When people think of Ethiopia, images of famine, poverty and drought often come to mind. The last place on earth one would think to cycle would be the mountainous country of East Africa. However, it is exactly here that my husband and I decided to ride our bikes as part of the longest bike race in the world, the Tour d’Afrique is a journey of 12,000 cyclists from Cairo, Egypt to Cape Town, South Africa.
I think the general feeling is that we will never cycle through Ethiopia again. Ever. Children are little terrors that make cycling a miserable experience. You are on your bike for 5 hours a day constantly on the lookout for stones to be thrown, sticks to be pushed and whips to be snapped. Meanwhile, there are gangs of kids lining the roads yelling give me money, give me a pen, where are you going, and of course the infamous you, you, you.
It’s a shame, because the landscape is beautiful. However, it is the landscape that is killing us. We are here in Ethiopia for 21 days with an altitude gain of 19,000m (yes, 19,000m). Not only are the climbs epic, the roads are terrible and sometimes non-existent. We bike down undulating paths that shake our bodies like we’ve been put in a washing machine on the spin cycle. At the end of the day, our muscles continue to contract from the constant pounding they faced on rocky trails. Trucks driving down unpaved roads throw dust in our faces and the heat can be unbearable. Sometimes piles of rocks are piled up in the middle of the road and we have to get off the bikes and carry them over the unstable masses.
Every day we climb non-stop with a constant throng of kids running alongside us clutching our Camelbacks and bike bags. We’ve had children jumping in front of us, handfuls of gravel thrown in our faces, and one person even tried to crush my ankles.
However, the scenery is beautiful and sometimes after a long climb we can have epic descents. One day we had a 20 km descent on a paved road to the camp. We stayed in Debra Markos village and had a wonderful afternoon overlooking an amazing gorge from the terrace of a German hotel.
Our toughest but most rewarding ascent was the Blue Nile Gorge. It started with a 22km descent down rough roads after riding 60km in the morning just to get there. Once we hit the bottom, we started another 22km ascent up the other side with steep grades of 10-12 percent. And to make it more interesting, they turned it into a time trial. Wow! It was quite an achievement to reach the top in less than 3 hours. Dave did it in 2:30 and I did it in 2:45. He made the small scenic cave route in Ontario look like a pothole.
The gorge itself is impressive! Too bad they don’t allow photos for security reasons. Guess you’ll have to check it out on Google Earth.
I have to say that Ethiopia has really chewed us up and spit them out. Most people have suffered from diarrhea and vomiting.
Ethiopia is a wonderful country that I really think people should visit, I just don’t think anyone should ride a bike on the roads there. Take it from a crazy Canuck who barely survived.