From Gondar

There is a mosque on the outskirts of Dejen; two circular pillars stand tall either side of a cream dome, tipped with a turquoise crescent. I ride slowly past, and the rest of the little highway town is already familiar. I pass the buzzing engines of sky blue minibuses, pausing, two wheels lying on a muddy verge, and a crowd of children tapping on the windows, offering up baskets of oranges, chewing gum, kola nuts. A child sees me approach and at once they are all around, my eyes directed to the little baskets by gentle nudges from every angle. Soon the shoeshine boys will join, and then the guys with bikes will ride along beside.

The strip of wooden shacks; shadowy bars and bakeries and tiny general stores, is broken by muddy alleys branching from the tar, weaving between smoke-filled corrugated shelters that recede into the cluttered half-light behind the road. I pedal past long lines of men returning from the fields, wrapped in blankets, tapping their donkeys along with sticks, and women shooing away landing crows from hides of cattle, laid out to dry on the dirt. Men wash in a ditch parallel to the road, and just behind, groups of boys huddle around a cardboard square, playing a game with bottle caps. Ahead I see a row of numbered doors, behind an open metal gate, in one of which I will spend the night.

Over the next two days I ride 190 km to Burie. I notice little beyond the cloud, the rain, the endless dull moors. Streaming currents of silt-filled water have carved deep red groves across the fields, and young shepherds, huddled in drenched blankets, stare bleakly as I spin pass.

It has rained for five days and at last the cloud's hold on the landscape is broken. I climb from Burie, the sun already streaming yellow light through the morning haze. The road undulates gently across soft hills, fields of barley, maize, and teff, pouring out across the little valleys in squares of green and brown. Loaded donkeys trot along the roadside and occasionally I pass men on taller white mules, sitting on brightly embroided saddles, an umbrella in one hand, the reins in the other. I stop for lunch, leaning on an abandoned wooden wheel and eat bread and smoke a cigarette. Out of the corner of my eye I see children crawling on hands and knees through tall maize stalks in front. They jump from the field sheepishly and stand and stare. I ride on through the flats, the rivers becoming more regular as I near Lake Tana. There are tanks lying in the grasses; decrepit metal shells, sitting sadly where they were halted years ago. The road begins to descend and I can see beads of light twinkling on the flat lake ahead, and the steel skeletons of future-apartment-blocks, marking the edge of Bahir Dar.

I pass through town to the shore and sit beside the water. Small flocks of heron float beside a lone buoy and men washing from the rocks send crescents of expanding ripples across the flat surface. There are two upturned boats at the end of a collapsing jetty, and further off, I can see clumps of green; the southernmost of Lake Tana's island monasteries.

I take a boat to the islands, passing fisherman casting their nets from low-lying papyrus canoes. Reeds rise from the shallows to the forested island banks, and I follow a muddy path through the trees, past a woman weaving cotton on a wooden spinner and a baboon tied to a string patrolling a little hut, to a circular church in a clearing. A circuit of high limestone arches runs around the edge of the building and four sets of tall wooden doors give entry to the inner chapel. A young monk leads me in and opens each of the doors and light slowly penetrates the brightly painted interior. A raging emerald devil sits amidst spikes of fire, serpents flowing from his lap, and the heads of the damned clasped to his chest. Above, two saints, with perfectly spherical heads, stand in orange and green robes, spearing the blooded head of a whale beneath.
In an outbuilding he shows me golden crowns; gifts from kings centuries ago, and the thick pages of ancient amharic bibles, bound in tattered gold-leafed leather. Monks sit in alcoves reading aloud and beyond the trees I can hear water lapping at the bank. The young monk tells me he has not left the island in three years. Many of the elders have spent whole lives here.

Back on the bike I ride north, the lake slipping in and out of view, between gentle hills to the west. The road is elevated from the surrounding plains, and a film of brown water covers the land as far as I can see. Trees stand half-submerged and huts are scattered across the flood like smoking match heads. I hear screams from the water and a crowd of naked boys storms across the road, waving their arms and hurling stones and jumping in front of the bike. Ahead, a thickening range of hills come into view and loom larger as I approach Addis Zemen, where I spend the night.

I set out for Gondar while the sun is still hidden behind the mountains to the east. Near the summit of the first climb a lone tooth of sheer rock stands bare above the green ridges below. I stop and watch the sky turn sulphurous as the upper rays of the morning sun rise above the heads of the black mountains behind, burnishing the silken clouds orange, like dull embers given life by a sudden gust of air. As I descend, the valley, flooded with light, glows green, and a light breeze sends me whirling through the flats. By noon the sandy turrets of Gondar's castle come into view and I am climbing past the fort's thick walls, into the old city.

From Dejen

I am back in Addis Ababa now, yo-yoing between the high-walled compounds of embassies in search of a visa for Sudan. At the Sudanese Embassy I am greeted by the head of security, wearing tight leather trousers and crocodile-leather shoes. He ushers me past a crowd of patient Muslim women and I am told I must first have an Egyptian visa and a letter from the British Embassy. At the Egyptian Embassy a pretty Ethiopian girl laughs at my photo and tells me to come back in four days. Back to the Egyptian four days later, onto the British, back to the Sudanese; it is closed on Tuesdays, to the Sudanese on Wednesday, and finally, back once more, to collect my freshly stamped passport.

I fill the hours and days between, wandering the city’s museums and markets and shanties. On Sunday the thick cloud that has overlain the city skyline since I’ve been here, recedes, leaving a deep blue sky, and I walk out past Siddist Kilo towards the fringes of the city. Goats nibble at piles of junk amongst the corrugated shacks and kids whizz past on shiny new bikes. On the corners old men sit on plastic stools drinking tea and the blind tap their way gingerly along the street, handed from helping-passer-by to helping-passer-by like a baton in a slow race. A long line of shaded stalls, selling flashing Chinese gadgets and brightly sequined dresses, runs along the main street, and on the curb a man sits naked with his head in his hands, his feet dangling in the gutter.

In the afternoon I chew chat with two young barbers, who work across the street from where I stay, and the bitter leaves make me drowsy. We play cards and drink glasses of black coffee in the shady backroom of a Piazza bar. That evening I have drinks with Florian, a German doctor who is here for a few months. His room has a balcony overlooking the hotel terrace, and from my table, I watch him lower a rucksack, dangling from shoelaces, to a ready waiter, who places a cold bottle of beer in the bag, before it is hoisted back up. I join him and soon the rucksack is ferrying two bottles upwards.

He sits very upright, and nods a lot, and his hands adjust his tortoiseshell, pebble spectacles as he talks. The sleeves of his ironed shirt are folded at right angles, just above the elbow, and the shirt tails are tucked neatly into thick mustard corduroys. He tells me about the hospital, how many patients are wealthy Somalis, who have traveled from Mogadishu to have surgery on gunshot and car-bomb wounds. Every now and then the conversation halts as a pigeon lands on the ledge in front and Florian stops mid-sentence to hurl a peanut at the bird and mutters about missing his rifle.

We go to supper at a friend of his, Awguchew’s, whose wife gives us big bowls of pasta and glasses of honey wine, filled to the brim, and sits in silence, smiling, while we talk. Awguchew asks about my journey and as I describe the route he recalls hotels along the way: ‘Awassa, hmmm, I been there. Yes. Big hotel there: very modern, very expensive. Visa: they have... Yes, and Nairobi. I stay Hilton. You Know? Very big room, with big bed. Mini-bar: there is...’ He nods approvingly at the recollection and looks disappointed when I say I stayed elsewhere. After each sip of wine he jumps up to refill our already-full glasses and when his young son comes shyly in from playing he plucks him from the floor and gives him a huge hug.

He tells about his work for an HIV charity, about the need to distribute condoms, about truck-drivers with girlfriends in every town: ‘in ten town between here and Djibouti, every stop, different girl. No protection. Very bad.’ He says people are trying and things will improve: ‘Look Uganda. Infection: falling. Because good government. But government can be very problem too.’ He says how at a meeting with African ministers, an official from Mozambique had suggested that America introduced the virus to control the African population. ‘This is rubbish. And I say “why, to them, why we look from where the virus come?” And then I ask to them: “if a lion were to walk into the midst of our group now, what would we do? Would we stand here, still, and ask to one another, “from which direction did the lion come?” or would we kill the lion, and ask after, from which direction did it come?” They say, of course, first we must kill the lion, then ask from where it came. I say to them, it is the same with the virus. First we must end it and then we may ask from where it came.’

‘How can we expect the normal peoples to prevent illness, when the leaders, they are not trying? This is the problem. The politicians they come to discuss and spend their times in Sheraton Hotel, drinking whiskies and wines.’ He looks grave and his eyes wander to my glass and he bounces with bottle in hand to refill and starts to tell how some years ago it was heard that Colonel Gaddafi came to Addis and hired out the whole third floor of the Sheraton. He paid for exclusive use of the swimming pool and had a slide erected from his window to the water…

It is my last night in Addis Ababa and time to leave. Early next morning I ride north and the sprawl of rusted corrugated roofs and half built concrete blocks gradually recede as I climb into the forested slopes of the Entoto Hills. Rain starts to pour and I am cold as I reach the top and stare out at the band of asphalt before me, thinning, and finally disappearing between plains of grey moorland ahead. Gusts of wind sweep across the high plateau, driving pellets of cold water into my face. I ride on and find a motel at Fiche, where I spend the night.

I have ridden only five kilometres and my body is aching. The hills are gentle but my knees sting every time my foot presses on the pedal. Pain shoots from my shoulder and I stare grimly at sheets of rain merging thick clouds with the featureless ploughland all around. I stop again and again, edging slowly northwards. After eighty kilometers I reach Goha Tsion, find a bed, and go to sleep, wondering if I’ll make it up the hill I know I must climb in the morning.

A few minutes out of town the road dips and a thousand metres below the Blue Nile snakes its way through a deep canyon. The ravine walls are sheer and patches of cloud are strewn across the great valley like shreds of torn cloth. Terraces have been carved into the slopes and they descend in a shrinking green staircase to the distant thread of water below. For almost an hour I freewheel round and round the falling canyon wall, the river growing wider, and my forearms stiffer as I clamp the brakes shut. I pass waterfalls and little straw huts, camouflaged in the trees, and startled children fleeing from the road. Soon I am crossing a mighty current of rushing water and now I am climbing, the road spiraling up and around, and I slowly with it, the river shrinking and my legs tiring. For twenty-one kilometers I crawl upwards, and after nearly three hours, I reach Dejen.

From Dilla

I arrive in Moyale covered in dust. I have spent the last 18 hours drifting in and out of sleep on top of a truck. For long spells I gaze through the rattling metal bars at fields of black lava rock and swirling dust. The corrugations and holes in the road slow the lorry to 20 km per hour for most of the 400 km journey. When we arrive I haul my bike from the truck top, with the help of the guard and driver, and ride down a dirt side-street in search of a room. I have spent the last two nights sleeping on the floor of a hut and the back of a lorry and I fall asleep without eating or washing. 

I wake early and ride across the border into Ethiopia. I stop at a courtyard restaurant and get a shot of black coffee and a big sour pancake with spicy red sauce.  Men come in to drink the coffee and they shake my hand as they pass. The people have lighter skin here and the women are beautiful. I spend the day writing and planning my route north. Late in the afternoon I go to the bakery. The ceiling is very low and three men sit in the dark, scrubbing their teeth with twigs. Rows of square white buns rest on a stone block. I buy six and a jar of honey to eat on the way to Mega.

Out of Moyale a narrow band of worn asphalt unfurls across the windswept scrubland. Ten-foot high anthills and patchy-leaved thorn bushes cling to the loose red earth.  Every few miles I pass a cluster of mud huts set back from the road. They are circular with concave roofs overlain with torn black plastic sheets that rustle in the wind. The walls are cream or red and some have charcoal drawings of leopard and wolves scrawled beside the low door frames. Men lead large herds of horned cattle through the scrub and small groups of camel chew on Acacia branches. 

At the first village I pass, a large group of Borena women are tying branches together to form a fence. They all have plaited hair that hangs to just below the ears. Some have faint blue crucifixes tattooed in the centre of the foreheads and they all wail softly and sway from side to side as they work. I stop for a glass of tea and watch long lines of donkey being loaded up with bulging sacks, many of which bare the faded stars and stripes of the American flag and have ‘USAID: A Gift from the American People’ written in blue and red on the side. 

As I head north the land turns from red to cream and the sky is a solid mass of light grey cloud. It is very quiet and for long stretches the only forms on the roadside are the towering anthills. I pass a group of Borena women carrying heavy loads of firewood, who run from the road when they see me. I arrive at Mega, a little town halfway up an escarpment, in the early afternoon. As I sit to eat, children in rags stare at me like an alien has landed. I sleep here and ride 100km to Yabello through the vast flat scrubland the next morning. Occasionally lorries pass and men in flowing white robes whip their horses aggressively as they gallop through the dust. I pass a cattle market in a village and weave through streaming lines of trudging oxen. In Mega I was told that in order for young men to marry here they must prove their worth by jumping over bulls, whose backs are smothered in butter. 

From Yabello I climb out of the low-lying dust fields of the far south into Juniper forested hills. I am heading for Hagere Maryam, a town 100km north. By late morning I am out of food and the climbing wears me down. I take breaks every six or seven kilometers and grind my way slowly upwards, as my legs begin to falter. On the outskirts of town there is a large crowd in the road. There are many young men and women dressed in long black gowns, holding mortar boards. There is a great commotion as I try to pass and people rush from every direction and tussle to pose for a photograph next to me. I stand for fifteen minutes, smiling, while new-graduate after new-graduate stands beside me grinning excitedly into the old-fashioned cameras clicking away in front. Eventually I tangle free and ride the final mile into town. 

From Hagere Maryam to Dilla the road climbs and climbs, and flattens for a short stretch, and climbs again. Thick drops of rain fall in torrents from the dark sky and I am shivering as I pedal stubbornly up the steep slopes. Families shelter in thickly thatched round huts and I can smell the smoke of warm wood fires hanging in the soaking air. Tall flat-leaved plantain trees smoother the roadside and mangy horses stand pathetically in the curdling mud. When the rain stops crowds of 20-30 children rush from the fields screaming and tug at the bike as I crawl up the rising hills. I arrive in Dilla, exhausted, having taken eight hours to ride just 110km.