Day 32 – Moyale (Kenya) to Yebelo (Ethiopia) (214 km)

30.01.2012

Jules writes:

We have now entered the second month of our trip, and are more than a quarter of the way through our total distance. We think. We still have no idea of the total distance that we are going to cover, although we suspect it will be around 25 000 km.

Dad woke up early and started changing John’s rear tyre, punctured the previous night. The rest of us got on with various tasks, I managed to catch up with blog posts. You may have noticed that our posts seem to get put up in batches. This is due to an almost complete lack of usable internet since we entered Zambia. I tend to write them up, and then we post them whenever we get a chance, and it has been over a week now since we had any decent connection.

The tyre gave a bit of trouble, but eventually it was finished at around 9:30. Almost from the beginning of the trip, there is a discrepancy between the time we say we want to leave, and the time we actually depart from our destination. Shan is always the first to be packed up (generally ready just before the due time), and I am usually done pretty soon after, about the time we are due to leave. Our venerable companions, on the other hand, nearly always pack to a different drumbeat, and delays of up to an hour are not unheard of. This morning was a whopper, and we only ended up leaving about an hour and a quarter after the designated time.

The border post on the Kenyan side was friendly and efficient, and we were soon crossing over into country number seven, Ethiopia.

Ethiopia was the first country were we had had to acquire a visa beforehand, and we were glad we had done so, as even with our visas in perfect order, the official at the immigration desk still seemed reluctant to stamp our passports, although he gave us no actual problems. The real pain in the arse was to walk over to the customs building across the road at 12:04 and discover that they had just closed for their two hour lunch break, and would probably open again around 2:00. Probably.

I have been loaned a Kindle by my sister which I am never without, so I swiftly pulled that out and started passing the time reading. Dad had had about enough of all of this, and he marched up into town without a backwards glance. The rest of us settled in for a long wait, and when Dad returned about an hour later, he explained that while striding up to the town, he had been approached my someone asking him if he wanted to exchange some money. He had responded with the standard “No, thanks” and kept walking. “You really need to learn how to deal with Africans” the man admonished, and invited him for a cup of coffee at a local restaurant, which Dad accepted. They ended up chatting for a while, and it turns out that the man, Biruk, is a tour operator in Ethiopia, and was able to provide us with a lot of valuable information and contact numbers for various tour guides in some of the places that we wanted to see. We shared a wonderful meal of njeera, which consists of a type of large pancake on a platter, with several thick sauces poured on top, and then eaten with hands. It is the first time on our trip that I felt like we had eaten a meal that was unique to an area. Up until now, most of the traditional meals had consisted of various permutations of maize pap, stew or chicken and vegetables, something which is easily obtained back home.

Finally, the customs office opened, and we were soon ready to go. We stopped in town to buy some petrol, and changed some more money at the bank, and then were heading out of town towards Yebelo, about 200 km away.

I have mentioned this before in the blog, but it is always amazing to see how quickly the land changes when crossing a border. From the dry desert of Northern Kenya, we were now entering scrubland again, with small green trees scattered amongst the termite mounds. Dad thought they looked like they were giving us the finger, Shan thought they looked phallic. The places some peoples minds go…

After the revolting road of the previous few days, riding in Ethiopia was heaven. The roads were in a great state, with minimal potholes, if slightly more people and animals on the road. In the Southern countries, our views had been confined almost completely to the road itself, as dense foliage hid from sight everything more than about 50 m form the side of the road. Here, we could see distant hills in all directions, turning to dull bronze as the weary sun sunk towards the horizon.

We arrived in Yebelo as dusk was painting the sky a soft purple. The Yebelo Hotel was clearly a popular stop for tourists, and had no rooms available, although we were able to put up our tents in the garden. The place itself was an odd mixture of dilapidation and efficiency. Waiters practically ran past us bearing trays of food from a kitchen 100 m away from the restaurant along narrow garden paths. The rooms themselves seemed like they were in good working order, but lights in the showers and adjacent (very stinky) toilets available for campers did not work at all.

Over a tasty meal at the restaurant, we chatted with some of the members of an Australian tour group, swapping stories about our travels, and hearing about their travels in South Africa. Although our trip is quite a taxing one, physically and mentally, we were very impressed by one of the travellers who, as a result of a muscular disease, is confined to a wheelchair, yet still manages to travel the world with his wife. Truly inspiring.

One of the main factors that determines our pace on the trip is the ferry from Wadi Halfa in Sudan to Aswan in Egypt, and only leaves on a Wednesday. Looking at our current location, we have had to abandon any hope of reaching it by the 8th, and instead will try and catch the ferry on the 15th, which essentially gives us an extra few days to play with, and so we have decided to take it slow through Ethiopia and give ourselves a chance to see some of the sights.