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.
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.
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