800m climbed Day 1 (biggest climb of my life I believe, Golden to Castle Junction is only 1550 or so, and paved!).. Day 2 was a mere 1300 (though the downhill of 1800+ was a worse problem)… Day 3 is supposed to be a colossal 2500+ meter climb, hopefully we can finish it! Only 84km but all of the climbing (3 big ones) is on dirt, with the last one being on worse (corrugated) dirt. Fun. =\

Trying to smile through it all! Tomorrow we camp at almost 3000m above sea level! Tonight is a mere 1300 I think! Hopefully the elevation will bring cooler temperatures too! Gah!

Almost forgot, two crazy things happened in Day 2 as well!

Chris D’s bike frame cracked, just around the seat post hole. It’s an aluminum frame and his seat post just wasn’t long enough, despite him asking the shop for a longer one, they said it would be ok. It wasn’t. Though apparently an amazing carbon and resin patch job last night made it usable today from lunch, after it had some extra cure time in the sun this morning! Awesome work by the mechanic and good thing that Helen has some carbon patch kits! Turns out her and Sigrid have carbon fibre frames.. Crazy! So much recommending against them… And fucking suspension! The TDA documents all suggest not bringing suspension and then we spend 100s of miles on the worst roads possible! lol. Also would’ve loved to get some tips on bringing a bike with cross brakes! I’ll get into that in a minute though! (side note: rumour has it that Cannondale is shipping him a new frame to Africa, hopefully it makes it through customs in time to get it!)

The other big event was new riders Steve and Kim (couple from Vancouver and Yellowknife respectively) were having a bad day yesterday, mostly Kim, just too hot and too far for like their 3rd day, totally understandable, and they were walking and waiting for someone to send back the truck for a ride. An Ethiopian truck with a few people in the back pulled over and offered them a ride. They accepted (this is common enough, no worries), but then the truck stalled on a hill, tried a few times to restart and then started rolling backwards down the hill. One or two of the people jumped out but Steve and Kim and others remained and went into the ditch and through a thorn tree or something! Got pretty scratched up and shaken emotionally of course! Ahhh! They both took Day 3 off.

Dinner was… hmm. Oh yeah, Mutton Curry! Good, but too many bones! 🙂

Day 3 was hell for sure, and it beat me again. The uphill I was doing well at, passing people, feeling good, but jesus am I over the downhill on these roads. I almost die every time if it’s over a very light downward grade! I just can’t hold on to the brakes anymore over the rocks, my hands feel more and more bruised and weak every downhill, hurting so much! To top it off, at one town I was poked with a stick, hit with the stick, and hit with rocks! What the flying F, kids?! I wanted her to swing the stick one more time so I could grab it and break it! It’s really hard to keep your cool through these events. Just some serious terrible.

I gave up at 42k today (something like 1600m of vert), 2k from lunch, everything hurt just so bad (from not braking and having no suspension) and I was sick of almost dying every downhill haha. I stopped as the truck passed and asked if there was room and then fell over in my pedals too and scratched up my leg… ridiculous! lol. That was the end if my day. No one else rode on from lunch either (that was there when we were), so Birgit quit too (tho she is enjoying the downs and hating the ups). We cycled 2k more into town and had juice and coffee and coke and I tried to find a burger or fries or cake or something salty and failed.. Oh well. Was a fun couple hours.

I was pretty sure I wouldn’t ride Day 4! 2500m of downhill, double what Day 3 had. I’d also really wanted to see as much of the churches in Lalibela as possible, it’s like the only place I knew about in Ethiopia before coming! Also just getting to camp before the 9 hour mark would be amazing. Rough days this week!

Bina had a terrible morning too! I don’t know why the fuck they keep putting girls on sweep, especially tiny ones like Bina (she’s 90lbs and pretty short – and blonde, something special locally). Some kids pulled her off her bike and we’re throwing fist sized rocks at her asking for money. They didn’t back down either like most do if you make an aggressive motion towards them. Sounded horrible, poor girl! Fuck I hate so much about the people here sometimes. Then you get the odd really nice or cute experience that’s hard to remember through all the painful ones! Grr!

Been trying not to swear since mom told me my grandparents are reading this, but this kind of behaviour deserves some swears! (Sorry Nanny and Papa ;))

Dinner was all vegetarian, like most days before rest days for some reason. Chickpeas and some sauce that was hottish. It was ok.

Day 4 was solidly on the truck. Along with basically everyone else. 7 people rode the whole day, and maybe 10 rode from lunch. Everyone else got rides to Lalibela. Just too much and everyone was excited to get here. Sadly it still took 5 hours on the truck, and we barely beat the lunch truck riders! Oh well!

Got some great food all over the place and then ran to St. George‘s church to see it (pics below), after a not so quick stop at the ticket office where we had to pay !!$50USD!! to see the churches, and then to the bank for Birgit, and then we took the longest way ever to find the church, which was actually right by our hotel, oops. Also, closing at 6pm means closing at 5pm (not literally, but in this case), sooo, we missed out on seeing the inside and had to do that at the end of the rest day.

We went to the most amazing restaurant for dinner after that though! Ben Abeba, which is pictured below. A Scottish woman runs it with an Ethiopian partner, and it was just a huge amazingly architected gem on the edge (literally) of Lalibela. Such views, omg! Check it out below and make sure you stop in if you ever go. Cheap amazing food too and so much fun! Go at sunset!

Today was a busy busy day! Birgit and I (and Amanda, and Michael though they kind of left separately) went to see the church masses at 6am! It was pretty incredible, so many people and so much confusion on our part, but I’m really glad we did it! Then we spent a while looking at the nearby churches, went to have some breakfast and only found some weak French Toast and Machiatos (and Pepsi), and then went back, all in all, probably 4 hours of churching in the morning. Turns out the church clusters are much closer than previously expected and we saw all 3 clusters and most of the churches. St. George is still my favourite, though some of the others have some more to offer inside… like Bet Medhane Alem, where the most worshippers were in the morning! Lots more inside there. St. George ended up being kind of weak inside, we saw it at the end of the day.

I again stocked up on snacks for the next couple days (cookies, chips, peanuts – cooked this time, omg. At least our last uncooked gross peanuts were found by Noah the truck driver and ended up being roasted and salted to deliciousness). Then stuffed myself with steak and fries for dinner! MMMMmmm! 😀

Now I’m writing the blog. Seems weak when I write it out, but hopefully the pictures below are somewhat worth it. I have lots more, but I don’t want to bore everyone to death with church pics. Just enjoy the ones I decided to post! 😀

Really liking all the blog comments too, guys! Thanks for them! I do check them every chance I get and they’re super exciting! Hello to all my cyclist friends’ friends and families too, I guess lots of you are reading! 😀

Picture time! I really like this set of pictures! As much of a downer some of this post is, it sure has been pretty!! Way prettier than ever expected! 😀

Miss you all!

WOW! The views on this section have been stunning! There was three days of riding, but I only did a day and a half. I did the first half of the first day and started to feel bad again, and then felt good that evening, woke up, felt good, ate, and crashed back into sickness. The third day I finally felt strong again and rode the whole amazing day! Anyways, here’s some stuff that happened!

Day 1 started off so well! A great downhill from the hotel through the rest of town, and into a nice gradual uphill (that would eventually surpass 1000m of climbing even before I quit at lunch!). Around 35k or so, though, my stomach issues came back with a passion and cramping and terribleness ensued!

Birgit had tire issues early in the morning (her Mustang rims have been hell on this trip post-Sudan; same rims have provided problems for 2 other riders as well)… So with this 30 minute delay, by the time I had the stomach issues, the sweep was upon us. We stopped for a coke stop (I asked for a toilet here and was led through some slummy houses to an unmarked steel door which had a hole in the ground inside, and smelled terrible. I’m pretty sure this was surrounded by local houses. An experience, for sure!) and I had some more Buscopan which definitely helped, but it was a long ass ride from there to lunch at 68k where I decided to call it quits.  Anyways, beautiful scenery, and a lot of asshole children. One group was throwing boulder sized rocks off a cliff at the sweep as he went by, I think they were only throwing regular sized rocks at us lots of young people and kids try and push you or pull you off the bike too, and or throw or swing sticks! Lovely place.

We took some pictures at this lookout and there was a small group of tourists there too with a private land cruiser and guide and the guide is keeping the kids away while they were enjoying the lookout but then they go to leave and the stupid Western woman in the car rolls down the windshield and dumps out pens and candy and shit.. no wonder every child in this country sucks! lol. Ok probably not every child, but this kind of behaviour really does not make anything easy for us! We can’t just roll up the windshield and drive through, and instead get rocks thrown at us  or sticks swung or the like when we don’t give them stuff. 🙁

At lunch we arrived to a cordoned off lunch truck, supposedly keeping the masses at bay, of which there are crazy amounts basically everywhere we stop for more than a few seconds. Kam’s backpack was well within the cordoned off area but was briefly unattended and got stolen! His passport was originally thought to may be in there (but days later spoiler: he had it in the truck like he was supposed to, phew!) along with $100 USD and 1000 Birr (another $50). His camera too.. and the backpack itself, clearly. He and Randy and one of our local staff went to the next town and got the police (who didn’t have a car so we brought them back in one of the trucks) and they interviewed a bunch of the kids, many aggressively.. Then took a bunch of kids back to town for more? Something, anyways. It seems the kids identified the thief, and a few days later we found out they found them (2 of them), and the backpack and all the contents. Good news, right? Kind of! Kam had to go back to get them on a local bus with one of our local guys, and he has to press charges to get it back. Clearly the kids deserve punishment, but we all kind of worry about the level of punishment they’ll receive. In Sudan it would’ve been some hand cutting-off, it won’t be the same here, but it’ll be hell for these two for such a dumb decision. It’s hard, because on one side, you hate almost all the children here, but on the other, they’re dumb kids, they probably don’t deserve to have their life ruined so Kam can get his stuff back. Alas, third world judicial systems. 🙁

After lunch we took the truck and eventually stopped again in a town for a coke stop where the truck was immediately surrounded by about 100 begging people, harassing us, trying to open the door, etc etc. Birgit and one of the new riders, Kim, went down the road for coffee before all this started and we had to hold down the fort til they got back. Bina was overwhelmed with attention, being a small attractive blonde female, and had to retreat to the truck. Eventually the crowd found the water taps and suddenly like 8 people were lined up with water cans! What a crazy place this is. There’s good people here and there but we are all kinds of souring on the Ethiopian countryside so far! Very beautiful and never boring, but bordering on dangerous… or at least uncomfortableness!

The last 19km into camp was all offroad downhill, with litterally 100s of metres of drop just off the edge. So pretty though! Everywhere you look, amazingly pretty mountains. Love the views, and it’s definitely far from the boredom of Sudan! If only I could get better and ride more!

The top story of the day was that German David got a dead bird thrown at him in the morning! Always an adventure!

Dinner was a great beef stew! I’m pretty sure this was one of my first classic stews. We had a spanish stew before, but the ‘sauce’ was mashed potatoes. This was more real. I had lots and lots of beef. Need to get my weight and protein intake back up!

Day 2 opened up well for me, but immediately turned to terrible after some food, so despite being dressed to ride, I threw my bike up on the truck and got on for the worst ride of my life. We started with 3 people in the dinner truck but had grown to 10 by the time we hit lunch, which we didn’t get to until almost 5 hours later. Lunch was at 50-something, I think. That’s right, the truck was averaging around 10 km/h. The whole day took 7 hours, and we were crammed in there like sardines. People that started at lunch (at noon, because that’s how long it took the lunch truck to get there too) wanted a pickup as well, but we were full. The day turned out to be the hardest of the tour yet, according to pretty much everyone that rode part of it. Birgit and Leah were troopers and finished in 11 hours, 1 hour under the max if you’re racing (you get 12 hours for sitting in the truck), and right on the verge of being picked up due to sunset. AMAZING WORK, guys! And everyone else that rode part of the day. It was killer hot and terrible, I can’t even imagine how bad my too-skinny tires would’ve performed, though with the alternative being those 7 hours on the truck, I’d’ve given anything to have been able to try! I think the total climb was over 2000m, all of it was dirt and rock, and it was definitely another day for the mountain bikers, though Dave W won the day without shocks and actually verged on beating the Hilux (Toyota Pickup) to the finish line. Almost 2 hours before the dinner truck made it there. I guess we know who fast David is now? 😉 — German David is going to hate this.

So, top things I learned on this day: If you’re going to ride in the truck, have a book (thank god that Cam (Trout) lent me a book the night before, a really great one called Thinking, Fast and Slow — Great book so far, can’t recommend it enough), and if you don’t have to ride in the truck, don’t f’in ride in the truck. It sucks! Riding is much better, even if you’re weak and the sun is strong. 😉

Stories from the truck: It’s basically impossible to be bored here, hardly a moment without yelling or screaming at the least. We just stopped in a village for a few minutes and basically that entire time was filled with shouts of “you you you you you” and “money money” or “you pay”.

Also weird, just after the town, upstream of where the river goes through town, which I assume provides some drinking water to the people, others are bathing in the same river.. Good stuff! 🙁

The day ended at a soccer field which was our camp for the night. Lots of coke and beer was had by the riders (most people are loving the fact that beer is now back on the menu in Ethiopia vs Sudan (which is a dry country – Islam!), and I set up Birgit’s tent and sleeping cot for her, before I ever thought it would take her past 6pm to get there! I have a great picture I’ll post below of how dirty she was when she came in… What a trooper! Happily I was feeling really good at this point, and was inducing some positive thinking to feeling better for the morning, which worked out! I ride the next day, weee!

Dinner was pasta, sigh. I ate a lot of nuts instead and the salad was pretty great, lots of carrots, pineapple, maybe raisins? I forget now. Gotta get better at taking notes!

All hail the finishers of the day!

Day 3 saw me back on the bike again, hooray! 128km of dirt and pavement, though all the dirt came in the first 20km, the entire downhill (god damn is it hard to gooffroading downhill with roadie brakes! My hands were killing me trying to grip. It’s a bit better in the drop bars, but then you’ve got your weight further forward… And without suspension, no matter which way you do it, your arms are dying! 🙂

The climb back up the other side of the valley (aforementioned to be probably 600-700 metres) was a great workout, I felt so good to be back in the saddle, and I stormed up, breaking a few times for photos and pictures of Birgit as she caught up from behind (she was well-deservedly exhausted after her 11 hours of hell the day before!). We found the first coke stop at 22km and had the best Texas-sized donuts ever (well, it was just some fried bread, and no toppings, but it was a nice surprise) and some cokes. Locals got a little crazy near the end and were surrounding us after everyone else left, so we motored on. The next 20 km flew by as I related experiments mentioned in my new book to Birgit, keeping our minds off the kms. She set her odometer to time-mode so she couldn’t see how far we were going and mine had been forgotten in the truck, so we were blind to the miles, and perhaps this is a better way of doing it!

We caught up to Leah after a second coke stop as she was changing a tire and joined forces for the rest of the day. Another coke and fresh juice stop in the next town, just before lunch, and the day was really looking good! After that first hill it was really back to Sudan-level hills, just with much more to look at. The people were nice to us this day too for the most part, though Leah got pushed off her bike by 3 girls, wtf? Just where do these kids learn that this is acceptable?

Lunch was fruit heavy for me, and we went on, doing a couple more climbs, though non as significant as the morning, perhaps something like the Cochrane Hill, if people know the Calgary area. This provided many awesome downhill moments too though, and being paved, it was going much better for me! I drafted behind a bus and then a truck on two different downhill sections and ended up having a conversation in the middle of the highway with the truck driver. He’d heard of the tour before and wondered if we needed drivers! lol… Was a pretty unique moment, I think. He was on his way to Adwa (spelling?) which I think we go to in a few days. We were booking it down that hill, too. I had a nice area of no wind behind him and he was well aware I was there, having fun with it as well!

Anyways, a few more hills later and we arrive in Axum! Chris D and the sweep, Hannah somehow missed Axum entirely and ended up in a town 20km further down the road and up another hill! They had to turn around and find their way back, arriving after dark at 7:30pm or so. I think they’re having troubles with the sat phones, otherwise this should’ve been solved with a ride in the truck, not another 20km of cycling back to town.

The restaurant here at the hotel we’re camping at (we really know how to bring down the number of stars a fancy hotel is worth) was ridiculously slow last night, 2 hours to get my beef, and I was nearly passing out of starvation (I am aware of the issues with making this statement in Ethiopia, but I do not care! I *was* starving. And these people do not need handouts, they have an amazing country out there, what they need is contraceptive education (6 children per woman is unsustainable), and perhaps a hand with farming techniques, but so far the land looks very arable, and the last thing they need is hand outs from Westerners!).

Today I walked around town a little bit, buying supplies and being harrassed to come into shops or pay kids for nothing, quite enjoyable. I missed out on the tourist activities this morning, but the best of them, some local church, was closed for a 3 hour lunch when the group got there anyways. The rest was rubble and some sites I walked by already. Oh well, too much to do and really not feeling the vibe of the town here! I’ll go back later for more supplies and food though. 😉 Also, I bought some postcards! Shit. Forgot about writing those. Perhaps I’ll write them between here and Lalibella and send them from there. Need something to do at night without internet… That, and my book, of course. Wee!

One more Ethiopian weirdness I was just reminded of by Chris D on Facebook: “Fun facts from Ethiopia. Here, the year is 2006. They were late getting the news that Christ had been crucified. Also, although my watch reads five to one in the afternoon, here it’s really five to seven. Sunrise is zero o’clock, lunch is at 6 and dinners at 12.” this was so confusing the other day when it was 12:30pm and I was trying to find some stuff in Gondar and everyone kept telling me to come back at 8 o’clock! It was driving me nuts… “8? There’s no way this government office is going to be open at 8 at night! wtf is going on?!”… Then finally someone showed me his watch, which by this time said it was 7:20 or so… Or 1:20pm (13:20) to the rest of the world. Crazy!

Oh yeah, and in Axum last night, around midnight saw the beginning of some sort of late night (all night, it was still going when I woke up at 7 or so) chanting session over loudspeakers. I have no idea what it was about, but I think I hear it again now! What the what?

A reminder that there’s more pictures and some commentary on my instagram, ohsnap365, and twitter!

Picture time!! Mine first and then Birgit’s! Usually they’re mixed together but I couldn’t find her today. Her’s are probably better in a number of ways (especially since I was sick), so make sure you scroll down at least 30 photos to see her 26! 😀