Plural.
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Gigantic.
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Addis Abeba is a surprisingly modern city and the internet speed here is definitely quicker than elsewhere in Ethiopia. It is also home to a fair few Italian restaurants - the place we ate dinner at was excellent (in service and in food). Our wanderings around the Piazza area last night was a rememberable taste of the slightly seedy, very energetic capital city night life. Bars were at most 20 metres apart and overamplified music pumped out of their neon lit doorways. Peering into their darkened quarters, it was easy to tell which were popular and which were still waiting on a crowd. The music ranged from a mixture of American Popular to local Ethiopian music, of varying quality (static was a common audible artifact). This was all on a Sunday evening too.

This morning we ventured to the Sheraton, the most exquisite hotel in Addis Abeba. Several riders who are feeling deprived of their luxury so far have checked in (evidently the credit crunch is over - apparently last year about 95% of the riders camped out, far fewer are camping this year). For the cash strapped of us however, breakfast was our brief taste of opulence - $25 for a typically 5* breakfast buffet. We took our time there, about two hours, and I figure I must have consumed about 2,000 calories at least. I stopped at the point where I felt any speed bumps would have caused my body to expel food.

The journey to the hotel was in a typical blue and white local taxi, where the doors usually need two people to open them and whistling and whining noises are commonplace. The windows didn't quite roll all the way up and we received a good whiff of the Addis air. It was terrible. I thought Delhi was badly polluted but for some reason Addis Abeba tops it at rush hour - most likely because many of the vehicles are much older (there was a layer of black fumes contained in the closest 4 feet of air to the ground). On our way back we managed to take a hotel cab which was an E-Class Mercedes - true luxury and the climate control sheltered our defeated lungs from the onslaught of vehicular exhaust.

We're saying goodbye to two sectional riders today, a nice couple (Mark and Georgie) who became engaged on this trip! Mark apparently proposed at some point on the Blue Nile Gorge stage - this was a pretty inspired move, respect to the man. Several new riders have joined and the camp looks nice and busy again.

Aside from eating a ridiculous quantity of food for breakfast, the rest of the day has been consumed with mundane restday tasks like laundry, cleaning my bike, fixing my bike (no more creaks thanks to Chris, our bike mechanic, and a tube of bike grease) and sorting out my luggage. The hills should mostly be over now and the cycling plainer until we reach Northern Kenya and the offroad pain begins again.

It's been a busy week, not unusually difficult (at least not like our last week in Sudan anyway) but still tough. We've covered a good distance through Ethiopia and climbed to our highest point on the tour (3108m according to Mr. Garmin). Apologies for not writing more but a combination of a lack of motivation and a lack of energy effected themselves.

The day after I last wrote we had one of the most difficult climbs of the tour - the Blue Nile Gorge. This is a 1200m descent and ascent from 2500 metres down to 1300 metres, to a bridge which crosses the Blue Nile. The descent took approximately 25 minutes (I am ashamed to say that I had to use my brakes on a number of occasions, to avoid rocks, trucks and substantial potholes whilst also trying to prevent my bottles from jumping out of my bottle cages), whilst the ascent took me 2 hours and 38 minutes. (The fastest rider took about an hour less.)

Climbing isn't my forte - I normally grind up a hill, I think in this case, a slightly wider cassette would have been desirable (my lowest gear is 34-25). I started the climb after 11am and the day only became hotter as I ascended. Luckily with the increase in altitude, the temperature dropped, which offset the heat beating down from the sky. The sorry expression on my face (a look of exhaustion and inability to speak/breathe) handily stopped the roadside locals from trying to converse with me too much. I found also that choosing relaxing music was better to help my concentration - anything too heavy and my heart rate would climb through the roof whilst resulting in no additional forward velocity.

The climb passed unusually quickly, as I just kept 'mashing' the pedals forward, looking down at my odometer periodically to discover that the total number of kilometres was actually rising, albeit slowly. I wasn't overtaken by many riders which was pleasant - I despise being overtaken when I'm working as hard as physically possible.

As the top approached, the nature of the climb just conquered was belittled in my mind - previously it had seemed like a near impossible feat. My impression of climbing? With some pain, sweat, lots of zigzags and some slight sunburn, it is not so impossible. Some beautiful views and this was probably the second real 'Holy S**t I'm Cycling Through Africa' moment of the trip (the first being in the deserts of Sudan).

Relieved to have reached the orange Finish flag, I kept cycling and actually went a few kilometres past the campsite. Realising my error, I decided to grab a cold drink before heading back home. An outwardly friendly gentleman who spoke semi-decent English helped direct me to a drink seller and as I went to pay, he took the money in and came out with my 2 Bir change (approximately ten pence). Before I knew what had happened, he ran off down the street and the man selling drinks explained that I had just been robbed. There we go.

The next day of riding was easier and shorter. In the morning, conscious of the everpresent threat of rock throwing children, I quickly braked to a halt (endo-ing my bike, with the back wheel two feet above the ground). I turned around and chased down the boy in the red t-shirt, down the side of the road into a gated building which I assume was his home. It was here where (I assume, again) his mother came out, with the most terrified expression I have ever seen on a woman on her face. She was almost hysterical, speaking Amharic fast (not that this helped my lack of understanding). I tried to explain to her that rock throwing was unacceptable and she seemed genuinely apologetic. Hopefully the kids learnt their lesson - the rock they threw hit my crank and scratched the glossy black paint with some depth.

Later on in the day, I received a brick sized rock to my left shin as I was cycling downhill at 50kmph. I immediately stopped and tried to chase down the kids who ran into the field adjacent. Unfortunately their rock had also knocked my chain off and my attempt to pedal further resulted in a bizarre knot in the chain. A truck stopped at this point and the driver was ready to help. Unfortunately there was nothing that could be done but I'm glad to see that at least the adults are somewhat compassionate. Later on I was a moving target for another gang of children and yet another lorry stopped. This time he yelled at the kids and followed me for some distance to make sure I wasn't bothered again - very grateful for his help.

I'm not sure what twisted joy the kids receive out of throwing rocks at us and I've been relatively lucky (one child managed to hit a rider in the groin with a rock - true pain). It's sad to see how this has changed the perception of all of the riders. Some comment on how amazed they are at their feelings towards these kids who assault them with rocks - one rider who is raising money for a charity which does some work in Ethiopia says it is very disheartening that these people he is trying to help are obliviously hurting him and other riders. I'm a firm believer in karma - I won't throw a rock back at these kids, remembering the quote from Ghandi - 'An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.'

Rocks aside, it was refreshing as we arrived in camp to notice that the kids had switched to saying 'Hello'. Supposedly a local lecturer at a university made posters telling people to say 'Hello' instead of 'Youyouyouyou'.

The altitude is definately affecting riders' physical ability. Marcel commented on how he was finding it hard to breath, shortly before he smoked half a pack of cigarettes. I'm finding the load on my respiratory system more significant too and I've been using my inhalers more (and not smoking at all before anyone gets worried).

The final day of the week was a non-race day which was a beautiful way to finish the section. The morning prayers were even earlier than normal (4am, what on earth are they thinking?) although apparently this was coming from the nearby Christian monastery now. I took it very easy and we ate a very long lunch. The sharp climb to the beginning of the convoy wasn't as difficult as the drawing appeared and the convoy was pretty much entirely downhill into Addis Abeba.

The convoy was a hilariously African affair, having no police support what so ever. A group of riders took off before the vehicle that was meant to be at the front of the convoy and it was quite a few kilometres before they managed to rejoin the actual convoy! Marcel didn't have working brakes so he'd pull over every so often and wait for the convoy to pass before joining it at speed and reaching the front in a matter of seconds. Our convoy vehicles were the local support's minibus and the Drama Queen (TDA's 4x4) and they took traffic law into their own hands, skipping red lights and blocking roundabouts.

For all those people who haven't seen Star Trek before (can't rmeember what series exactly), there is a race of aliens called the 'Ferengi'. In Ethiopia, the word ferengi refers to us: foreigners. I'd to describe what I call the ferengi switch, a phenomenon that seems to occur daily as we ride through the country.

I had the privilege yesterday of riding at the front of the tour for nearly the first 50 kilometres before I was overtaken by Jethro and Marcel, two fast riders. During this time I didn't hear a single 'you' (or multiple 'you's for that matter) nor was I the target for any stony airborn missiles. However, as soon as they had overtaken me, there was an instantaneous change in the attitude of the average pedestrian alongside the road. Suddenly everyone wanted to grab my attention ('hey, you') and the kids were back in their groove.

I can only surmise this occurred because there had now been enough time for the realisation that ferengi had just passed by to come to fruition. Alternatively, they were previously ignoring me because I am darker skinned and less likely to be considered a fully fledged ferengi. Indeed a lot of students (on their way home from school) asked me 'havashah' or something similar. Confused at this statement, I checked with our Ethiopian host who explained that it refers to the local people, they were asking if I was local.

What is certain though is that my skin colour makes zero difference once the first guys have gone past, whether it be because they are white or not. I've stopped acknowledging the hundreds of children we see daily who try to get my attention - they don't know what they are saying or why and I didn't decide to cycle through Africa with the intention of having a fly-by conversation with thousands of Ethiopian children! Luckily with the spare pair of headphones someone has lent me, this is now entirely feasible since I genuinely don't hear them. Once in a while they will get frustrated and throw a rock or two but this strategy seems to suffice.

There has been a bout of illness spreading through the camp - some kind of gastroenteritis (or stomach bug). It involves intense diarrhoea and stomach pain. So far about 60-70% of the tour has had or is having it and it seems like only a matter of time before it enters my body. I've been trying hard to stay away from those infected but when we're all living in such close proximity, sometimes it is almost impossible. Some brave riders have ridden entire days whilst ill but most have just ridden the trucks. If I contract the bug, I will have to ride in order to remain EFI. Another interesting challenge.

Non race day, so we're all chillin'
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Mmm, protein.
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Trees
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We're in Bahir Dar, yet another rest day - the third within five days and one of the originally scheduled rest days. This town is like a relaxed version of Gondar, with fewer people trying to hassle us as we walk down the street and a generally more laid back atmosphere. The internet speed seems marginally quicker than Gondar in any case.

The big attraction here is Lake Tana, supposedly the third biggest lake in Africa. It is quite pretty and quite undeveloped compared to most lakes in the Western world. There a few hotels/resorts which line the shores but for the most part there is nothing but green bush. Accessible via the lake is a peninsula which contains a population of 15,000 who work mainly farming a vast area of coffee being grown. On this peninsula sits a Christian monastery and on two islands in the middle of the lake sit another two monasterys, one of which is only open to men.

Most of my friends will know that I often struggle to understand religion, and Christianity sits high up on the list of religions I do not understand. Like copyright, it strikes me as an antiquated set of rules based on a fallible set of logic. In any case, this isn't a religious blog so I'll leave it at that. The monastery was less impressive than the Buddhist monasteries we visited in Nepal and the Jain dharamsalas we visited in India.

I was expecting a small but noticeable population of religiously dressed types walking around and performing their daily duties, a clean, sparse but peaceful enclave in which they could lead a life of piousness and study. Instead, all we saw was a circular building in which there was a rectangular structure covered in tapestries. Like another rider commented, it looked like a giant comic strip. On the outside of the building was some noisy construction work (so much for the peace) and the whole place just smelt slightly odd. There were a few shacks around this main building where I assume people slept. As for actual monks, we saw just two. A waning population or what? We saw a similar number in the men only monastery we visited and I think the third monastery was similar. Aside from these drawings then, there was nothing outwardly impressive about these places.

Last night we had a Mardi Gras themed party - a tradition for when the tour reaches Bahir Dar. People made varying efforts to dress up and many enterprising riders acquired plenty of tinsel and masks to complete their costumes. The most terrifying of these attempts was that by Stuart and Dave - both of whom decided to dress as women. Hardy had an interesting take on his costume, choosing to wear a vegetable sack, while Paul - tour director - went for a different sort of terrifying, dressing as a local priest. My own costume was rather lacklustre, not wanting to waste either money or tinsel, opting only for a smarter-than-normal short sleeve shirt.

We've been gorging ourselves in a local cafe called 'Starbacks', which bears little resemblence to the Starbacks we all love and hate. In addition to the cafe (which serves probably the best hot chocolate I've had so far in Africa), there is a reasonably priced restaurant which serves a pretty decent spaghetti napolitana. We've been to eat there three times now and dinner is fast rising up the list of immediate priorities. The waitresses are getting better now but initially it was a shock to them that for a table of 6 people, we were attempting to order 11 main courses. After the first meal and observing Ruben's stack of four plates, it has become slightly less outlandish in their eyes and hopefully our dinner order will go much smoother.

As I walked down the street yesterday, there was a man with a weighing scale on the sidewalk. Seizing the opportunity to see what effect burning over 90,000 calories since we began riding has had, I jumped on the scale and watched the needle settle. Disappointingly, it appears I am near enough the same weight I was when I left home in January. Perhaps I've lost half a kilogram or so but I had thought more would come off.

Anyway, we ride on tomorrow morning to reach Addis Abeba in five days time. I'm looking forward to reaching Kenya soon after. For those who don't know my geneology well, both my parents and hence most of my immediate family are Kenyan - they were born and grew up there. I have some relatives left there who hopefully I'll get a chance to meet - if not in March then in May when I return from Cape Town. (Some of my grandparents are Indian but we have only a few distance relatives who I do not know living there now.) In addition, Kenyans are quite friendly generally and as far as I am aware, you don't get rocks thrown at you.

Campsite is a bit compact today. When we started the tour, tents would be spread out over a huge area as riders tried to grasp onto whatever limited notion of privacy they could realise. In Ethiopia however, more so than Sudan and Egypt so far at least, there is seemingly an unlimited supply of local children (in fact that majority of the population appears to be sub-20 in age) who will quickly form an audience wherever tourists tend to go. As I mentioned previously, they tend to arrive out of nowhere and within seconds. They stand silently and stare, at least at first. The age range of our typical audience varies from toddlers to wizened teenagers who walk with a slight air of experience.

The children here are quite quick to scavenge whatever they can and in past tours they've stolen cycle computers, bottles, shoes and most things that aren't fastened away. Luckily we don't have to bolt our tents to the ground (although I'm wondering if my tent pegs which attach my tent to the ground are secure enough or if they'll be pulled out and taken). In the last couple of camps, the staff have erected a border which surrounds camp, This is literally thin rope (some of which I donated when I accidentally bought 10 metres too much of washing line) attached to iron stakes but works well enough to keep out the riff raff. This afternoon, bored by observing these lazy foreigners, who after a hard day of cycling were sitting placidly in their green chairs, the stick wielding children (i.e. all of them) engaged in some serious boughts of faux sword fighting.

As someone mentioned at dinner, if someone had asked him a couple of years ago what he thought he'd be doing on Valentines Day 2010, he probably wouldn't have answered 'sitting in an Ethiopian field surrounded by local children wielding wooden sticks'. Definitely a sentiment I agree with.

Riding this morning (literally, I arrived in camp before noon) was both painful and much easier than most of the last week. We were on road, and overall descended more than we ascended (i.e. more downhill than uphill). Plus, gifted with two days to recover, my legs had a bit of oomph in them, as did my lungs which for the first time in what seems like a long time, let me push my heart rate up to the magic 85% of maximum. Normally as I tire, it becomes harder and harder to push my cardiovascular-self up, and by the end of the last week, 140bpm, or about 70%, was a real struggle.

Our rest days in Gondar were kept busy, my bike is now nearly back to day zero shinyness, albeit with several unsightly scuffs gained from a month of hard use. Our local Ethiopian contact who liases with Tour D'Afrique has attained some kind of beer sponsorship and we were lucky to be able to visit the company's brewery in Gondar and drink free beer. Free, as in free beer! Any acquaintances who have ever drunk alcohol with me know that I usually despise beer - unfortunately (?) I found this beer palatable - perhaps this is a mark of my increasing age or an unusual beer. As another rider suggested, 'perhaps that's the reason the drinking age in America is 21'.

In addition to recovering physically, I also managed to wash properly for the first time in a couple of weeks at least. Although this in itself is a fairly newsworthy event, I was amused when Paddy, an Irish rider, commented - 'Sunil, nice haircut you got there'. Of course, I hadn't actually cut my hair but merely washed it.

We said goodbye to Adrian in Gondar as he travelled ahead to the medical facilities in Addis Ababa - he had a particularly nasty crash on the downhill stretch of one of the busy sections of road just before the rest day. Unfortunately it seems he won't be joining us for a while and may not even return this tour. This was quite depressing news - he is one of the most helpful riders on the tour, a good laugh, a superb cyclist and one of the first people I met when I arrived in Cairo. I wish him all the best in his recovery and hopefully we'll meet soon.

As I was cycling today, I had grand visions of drawing a Visio diagram detailing the typical dialogue with the Ethiopian kids as we cycled past. Unfortunately, my lack of foresight means that Visio is not installed on this laptop so you'll have to suffice with text (which should be easier on the bandwidth here).
Kid- 'Youyouyouyouyouyouyouyouyou' (or in Regex syntax '(you)+')
Me- 'Salaam' (= Hello in Amharic)
We have a split at this point:
Option 1)
Kid - 'Moneymoneymoneymoneymoney' (Regex '(money)+')
*I glare at them*
Option 2)
Kid - 'Where are you go'
Me - 'Addis Ababa'
*Kid is silent, making it clear that they didn't really know what they were asking'
Option 3)
*Kid throws a rock*
*I brake to a near-halt and yell at them*
Option 4)
*Kid holds out a woooden stick as I approach*
*I steer around them, slow down and do a 180*
*Kid scatters*
Option 5)
*Kid stands in the middle of the road, in my path*
*I steer towards them*
*They hold their ground*
*I speed up*
*They hold their ground*
*I keep going*
*Kid scatters*