On the road

Place: After Addis Ababa. Let’s say it’s Awassa.

Tunes: Nine Inch Nails, Armin van Buuren

Teijo avoiding some horses.

Dusty countryside roads. Note the beautiful new windscreen.

Where's the perfect line? Or do you just aim for the middle at full throttle and close your eyes or try to go slow around where you have some solid ground?

This is the lake that turned out to be a national park with men with guns asking for cash.

Beautiful ... Awassa was it ... at night? The pictures do not do it justice.

We met Pietiläinen in the morning. Many books were signed and good times were had, but we must press on.

The roads were ok, but a bit boring. The scenery has become greener and looks a bit like a jungle at places. It is also very flat now. The traffic is still easy. There are marginally fewer people throwing shit at us, but it still happens. The begging never stops and when it does not work, the kids have started stealing our stuff. I also got a blessing type thing (?) from this witch doctor type. I think she wanted money for doing it, but no luck as I probably got some kind of a skin disease from her, rather than a blessing.

As usual we are travelling in groups now rather than in a single larger one. In the morning sometimes we know where we are meeting up in the evening and sometimes we get the location or the hotel as a text message. Professionals travel like this as you cannot slow down for anything. Go team!

We are staying in this place somewhere and tomorrow we proceed to the Kenyan border. The hotel has cold beer and it is good.

Once we check in and sit at the terrace after a long day of riding, loud as hell christian preaching begins in the background. The guy is going on with such a passion and effort that I think he needs an ambulance when he is done. I hope this does not go on all night. A woman joined him and it sounds like she is the angriest person anywhere ever. Jesus this and Jesus that... I thought that this was supposed to be the religion of love, not hate. But that's what they say about every religion I guess...

Eventually they run out of gas or whatever they were on and we retired. Sleep is good. Today was I guess uneventful as the preaching was the most memorable thing. Or we are becoming so well'ard that racing, off-road events and such do not register anymore.

Addis and unexpected encounters

Place: Addis Ababa

Tunes: Above and Beyond

Crossing over to the pavement from a smaller road. Don't try this with a Goldwing.

How far will that camel go with all that hey?

Here young girls work instead of going to school. Young men hang around the villages doing not very much.

More crowds. You cannot do anything without a crowd in this place.

Pietiläinen and us. Note the position of the hands.

Normal procedures in the morning and no rubber chicken for breakfast. 12 people working in the little cafe with wight customers and it still took 30 min to get our omelettes and coffee. African efficiency. 

The roads from Dese are nice and there is great scenery around the route. The tarmac is good. There’s stuff (rocks, construction waste, rubbish, sand, whatever) piled on the roads and many many potholes, fallen tree trunks etc. But if you have a bit of common  sense and are not racing, it's all ok. If you took only the cattle, the idiots who are blind and/or insane and the shit from the roads they would be perfect. Top gear should really come here to try these roads. They have the muscle to seal the road and to put enough police on there to keep the idiots from wandering around. They would have a blast here and could make this place known to the world.

There was this tunnel on top of a mountain at about 3400 meters. Inside, the traffic was very heavy and your only source of light was the tail light of the person in front of you. The ground was very hard. Cut rock full of very deep grooves and completely soaking wet.  

It was so cool that we had to do it wearing sunglasses.

Some long sections of road works had to be avoided every now and again, so more off-road driving. One wee fall occurred (not to me for once) and now we have two street fighter GS 800’s. 

I always felt that the plastic screen was like a filter between you and the "real thing" and things are much better without it. And you get a neck like a wrestler in no time as your helmet has this sun visor thing that does nothing else than catches the wind and tries to tear you head off. 

In Addis Ababa, people do have private cars, but outside the city traffic was light. Only lorries and suicidal minibuses. Despite the increased traffic in the city it was surprisingly easy to get around and people drive with some common sense and skill.The hotel was recommended by the embassy and is nice indeed. Finally, there is good internet (relatively speaking as it is censored), but the Leader here has decided that blogging is for foreign spies, so still no access. Later, this got sorted out thanks to Tor and a big thank you to Bram for pointing me to the right direction.

There is a sauna here too! The staff seems to be a bit puzzled how we do things in a sauna, like drink beer there or throw water on the stones, but for now all is well and life is good. No nightlife today as one tends to pass out after a big meal in the evening if you had nothing to eat since breakfast.

Day two

Today, tourism believe it or not. I was hoping that stuff was behind us, but one does what he is told in these situations. We walked around the center (?) and looked for some cash machines only to find the seediest looking machine I have ever seen at the Hilton hotel. The blue bar you have on the screen in a Windows PC was clearly visible on the bottom of the ATM screen. The Sheraton had a better one and my cash problems were history for the moment.

Some piss-ants (fixers) were offering their services all day in order to sell us cheap souvenirs or cheap taxi rides or whatever you might possibly ask for. Very annoying. The oldest part of Addis was essentially a little slum in the middle of town, soon to be demolished. Nothing to see there but misery.

We did not do much shopping as going to the market looked like the kind of place where you have to do all the things we do not like to do. It would have turned into a fistfight in no time with the merchants, jut like in Egypt. Besides, shopping is for amateurs and tourists. Real adventurers live off the land.

In the meanwhile, Jukka found a new windscreen for me. It was a big plastic canister of cooking oil in a previous life. Some screws and cable ties later, I had a new colour coordinated windscreen. It is just as yellow as the rest of the bike. Jukka put his own windscreen back on as too many women were chasing him for riding such a hard looking bike (GS 800 without a windscreen).

At the hotel Gym, another Finn told us how to find Kyösti Pietiläinen aka. Legionnaire Peters, in Addis. This was a bit of a surprise to me as I did not know he lived here and let alone that people knew about his whereabouts. 

http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C3%B6sti_Pietil%C3%A4inen

In brief, this guy has spent 28 years in the paratrooper regiment in the Foreign Legion and retired in 2000. He has seen and done all sorts of things most Finnish soldiers (or French ones) only see movies about. He has written a number of books from his experiences and I had read some of them prior to this trip. In a a nutshell, this guy is the real deal. 

We took a taxi to a place and managed to find him with some of his local friends. After many stories we had to retire but we agreed to meet up tomorrow morning for some book signings. It was an honor to meet such an accomplished soldier and an ambassador to Finland in many ways. 

Tomorrow we leave and start racing towards Kenya. It will be good to be on the road again to leave this tourism thing behind us.

About the Blog

Dear all.

I am falling a bit behind with the updates etc as the internet connections here are not common and the connections we find are unreliable and very slow. Blogspot is apparently being censored by many of the countries we are going through as I cannot get through here even if I can get through to other websites. 

We are in Tanzania right now but some of us need to go back to Nairobi on monday. From there on the plan is a bit open, but it looks like four of us will have to skip Malawi completely.

Thanks to all those who are following this. It is good to know that it is worth the time to write this instead of relaxing or shightseeing. But real men do neither!

More offroad in Ethiopia

Place: Someplace that starts with a D. It’s in Ethiopia.

Tunes: Above and Beyond

A church. Or the prototype of Las Vegas.

Interesting symbols on this UNESCO site.

This is my church.

Scenery through the off-road bits.

Easy peasy lemon squeasy.

Getting more interesting.

Pushing the bike back up. You need to push with the legs and to lean on to the bike. I know this as I had a lot of practice this day. 

Big loose rocks.

More scenery.

No speed and you fall over.
Mud and stuff.

Forever the optimist.

A big pothole.

How many people can you fit on a pick-up.

Very much green stuff.

Congestion in Ethiopia.

Because yesterday’s offroad adventure in the darkness was so popular, we decided to up the ante a bit. Instead of taking the same dirt road from Lalibela to the main (paved) road, we took this other, smaller road everyone we asked told us not to take. The reasoning was that only tourists take the same road twice. It was not a disappointment if you enjoy driving on very rocky piss-poor gravel roads. It is amazing how they can drive lorries through there. Most people would classify this bit of road as undriveable with our heavily loaded bikes, half with road tires, but this is merely a small challenge for us pro’s. Four hours and sixty kilometers.

How do you ride that kind of road? It is pretty simple and similar to riding a Hayabusa. Just point to where you want to go, open the throttle and hang on. After the decision is made, you are a passenger. You either go through to where you want or you wake up in a hospital.

Several people dropped their bikes as you will fall if you have no speed, and I believe I won the drop count. Both panniers damaged but repairable. Countless stops and Ari had to ride my bike across some of the most difficult bits, such as one “bridge” that was covered in loose rocks the size of footballs. After this little morning excursion it was paved roads all the way for the rest of the day.

If you compare this to the off-road training I had before, I don’t think there was a section anywhere on the road today that was better than the worse bit on the training day.
Taking so long on that dirt road ensured the normal arrival to the hotel after dark. Again, all the advice and books say that you do not drive in Africa after dark, but we have wiped our backside with said rulebook a long long time ago. Only amateurs make mistakes. What we need to do next is to do this kind of gravel road, in the dark and in the rain. Ideally on some back road where no-one lives. Let’s do that in Kenya.
More stoning today in all sorts of places. Half of the people cheer at you and the other half throw shit at you or try to surprise you in some way to make you fall. And everyone asks for money, even as we ride past. Begging really is a national sport in this country. One guy in the countryside was asking for food. Someone gave him a can of sardines. He simply put it on his left hand and turned to another person to ask for more. Later, he came back as he could not figure out how to pull the ring on the cover that opens the can. The only Ethiopians we have met that did not beg have been hotel staff.

To give you some impression of the Ethiopian people, here is what they have said to us. People below five usually say “Give” or “Money”. Between the ages of 5 -10 they say “Give me money”. Above ten, they usually say, “Hey mister, give me money”. Those with private education might go as far as “I am a grade A student; give me money to buy an exercise book”. Other than that, there have been no conversations with anyone local. If you stop even for a second, you are surrounded by twenty people begging. Can someone please explain to me how this should be done to make it enjoyable?
Billions and billions of international aid have been poured into this place during the last 50 years and what is the result? A nation that still relies on foreign aid to survive and whose leadership sends the aid billions to their bank accounts in Switzerland. The ordinary people are still happy as pigs in shit. Go figure.

Having said all these nasty things, something positive should be said about the Ethiopians and credit given where it's due. As there always people around, if you need a hand or help with something, there is always someone there to help. I remain very  grateful to all the people who rushed to help me to push the bike up after my numerous drops today. 

Ethiopia is a beautiful country with a climate that I really would like. Some of the roads we have been on today have been some of the best roads I have ever been on. It not as good as it could be as there are so many idiots, cattle and shit on the road that you have to watch out all of the time rather than enjoy yourself. Still, on some occasions, with some good trance blasting away life was as good as it gets. This is why we are doing this.

This evening we also had Gordon fly in again with his helicopter to make us some dinner. The chicken we were served was a cooked rubber chicken. We were all amazed how one can cook chicken to achieve this kind of texture. None of us could figure out how to a) eat it and b) cook chicken to make it like that. Or maybe they forgot to bring us a chainsaw with the cutlery. The pizza I had was not far behind in the toughness but otherwise it was ok. 

Off-road in Ethiopia

Place: Lalibela

Tunes: She Wants Revenge, Armin van Buuren

What a fine shitter to use this morning...

...after which some luxury did not hurt. We were originally supposed to spend last night on this terrace. This place was fantastic.

Here was todays crashed lorry.

Some riding on very loose rocks.

The scenery is not bad I have to say.

More scenery and toilet humour. The scan

Fields.

God, what a shithole I woke up from. The mosquito net was impregnated with some toxin and I have in itch from hell everywhere. At least I managed to get 1-2 hours of sleep.

I don’t know what all of the Ethiopians are doing but I know where all of them are – on the roads built by the Chinese or the Koreans. It was going to be a long day so we started early. We had breakfast in this nice place in Gondar where we were supposed to be in if it was not for that bastard in the customs office. Spectacular views, spectacular toast and spectacular orange juice. Some luxury would not hurt at this time, but being real men, we did not stay for long ... and split off into groups immediately after that.

The amateurs went straight to the next hotel but the main group took a little shortcut to arrive to our starting point three hours later. The shortcut road was covered – with gravel and rocks – so no worries there.

The first part of the morning ride was excellent. Spectacular scenery and a good road that went up and down in every way imaginable and good weather. Lots of hills, big and small. The tarmac is new apart from some short sections, where things are apparently not quite finished. Too bad it did not last longer.

The countryside was piss-poor as can be expected, but what I do not understand is the treatment we get for no reason than being white. We were spat on. Things were thrown at us, such as sticks, stones, leaves and god knows what else. We were attacked by suicidal chickens, donkeys and children (someone must have coached the chicken and the donkey). Where do they learn all this? 

And then there is the begging. Everyone begs. All the time. And so many people do precisely the same thing in precisely the same way. It's like they teach this stuff at schools. Kids hardly old enough to walk or talk were asking for money in english! Or throwing stones at us if we were moving too fast. Which we were most of the time.

No time for lunch for adventure travelers, Pepsi instead. After which, we started to chase the setting sun. Of course driving in the dark is much more adventurous than during daytime, so we pressed on in the darkness. It also started to get pretty cold reaching 12 degrees at the lowest.

Every guidebook about Africa and every person who has visited this place always tells you explicitly – do not drive in the dark. These people are social democrats and/or hippies and their advice can be ignored. 

After it went dark, we pressed on for about 30 minutes dodging people, animals, all sorts of shit (usually the smelly kind). No food since breakfast and not enough water may sound like a bit of a stressful situation, but for us pro's it is just another day in the office.

We reached Peter and Pekka when there was about 60km to go to our next stop in Lalibela and decided on the rest of the night time activities. The amateurs (who drove straight on without the countryside detour) were already at the hotel. 

The road ahead of us to Lalibela was a windy little gravel track. And it was pitch black. We have lights (well ok, on the GS 800 you have something just as good as a candle in a jam jar) on the bikes and no social democrats with us, so we of course pressed on. 

The experience was interesting to say the least and we will be doing it again soon I suspect. We drove pretty much as fast as possible under the circumstances up and down the hills. There were some very steep hills/descends where you are in serious trouble if you forgot your ABS on as you can not break. Loose rocks and all the other good stuff. At least it was dry and you could not see how steep the cliffs down were. I suspect that a change of underwear would have been in order if we could have seen just how steep the cliffs that you almost went down were. 

As soon as the road from the airport to Lalibela started (tarmac), the last stage of today’s road racing took place. It was only 15 km, so no real effort needed there. The kitchen was still open and so was the bar. Some well-earned beers and a meal followed but you do feel a bit exhausted after a day like this. 

The hotel was very nice and a good night’s sleep will feel better than anything ever. In the morning there was some sightseeing in the program but real men spend the time doing motorcycle maintenance. 

Is this a packet holiday or are we motorcyclists?

The only easy day was yesterday

Place: Matema customs station.
 

Tunes: Oh boy... (no, that’s not a band)

This village idiot here tried to oil our brakes and to set them on fire. The other guy was a "local businessman".

 

Metema main street. Oh boy do I feel like going through.

Why so sad? Be happy!

Quality electrical wiring. Someone had done the job properly when the house was built but when a fuse blew, no-one knew how to fix it so they went around this.

Inside the bigger customs station. A random lorry battery in the middle of the floor. Maybe someone should fix the door frame? 

 

At least the bird had some luck today.

At the bigger cuctoms station. We are not amused.

Posh Land Rover accommodation.

More happy faces.

But now we have beer!

And beer!

And food (?).

And a top quality shitter. Who could ask for more.

Finally we got through.

 

Early start and off to the border. Nothing eventful on the way there. The weather is getting a bit cooler as we are going up to the hills. On the Sudanese side, while waiting for the carnets to be stamped, this village idiot was buzzing around the bikes. He seemed harmless, but when no-one was looking he managed to pour some motor oil on the breaks of two bikes. Nice! As the police was watching, we did not give this guy what he deserved and he proceeded to play with some lorrie’s brakes. Idiots like this are allowed to stroll around freely on the border zone. Another day, another 9mm moment.

At the Ethiopian customs the shit hit the fan. We met a British couple, Kate and Mick (www.steeringourwaytocapetown.co.uk), who told us the bad news. They have been stuck for three days at the customs as there has been a new law issued on Saturday.

Essentially, you now need to deposit a guarantee that is worth several times the value of the vehicle on the border before your vehicle is allowed in. This is to guarantee that you do not sell your vehicle during your stay. Usually these arrangements are done with a carnet, but they apparently do not accept this document anymore (or choose not to do so).

At the moment there exists no system for you to get the money back. So you can pay them and go, but you will never see the money again. For the Brits, they wanted 23.000 USD for a 17 year old Land Rover. For us, they could not even come up with a number. There are apparently options to arrange this guarantee through an insurance company or a travel agency but they will no doubt charge millions for one. If they even know about this new law. Fantastic governance and preparation by the government (= The Leader) and by customs. 

In conclusion, the border is de facto shut for vehicles. All of us have no visa for Sudan anymore, so you can’t go back or forward. No-one at customs has a clue what they are doing and everyone is too scared to make a decision one way or the other because they might have to take the heat if they make a mistake. The retired Major General (WTF!) running this Micky Mouse operation is not budging one inch. He says that the law should be the same in all border crossings, but maybe they are different in different stations, but this is his interpretation. He is being a cunt and he knows it. 

You guessed it. There is more work for that 9mm right here.

All this bullshit (like in Egypt) makes you feel really welcome to a new country and you would just rather not have anything to do with this place. Please all tourists hurry up. This experience gives you some idea of what the state of Ethiopia is like, inept and amateurish.

The Belgians arrived also today and hit the same wall as everybody else.

So, we (most of us at least) are camping here. But I went to a brothel. Like all brothels here, it doubles as a hotel when necessary. I will spare you the details, but this place was the worst room I have slept in my life. I would not have touched any surface in the room if I had a choice and I would not have put my dog in this room for a second. The window was four bars in front of a hole in a wall and the door could not be locked.

The toilet was also beyond anything I have seen before and the pictures do not do it justice. Unfortunately there is no way to capture the smell in a blog. 

As for tomorrow, no-one has any answers at the moment and I go to sleep without any idea what tomorrow might bring.

To end on a positive note, we are no longer in Sudan and my stomach pills have run out (and they worked), so beer is back on the menu. We had some injeera (the stuff they had in an Ethiopian restaurant in Belgium was so much better than this) and beers. As the brothel gang made their way to the place of ill repute we stopped by a couple of places for beers. The locals seem very helpful and cheerful. Even with all this, life is not that bad with a full belly and a cold beer in your hand.

Day two:

First thing in the morning, some good news from the Finnish embassy in Addis Ababa, who have been very co-operative with this situation. They will help us but we need details on how they can do that. 

The sub-boss at customs agreed to a guarantee by the embassy and. Off we went to a bigger customs office in a place 30km away to cause trouble there. There is no fax machine in the village here so we needed to go to the next place anyway. 

The bigger village/town was about 20-30 km away and we needed a minibus to get there. And of boy, what a minibus. The rear suspension had worn out a long time ago and the back end was bouncing around like in a clown car. Or in America. For the first time in my life, I would have wanted to have a helmet in a van.

The driver of course wanted to do good time and was flooring it whenever possible, but there were many stops to drop off and pick up people, to avoid livestock, mad people, naked people and other people throwing stuff in front of you, so progress was slow.

Once we got to the (second) customs station, the boss here agreed to help us with this arrangement as the border office took the responsibility. So he would not actually have to do anything. 

Sometime later after we got the "guarantee certificate" from the Finnish embassy via the only fax in the village under close guard by men with assault rifles. Then back to Metema in this ”back seat erection” bus and there was more of the same lunatic driving as we had on the way here. At least no naked wild men throwing shit at the van this time.

At the Metema customs office sub-bosses office (that seems to be open only a couple of hours per day) we presented the certificate we got from the embassy and asked the $1000 question. Can we go?

No, you can’t was the answer. He was not happy with the precise wording of the certificate from the embassy, so Peter had to go to the fax machine again to get a new - reworded certificate from the embassy. 

The Brits were luckier than us, and so were the Belgians despite some initial resistance from their respective embassies. Their certificates were accepted straight away and we are all free to proceed. They still decided to wait for the morning as there was not much daylight left. They can camp in their tents on top of the cars, so that's well posh.

Peter finally got back with a revised paper from the embassy and we also got the green light. And the carnets got stamped as well, which they did not even recognize as legal documents earlier. Go figure. The Finnish Embassy in Addis really helped us out a lot in this debacle and very quickly. Our big thanks to them.

Even if we all are finally moving, the problem still persists for other travelers who will be piling up on the customs parking lot - or junkyard as a normal person would call it, until the customs can get their shit together – which will take a long time. Before that, you will be at the mercy of whoever happens to be running the show. Once they feel that you have suffered enough and show you who is boss, they might let you go.

We relocated not far from the border after it was all sorted to make sure they did not think of another new law on the next morning. We drove to the next village (with the bigger customs station) and found this seedy hotel that looked a bit better than the previous brothel and as it was getting dark we decided to stay. Real men would have gone all the way to Gondar for about 180 km in the dark, but I am sure we will improve our lame performance on the road in the future. 

I thought that the previous night was bad, but this was probably even worse. Nothing else was available and you can't go on riding through the night, so what can you do. At least there is beer and a sense of relief. And tomorrow morning we are good to go and see Ethiopia properly. The rooms here were insanely hot and the music from the empty disco and the equally empty TV room next door mixed together into this cacophony that kept me up and lasted for hours and hours well into the morning. 

The music in that fucking disco was so bad that it probably gave me cancer.

Every AV system in Africa we have seen (well, heard) so far has always been on 100% volume for some reason. Do people want to get the best bang for the buck or is it a status thing? 

Earplugs were not sufficient and I could not sleep. There's also something in the mosquito net that is making me itch. 

Not so good night from here somewhere.

Gedaref

Place: Gedaref

Tunes: Foo Fighters

Not my bike this time.

I don't think these cows are just sleeping.

Get your hugs here.

Markus has some new footpegs.

An oasis or something.

The main street of the ... place we are staying in.

Early wake up and no serious heat today. 36 degrees does not count anymore. At 6:30 we started to persuade the hotel staff to maybe possibly cook us something as it was officially the time for breakfast. One hour later we were on our way. An advance group left already at 6:00 to do a recce of the road.

After clearing the Khartoum suburbs, which extend for maybe 30km from the centre we get to the countryside where we see a huge cattle market on the side of the road. Picture time.

As soon as we walk across the road, this guy in a uniform shows up and starts shouting “no pictures, no pictures” and makes a big drama out of the whole thing. We did not really understand what the problem was but he basically wanted to throw us out from the market. A big crowd gathered around us and the cattle merchants were very eager to have their picture taken and to just have a little light entertainment to break the monotony of the day. Both for them and for us. But it was not to be. This guy was the first unfriendly Sudanese person we have met so far.

Speaking of cattle, there were lots of goats, cows, camels, donkeys and horses around all day today. Some were alive, some not. Because of that we saw also many vultures, one of which made a go at me. I think it is time to wash that driving shirt. 

Small trees and other green things are starting to grow all over the scenery the further east you got and I guess this would explain the cattle. We even saw cowboys, the manliest men there are.

We met some motorcycle adventurers by the side of the road refueling. It took a while to realise that it was the three guys from our group that left at six in the morning. We decided to ride the rest of the way together to have some more weight to throw around in the traffic, but this was really not necessary as the traffic police ushered us through the intersections like we were some sort of VIP's.

The hotel was on the GPS, and we rode straight there. Nothing that eventful happened today really, just a normal day.