Day Zero - Rest Day in Yabello

With so few amenities in town, the rest day was probably the most
relaxed yet. Couldn't do any internet, no internet. Couldn't do
washing, too rainy.

Stuart and I managed to find some snacks in a supermarket that hadn't
already been cleaned out. Oh yeah. The day before, a couple of the
unrepentant truck riders had planned to ride the truck all the way to
camp so that they could get into town early and get a jump on the
snacks. This pissed some of the other people off - one guy a whole lot
- but I think it is a fair trade for not getting to ride a bike. And
missing out on fried egg sandwiches the day before. But anyway, we got
enough snacks to last until the next rest day, and I got a bunch of
milk powder with additives for infants. To make sure that I don't fade
away.

Talking of which. I weighed myself on a dodgy scale in town. 90kg.
Still pretty fat man for riding up hills. Ten percent loss in seven
weeks is pretty good though.

After getting snacks, we had a look around. We found some fried,
folded bread filled with lentils for breakfast, so we grabbed some of
those. We also found little coffee place, so we had some coffee and
watched the rain outside. Then we got more bread lentil things. Then
back to the hotel for second breakfast.

With the rain, the rest of the day followed the same theme. Back into
town for more meateronies and coffees (even awesome macciattos). Then
four plates of spaghetti for dinner.

Day Five - Field Camp to Yabello

Distance: 120.8km
Ride time: 4:56
Climb: 1277

Best thing: Fried egg sandwiches for lunch.
Worst thing: No hot water.

By far the best part of the day today was that Janet, the Indaba
liaison that looks after lunch, had arranged to give us delicious
fried egg, avocado, and tomato sandwiches. For most people this was a
surprise, but I found out the night before. This was only because I
was helping out peeling garlic in the kitchen while they were talking
about it. Being sworn to secrecy about something so exciting was
pretty hard.

The sandwiches were definitely worth it though. Fried egg plus ketchup
is such a good combination. In the middle of Ethiopia it is even
better.

The change in scenery from the hills to the lowlands or whatever we
are on now is pretty different. In the space of about 50km we went
from hills covered in farms and foliage to red soil, 10m termite
mounds and nomadic cattle herders. I find it a lot less interesting.
Once you've seen one termite mound, you've pretty much seen them all.

When we got into Yabello, we found that camping spots were pretty
limited. There were "deluxe" rooms for 500 birr ($45) a night. I
sprung for one of those in the hope of getting a warm shower and
charging my stuff hassle free. When I went to have a shower - no hot
water. After a couple of hours, they hadn't managed to get the hot
water going. Plus, all the wiring in the room was hanging out of the
wall, or just kludged on. There was a pristine set of switches for all
the room lights, but it wasn't connected up, so there was a single
light switch dangling above the bed. So, I angered out, got my money
back and set up my tent.

After that, Sunil, Eric, Stuart and I headed into town to find some
dinner. We'd been told that it was about 2km away, so we were looking
for a tuk tuk as we walked along the wet road. Luckily though, one of
the overland tour guides in his 4x4 gave us a lift, pointed us to a
good place to get food and helped us order. No muss, no fuss.

The food place was pretty unreal. Out front there was a little lean-to
that was like tiny butchery. A couple of carcasses hanging up, and a
guy mincing and dicing it. We ordered a kilo of meat for the two of us
eating it, and a fasting plate for the less adventures / weak. The
eating room out the back was dark, had a couple of locals and had a
bar in the back.

Despite the strangeness of the surroundings, the food was awesome. The
meat came out in clay braziers with coals underneath to keep it hot.
There were onions and green chillis mixed into it as well as a really
hot dipping sauce. You fish the meat out of the pot with bits of roll
or injeera. Freaking awesome.

Sunil was sure that we were getting ripped off. We paid 120 odd birr
for the four of us to eat until we were totally full. With only a few
days to go until the border, worrying about thirty birr or whatever
seemed retarded. Particularly after such a good meal.

To top it off, as we were walking back out of town, the overland
operator drove past and gave us another lift. Pretty neat. He said
that a lot of the overland tours stop at the hotel (with the new
"deluxe" rooms) because it is the only half decent place between the
border and Addis Ababa. I guess that overland tours aren't as keen as
us on camping in fields surrounded by one thousand screaming kids.

At around 10pm, I started to feel like maybe getting mad was not a
good move - I could have been in a nice dry room, in a warm bed
instead of in my wet tent in the rain.

But. The next morning, I noticed that a bunch of people were moving
their bags from their rooms out to somewhere else. Apparently, the
deluxe rooms suffer from the same poor to non-existent trademanship as
the rest of Ethiopia. A couple of rooms ended up with a few inches of
water on the floor, one room had so many bugs that they ended up
leaning the beds up against the wall and setting up their tent.

I guess that I felt vindicated not paying for that privilege.

Oh yeah, and their crappy electrics blew the charger for my laptop.
Good game Ethiopia.

Day Four - Farm Camp (aka Pineapple Camp) to ... Field Camp?

Distance: 106.22km
Ride time: 5:11
Climb: 2125m

Best thing: The whole day.
Worst thing: Day was too short.

Best shuffled song: None. But listened to John Williamson on repeat
for 3 hours and 40 minutes.

Today was the mando day. This is a pretty big hint that something is
afoot. So in the rider meeting when they said big climbs at 30km and
60km people should know that there is going to be some climbing.
Especially when they say "Pssst… Ethiopia is hilly."

The hills just made this day even better though. It felt like every
metre I went up, I was just saving that metre away in the altitude
bank for later. Hopefully, we'll be drawing down on that account
tomorrow for the ride into the rest day.

It rained overnight and most of the morning. Some people aren't keen
on riding in the rain, but I love it. Riding along with the rain
cooling me down, and the road spray smashing up around me is awesome.
I didn't go fast today, but it was definitely my favourite stage of
the tour. By far. Riding solo helped, instead of having to ride pace
with the group I could just ride along at my own slow pace.

Part of the awesomeness was the scenery. Because it was raining, the
green hills were cloaked in mist. The smoke from the cooking fires in
the houses filters up through the whole of the thatch roof. It is
crazy stuff. People with a better command of the English language have
described the scenery around here, so maybe check up on what they have
written.

The mist made the hills even better to climb up. The little huts and
plantations along with the mist and lush vegetation made it like
riding through Jurassic Park. Kind of like riding up through
Tallaganda National Park if the weather is wet. Even though there are
a few ranks of hills, only the one closest to us was vaguely visible -
all the other ones were just like dark clouds. Exactly like every
other visitor here has written.

While washing carrots for dinner yesterday, I was talking to Frans
about the kids in Ethiopia. It kind of made me realise that Ethiopia
is a pretty good mirror for yourself. If you let the kids make you
angry and you end up chasing them or hurling rocks, it really reflects
pretty poorly on you. Today, I tried to not let anything get to me. I
rode along saying "Salaam" and "Salaamno" to people, dipping my head
to the people carrying sticks or whatever, and always answering when
people asked "Where are you go?". I'm not sure if it was that, or the
fact that Ethiopians respect the crazed fervour of a guy grinning ear
to ear in the rain, with a face splattered in mud, but I had a much,
much better day with the kids today. The only low point was when I
stopped to take off my rain jacket and a bunch of people came up
around me. It was ok at first, one guy spoke some English (more
English than I speak Amharic) and I was trying to explain about riding
from Egypt to South Africa. Pretty soon though, they started with the
"Give me money!", etc. I just said "Ciao" (Italian influence here and
all) then rode off.

Apart from that, it was pretty nice to be riding along and feel like I
was getting along with people rather than being in some sort of
strange cold war with the locals. I was in such a good mood, that when
I saw a guy putting a fresh coat of mud on the outside of the his
house, I was really tempted to stop, help him out and learn a new
skill. I didn't though, because I was halfway up a fricking massive
hill.

In camp, I felt like drinking heaps of Pepsi. I tried negotiating with
Gizzy to clean her bike for 12 Pepsis, but she wanted a 24 hour
guarantee, and with the weather around here that basically means I
would be spending my rest day cleaning her bike for a second time.
Free. Anyways, I went to buy my own Pepsis. Me and the Pepsi man
counted out 12 Pepsis on the ground, then negotiated a discount,
instead of 12 x 4 Birr, I'd just pay 40 Birr. I paid the money and the
guy helped move the Pepsis to where I was cleaning my bike. 2 minutes
later the guy came back and told him that I still owed him money for
the last two drinks. I'm not really keen on renegotiating stuff after
I've already paid my money. After a few minutes of their baloney, I
told him to take back his Pepsi and give me back my money. He did
that, and wanted me to pay for 2 drinks. I ended up drinking 5 pepsis
for 8 Birr. These guys need to spend more time at school, or at least
be taught street math by Bubbles.

During the normal talking part after riding, Steph / Miss Poor Impulse
Control threw a pen at me. Maybe for a good reason, but even so,
throwing pens is a bit uncalled for. So, I confiscated the pen and
told her that I'd give it back to her only if she didn't get angry at
anyone. So, I guess that this story makes me sound like a real petty
despot retard. I think that I am just a product of the lawless society
that we have here. People are already discussing what the official TDA
prison shank would look like. I think that it would be a PVM bar with
a broken spoke gaffa taped to it.

Dan's Camping Tip from Someone that Knows Nothing of Camping: If
you're expecting to camp in wet weather, get a footprint for your
tent. This means that you can pack away your inner with your fly still
up and keep it dry. Don't. Repeat don't, just get a randomly sized
poncho / groundsheet. Unless you like having a constantly wet tent.

Day Three - Lakeside Beach Camp to Farm Camp

Distance: 130.35km
Ride time: 5:23
Climb: 1299m

Best thing: Strong in the big ring, chasing the other rider.
Worst thing: Only strong for a while.

So after a pretty good night at the beach camp, I was up for a slow
recovery day. Gizzy was as well, so we set out for a pretty easy ride.
After the rain over night, all the loose sand was nice and grippy, so
the ride back up to the paved road was nice and easy.

Soon after we got to the top, one of the other riders caught up, then
went by on a downhill. On the very next uphill, we went by them. After
this, it didn't really seem like they did a lot of pulling. I'm not
really up on riding etiquette, but I think that starting after other
riders, then riding their draft without pulling is bad form. It didn't
really bother me, because I was out for an easy day, and it isn't much
harder to ride with someone in your draft than not.

About halfway to lunch, Stuart and a bunch of other riders also caught
us up. Lunch was pretty good, big rolls with cheese (a special kind of
processed cheese that they have here), guacamole and tomatoes. Only
down side was that it was being rationed out so that slower riders got
their fair share as well. Seems kind of counter-intuitive to me. It
would be good encouragement for there to be no food for riders who got
in late. That isn't really how TDA rolls though.

That reminds me, we got our new truck at the beach camp. It isn't
fully configured - just a holdover until the truck waiting in Gondor
gets its new engine. There are two problems with that: firstly, it is
the lunch truck (because all the fridge and other dinner kit is still
in the old lunch truck, now dinner truck); and secondly, there is less
space on the trucks for bikes.

My idea for fixing the problem is that people without a real injury
that want to ride the trucks have to buy their seats at an auction.
Any money raised can go into a pool for buying those that ride all day
a coke or something. Some riders think that this would be a good idea.
Mainly the EFIers and people that have had the misfortune to be really
sick on the truck and had to put up with the whining of the
sandbaggers. This isn't something that TDA is really keen on enforcing
though, so it will just have to remain a good (if totally harsh) idea.

Anyway, back to the boring minutia of riding. After lunch, we knocked
straight into a pretty steep climb. About halfway up, I wanted to
change from my granny into my big ring so that I could stomp it out.
The shifter felt a bit stiff, and the chain wasn't climbing up. So I
gave it a bit of welly to get it to go. Twang! I pulled the cable out
of the front derailleur, so I had to granny up the rest of the climb.
When I got to the top, and found a quiet place, I bodged it back
together so that I could put it in the big ring. I didn't really have
any faith in my repair, so I kept it in the big ring for the rest of
the climbs.

Gizzy and Stuart turned around to come and find me. The other rider
that joined us in the morning didn't turn around though. Stuart and I
thought about it for a while, and realised that if the other,
draft-happy, pull-shy rider kept going, they would win the stage. This
didn't sit to well with us, so we kicked it up a notch and started to
chase them down.

We were fanging along, but after about 20km or so, I was starting to
feel the lack of a granny. I sat on Stuart's wheel for a while, but it
seemed pretty slack to be drafting someone while chasing down a
condemned drafter. So Stuart set off after the rider and I sat back to
finish off the ride. Stuart caught the rider before the finish, but
because of the way the timing system works, we don't know who the
stage winner was yet.

Other big news of the day: fresh pineapple for sale by the camp. Even
better than cold cokes.

The rider that fell heavily in my crash yesterday couldn't rider
today. They went off to get x-rays for their bunged up wrist. So
straight away, they lost their EFI status. The x-ray came back clear,
but they are going to have to spend 7-10 days off the bike. Their race
position is definitely going to suffer because of it.

One of the other guys pointed out that I don't blog about anything
useful for people that might do the tour in the future, so from now on
I will give you an awesome camping tip from my new found wealth of
knowledge.

Dan's Camping Tip from Someone that Knows Nothing of Camping: Always
put the fly on your tent. This means that no-one will have to rip
their eyes out if they see you baby wiping your saddle sores. It also
means that when it rains, you don't have to get up at midnight to put
your fly on. The one exception to this is after riding through Dinder
National Park - then all bets are off.

All bets being off reminds me of chairs around camp. We all sit of
folding metal and canvas stools. At first, it was a bit of a faux pas
to ask for your chair back. As time has gone on, chair taking has
become more and more of a no-no, and calling people out on it has
become more acceptable.

Some riders and also the sectional riders haven't caught on to this yet.

Two nights ago, some guy stole Rick's chair. Rick came back and gave
us all a look to let us know what was going on. As he went past, I
said "Hey Rick, isn't that your dishkit under that chair?" It was kind
of pinned by the chair leg, so he said "Oh yeah. Hey Adam, do you mind
staining up for a second so that I can get it?" Adam stood up, and
when he did Rick said "While your up, you can get out of my seat."
Classic.

It wouldn't have been so funny, if Adam hadn't been called out twice
already that night. The seconds line for food also has a bunch of
rules. Well, some of like to think it does. One: you can't get seconds
until open kitchen is called. This is to make sure that every rider
and staff member gets some food - fair enough. Two: you can't line up
for food if you still have food in your bowl - otherwise, you'd just
go straight to the front of the seconds line.

That night, like every night really, Stuart finished first so he was
at the front of the seconds line waiting for open kitchen. Apparently,
Adam walked up, still eating his roast potato off his fork and walked
straight up to the chicken pot to help himself. Stuart whistled at him
like he was an Ethiopian kid to get him into the line. Then he told
him that he was pretty uncouth to line up for seconds while he was
still eating his firsts. The way Adam figures it, it isn't uncouth -
it is "strategy". I don't really need to point out that Adam also
thinks drafting and shirking on pulls is a strategy Different shirker
from today though. After Stuart schooled him a bit, I finished and
went to line up. I saw Adam in second place in the line, still eating
his potato. I just stood in front of him and told him that you could
only have clean plates in the seconds line. Somedays, a fool just has
to be taught.

Day Two - Lakeside Field Camp to Lakeside Beach Camp

Distance: 109.6km
Ride time: 3:50

Best thing: Another day closer to the border of Kenya.
Worst thing: Still plenty more days in Ethiopia.

Best shuffled song: I Made a Friend by The Cruel Sea.

After a bit of a rough night, Stuart, Sunil and I headed off for what
should be a short day. Gizzy was feeling pretty bad and decided to
take it slowly.

We put in a pretty good effort for the first 20 or so minutes. Marcel
still caught us up pretty easily though.

While I was second wheel, we headed through a village. I saw a large
group of people spread across the road and pulled to the inside so
that we could see that we would need space to get through. Riding more
aggressively like this has worked pretty well in previous villages.
Not so much in this one. As we went by, a guy that I thought was
moving out of the way didn't move and I clipped his shoulder.

I went down and one of the other riders came over the top of me to
crash out as well. I only got a few grazes and a slightly banged up
knee. The other rider has a pretty swollen wrist. He rode out the day,
but will still need to have an x-ray when we get to a larger town. I
feel pretty bad that my poor judgement might have screwed up his
chances at EFI and a race win.

While I was riding after the lunch stop, some punk farm kid threw a
rock at me. I have kind of reached the point at which I take that kind
of stuff with good grace. I put my bike down and took off after the
kid. As soon as he and his layabout friends saw me running, they all
start screaming and yelling. I chased the kid back to his little hut.
He hid in the corner and his mother started yelling at me, then the
kid, then hitting the kid, then yelling at me some more.

While that was happening, the dinner truck was coming up behind. They
saw all the kids take off, then my bike on the ground, then me
sprinting after the kid. One of the Indaba guys came up to see what
was wrong. When he got to the hut, the mother straight away stuck out
her hand and asked for money.

I dunno what I was hoping for when I starting chasing the kid, but it
wasn't very satisfying. Other riders have been taking their shoes,
sticks and schoolbooks away from them. They probably won't forget
that, but it seems pretty harsh. Maybe they need a Tyler Durden here
to Raymond K. Hessel them.

Despite all that, the riding here is still good. It is not as
interesting now that we are out of the hills, but it is nice to be
going a consistent speed and watching the kilometres ticking over.

The lakeside beach camp was pretty nice, plenty of grassy areas to
camp. Plus, a bar / restaurant selling cold cokes and spaghetti. And
electricity. And warm showers. Pretty good all around really. Even the
3km of dirt to get down to the lake wasn't too bad - all rideable on
the drops except for a few patches of sand.

One of the things that struck me was the size of the lake. Heaps and
heaps of fresh water.

When I got in, there was a big bunch of Ethiopians coming down to
enjoy the lake. All good, except they didn't take any of their litter
with them and on the way out, one of them grabbed some of the other
riders' gear. Then, later that night, someone came back and grabbed
whatever they could get their hands on out of one of the other tents.
Pretty crummy.

Day One - Addis Ababa to Lakeside Field Camp

Distance: 97.18km
Ride time: 3:32
Climb: 238m (but descended 700m)

Best thing: Runaway win at Cataan.
Worst thing: Watching some guy clean his kid's arse with a rag then
throw the rag down in a pile behind the fruit stand.

Best shuffled song: No music today.

We started off the day with a 17km convoy through the streets of
Addis. Lots of traffic and lots of diesel exhaust, but a pretty
relaxing convoy.

Convoy ended, Gizzy, Stuart and I headed off at a reasonable clip. It
wasn't long until we had passed most of the field and caught up with
Frans, Tim and Lynn. Frans was enjoying the descending and feeling
strong after getting over the sickness so he was doing a massive pull.
Kind of felt bad bludging off him, but the alternative was dropping
back or attacking around. Neither one felt like the smart move.

After a while, we got back into a normal rolling rhythm. While I was
doing my pull, the runabout came alongside and Sharita, one of the
tour directors, yelled at us to slow down because the lunch truck
wasn't at lunch yet. Soon the truck went by though and we sped back
up.

Out of lunch, Stuart and I realised that Marcel and Frans where still
at lunch and we only had 30km or so to go. We decided to push for it a
bit and do rock-paper-scissors for the stage win if we held Marcel
off.

We pushed a bit, but it wasn't long before I saw Marcel and a bunch of
other riders coming up behind. Stuart and I were at the back and
decided to jump on the back of Marcel's group as he went by. To make
it easier we jumped back on the front of our group and sped back up to
reduce the difference in speed as Marcel went by.

Well, turns out that Marcel wasn't going by, instead he and Jen joined
our group. We did the normal rolling pulls and were getting pretty
close. I rolled off the front out to the back. Unfortunately, I didn't
realise that the last wheel was baked and falling off the back of the
group already, so I had to bridge back from him to the back of the
group, straight after pulling. This isn't an ideal situation towards
the end of the day.

For some reason, a bunch of guys started sprinting at the front, even
though they had gone _past_ the finish trucks. The finish flag wasn't
out yet and they had missed it. That gave me a couple of seconds to
catch back up and turn into the truck. In the end, Stuart took the
stage and I took second.

Cause the stage was short, 90 odd km, and fast, 700m of descent, we
got into camp before noon. Plenty of time to play and win at Settlers
of Cataan. By the end of the game, I was such a resource power house
that I was losing cards to the robber even if I finished my last turn
with nothing. In the end I could have won either by stealing the
longest road or building another settlement.

Day Zero - Rest Day in Addis Ababa

The rest day was a bit more frantic than I would have liked. The
highpoint was definitely the buffet breakfast at the Sheraton. Pretty
must the same as a hotel in not-Africa, except the bacon was beef
bacon. Kind of wrong. We spent a good three and a half hours sitting
around eating food and drinking juice and macciattos. And using their
shiny, clean facilities.

After that, I tried tracking down my DHL package. I had a lot of
trouble with this at first because all I had was the original Canberra
-> Khartoum tracking number, not the Khartoum -> Addis number. And for
some reason, the package was addressed to the hotel, not to me. So
after a few dud phone calls to DHL from the hotel lobby I gave up and
went back to camp to clean my bike and do my washing.

While I was doing that, Paul, one of the TDA guys, got a hold of the
new tracking number. All I had to do then was jump in a taxi to the
closest DHL office and get them to check which office my package was
at. Turns out it was in the head office of Addis, so back in the taxi
to head out there.

Out there, the lady just opened a cupboard labelled "Africa" and the
_only_ package in there was my one! Next time I will know to just say
"Can you look in the cupboard and see if you have a package in there?"
Instead of frisking around with tracking numbers and what not.

It was kind of cool driving around town in a taxi. To start with, he
charged 50 birr to go from the campground to the closest DHL office.
That only took 5 minutes, so it was a bit of a rip off. Then it was
150 to go to the main DHL office and go back to Friendship City, a
shopping centre we saw. Then it was 250 to go to the main DHL office,
back to Friendship City, wait an hour for us to finish, then go to a
bookstore, then go back to the campground. Much more reasonable.
Though the night before, we paid 250 to go all the way out to the
Korean hospital, wait three hours then come back.

We also saw a bunch of the city. The technique of using wooden
scaffolding isn't limited to rural areas. Even buildings that are ten
or more stories high are built with the wooden scaffold. I dunno if
they do all the concrete skeleton by eye as well, but by the look of
some of the bridges, I'd say that some of it was.

Anyways, I now have some more bibs and chamois cream and Stuart has
his CO2 adapter as well. Happy days. One of the riders, Tony, went
home for a week between Gondor and Addis. He brought a set of Schwalbe
Marathon Durano 25s back for me. They are a crazy thin set of tires.
Compared to normal mountain bike tries, or even the 32s that I've been
running, they look ridiculous.