So... it's been a long week or so since our last post from Arba Minch, with some of the toughest conditions we have faced so far in this remote, harsh but beautiful part of Africa!
When leaving Arba Minch in Ethiopia we also left behind relative civilisation - from here on to where we are now (about 900km) Internet is nonexistent, mobile phone reception is dodgy at the best of times and food is pretty limited. Some places even failed the Coca-Cola test, no Coke available, which is a sign you have entered the lost world!
After Arba Minch we made our way to a small town of Konso, which wasn't the most inspiring of places. Here we realised that as we were moving farther from civilisation, prices seemed to go up accordingly for everything, including hotel rooms. We also had a hard time finding a place to eat - since trying to avoid injera there is not much else available - so we settled on scrambled egg on bread. At least the meal was made memorable by a drunk guy who wouldn't leave us alone and eventually decided to help himself to my food while I was eating!
Fortunately leaving Konso also seemed to leave all that we disliked about Ethiopia behind, from here on it was so remote that the stone-throwing kids were a faint memory. In fact we hardly saw a soul for most of each day, apart from passing through the odd village.
After a few climbs out of Konso we found ourselves looking down over an enormous valley, with the opposing mountains in the hazy distance and flat bottom extending to the North and South. This was the start of the Omo Valley region, which I think was the highlight of Ethiopia for us. Untainted African bushveld stretched as far as the eye could see without any sign humans apart from the road we were on, and when we did come across people, it was the traditional Omo tribes people with all the traditional dress - mud caked hairdos, bear chested women and men carrying their customary AK-47 to ward off predators (animals or other tribes people!).
As beautiful as this region is, it is also harsh. We both felt constantly dehydrated from the oppressive heat and lack of drinking water available - water is available from the odd water pump or village but we found ourselves starting to reduce our intake, not knowing where the next water could be found! Tips for other cycle tourists - if you carry about 4 litres with you at all times you should be OK. Also, they are currently in the process of building a tarmac road between Konso and Woito, but this does not stretch very far out of Konso at the time of writing, however the dirt road is in fairly good condition apart from some sandy river crossings.a
After leaving Konso we also spent our first night wild camping in Ethiopia as it was the first time we could safely find a spot to camp without being noticed. Unfortunately the spot we chose was in a wetland type area which meant there were so many mosquitos and bugs we could hardly turn our headlamps on without being bombarded by flying insects, so we retreated to our tent as soon as we were finished eating our usual meal of pasta, onions, tomatoes, garlic and chilly sauce.
The following day we made our way to Turmi, and cycled through some more incredible wilderness. Initially we made good progress as the hard-pack dirt road followed the valley bottom, with the rugged mountains rising up to our right, covered in rocky outcrops, deep kloofs (ravines) and Acacia trees - we frequently saw troops of baboons crossing the road ahead and did not see people or vehicles for hours at a time.
We then had a absolutely gruelling climb (600m) over a ridge, where the road deteriorated significantly. Fortunately on bicycles it was no problem (apart from the gradient), but some parts would have been a challenge in a 4x4! We later found out that the road had only opened 3 days before after heavy rains had made it impassable for vehicles. We were so hot from the climb that when we crossed a big river just before arriving at Turmi we could not resist the urge to submerge ourselves in the cool(ish) water!
In Turmi we had the opportunity to stay in the first official campsite for a long time, which meant we could do some relaxing in the shade of trees and slowly rehydrate ourselves.
Just when we thought things could not get more remote, when we left Turmi the next morning we were surprised again. We saw even fewer signs of humans, with 360 degree views of unspoilt wilderness, dotted with brown ant colonies towering into the air. This continued almost the entire way to Omorate, the last town before crossing to Kenya. The road between Turmi and Omorate was initially OK but eventually became quite badly corrugated.
Omorate was a bit of a disappointment after the pleasantness of Turmi, with some ramshackle shops and a main road that most 4x4's would find hard to drive along! It also had the usual slimy characters loitering around which you seem to find at any border town, trying to be the middle man for absolutely anything! Probably the most interesting thing about the place is the massive iron bridge which lies, collapsed, across the Omo river. Apparently it collapsed just before completion a few years back - I wonder what the head engineer is up to these days?!
The next morning started with negotiations to get us and our bikes across the great Omo river in dugout canoes. Since the bridge is not very useful, this is the only way across the river, which we were quite happy about as it was a great experience!
From there we headed off into the Lake Turkana delta region, a wetland type area with abundant bird life quite a lot of tribes people and villages dotted around. The road through this area was nothing but a dusty jeep track, which changes course every time the delta floods and dries up again - which may explain why the distances we logged on this leg were so different to those quoted by other cycle tourists!
We passed through two Ethiopian police checkpoints who simply checked for our exit stamp on our Ethiopian visa (which we had stamped the previous day in Omorate), before entering no man's land, which was yet another unique experience - not being in a country! There was not much in no man's land to be honest and we had to cycle around a flood plane in order to relocate the road toward Kenya. When we finally spotted some signs of life it was a Kenyan military camp, where we were asked by some very friendly English speaking soldiers to see our passports - what a refreshing change!
They directed us to the Kenyan Police checkpoint another 1km or so down the road where we almost ran into some trouble. Again, the very friendly and talkative (casually dressed) policemen wanted to see our passports. But when there was no Kenyan visa inside the frowns started appearing pretty quickly! They seemed to be completely unaware of the fact (as we had feared) that South Africans travelling in Kenya for 30 days or less do not require a visa. And without radio contact or cell phone reception, there was no way they could contact their superiors to find out.
Eventually we managed to convince them to let us go, after telling them over and over how we spoke to the Kenyan ambassador in Addis Ababa, who insisted we would not have a problem at the border because the officials there would know the rules! So we were finally instructed to get them stamped in Kitale (which turns out we can't do either).
From here on it was more desolation until Todenyang mission station, where we were able to get some much needed drinking water. Up to this point the road had been sandy in parts, but we had managed to get by without much effort or pushing. But from here on things deteriorated massively, with the road becoming extremely sandy in parts. We managed to keep on our bikes most of the time but it took a lot of effort to keep rolling without getting bogged down in the thick sand! And when the sand stopped, the corrugations would start! Fortunately the view of the massive lake Turkana to our left provided some distraction from the tortuous cycling.
Eventually we got to Lorengak, a small village just off the shore of the lake where we asked the local Catholic mission if we could camp the night on their grounds. Since it was Christmas Eve, there was a big celebration planned and so we were told we were more then welcome to pitch our tent in the nearby parish compound, which would be a bit quieter. But before setting up camp we needed a wash, so we headed to a set of 4 small local dams which serve as the bathing facilities for the village. It was so refreshing to jump in for a swim, albeit with a big crown of villagers watching the "Mizungos" having their bath! And for supper we finally could add some protein to our usual pasta dish, in the form of Nile Perch - a fish found abundantly in the lake.
And then it was Christmas... we had hoped we would be somewhere where we could sit back, relax and enjoy a nice meal or two. But it was not meant to be! In fact it turned out to be one of the hardest days of cycling of our lives! The road from Lorengak to Kateboi was atrocious, a sandy jeep track the entire 72km. The plan was to cycle all the way to Kalekol, which was a slightly larger town about 100km away, but when we got to Kateboi, after about 8 hours of riding, we just could not muster up any more energy for another 30km of sand! And so we were to spend Christmas (the evening anyway) in a remote little village on the shore of Lake Turkana. It turned out to be rather pleasant however, as we were escorted by the extremely friendly and excited villagers all the way down to the Lake where we all went for a refreshing swim - it was fantastic! We were a bit hesitant about swimming in a Lake which supposedly has the highest concentration of Nile Crocs, but we were assured that they do not come to the side we were on until late evening!
Unfortunately our Xmas meal was one of our least appetising meals yet as there was only one shop open which sold pretty much nothing apart from some beef flavouring and cooking fat, which we added to our pasta and onion dish! Many thanks to Pastor George (from Uganda) and Pastor Charles who were most helpful at making us feel at home and treating us so well.
The next day held the promise of tarmac road, which was enough to get us up before light and set off on the last stretch of dirt to Kalekol. Unfortunately our expectations of this tarmac road were a bit too high! Initially it was great, but very soon it deteriorated into a state worse then most dirt roads - the problem was that in places, the tar had almost completely disappeared, with the hundreds of massive potholes merging together to form huge ditches in the road, which were all but impossible to avoid even with two wheels!
In some places the tar road was so bad that vehicles had formed a parallel road through the bush, but this would inevitably be sandy! We couldn't decide if we would rather cycle on the sandy corrugated jeep track or the pothole ridden strip of tarmac, so ended up constantly switching between the two in an effort to find the best piece of road. This road was taking its toll on us and our bikes - we were feeling utterly exhausted from days of bad roads, extreme heat, dehydration, stomach issues and minimal food (we were surviving mostly on biscuits, dough balls and warm coke during the day), and then my handlebar and pannier bag started giving up -so we had to do some emergency repairs under the shade of a thorn tree!
After another gruelling day, we finally rolled into Lodwar, a town of relative civilisation, where we immediately stopped at a restaurant to have the first cold soft drink in about a week followed by a Tusker beer, it was heavenly! Lodwar is a dust bowl of a town but at least there were a few shops to buy some good food and we could also withdraw some Kenyan Shillings from the local ATM.
The following day was pretty similar in terms of the road condition, poor all the way to Locichar. We had been told along the way by various people about the dangers of cycling between Locichar all the way to Kitale - there have recently been numerous attacks on travellers on this stretch of road by bandits from the local tribes. So once in Locichar we asked a few more people on the situation, including a few soldiers who were passing through - their advice was clear - don't cycle, there is a definite threat of being attacked! We had hoped to avoid taking alternative transport on this trip as far as possible, but with the prospect of all our stuff being taken from us and the trip coming to a premature end, we decided to bend our rules a bit!
Fortunately there were buses scheduled to leave to Kitale that evening, so we could sit back and relax for a few hours before catching the first bus at about 7pm. One thing we were concerned about however was the safety of our bikes on the trip - we knew how rough the roads where and our bikes would no doubt we strapped on the rood of the bus with a whole load of other things on top of them - a recipe for disaster!
Not sure what to do about it, we spotted a medium sized flatbed truck outside with a crowd of people standing around trying to negotiate a spot on the back. This was perfect - we could get on the back of the truck with our bikes no problem! So after James did some masterful negotiations with the truck driver we bargained him down from 5000 Shillings to 1500 Shillings to get us and our bikes to Kitale. We were told it would be around 5 hours for the 210km journey.
Well... this turned out to be a journey from hell! The 5 hours turned into 9 hours, arriving in Kitale at 4am, and we had been battered and bruised (not to mention our bikes) trying to hang on to this truck as the driver sped along the appalling road. Most sensible drivers of any vehicle would probably not have exceeded 15km/h on this road, this guy must have been doing about 60km/h! The bumping was so rough we were bouncing off our feet completely, and in the end I developed a technique of trying to relax my body as much as possible to try to absorb the shock of the bumps. We had to totally reconfigure the way our bikes were initially tied down when we realised how much we had underestimated the bumpiness of the ride!
The truck driver seemed to get a bit more sense and slow down after we passed a big Coca-Cola truck which had just overturned - free cokes for all the onlookers! Fortunately at the end of it all our bikes came off with relatively minor damage - some damaged handlebar components, a hole in a pannier and a buckled wheel - but no broken frames as may have been the case if they had been on a bus! As for us, a compressed spine and ribs as well as a few bruises, but at least we have a good tale to tell!
So now we are recovering from it all in Kitale, which is a nice place - a big supermarket where we can stock up on decent food for a change, Internet and a decent hotel room to get some good sleep! Hopefully by the time we set off for Mt. Elgon on the Ugandan border we will be feeling a bit stronger again.
As a last word, despite the pain and suffering of it all, the last week has been a great experience, taking us through some of the most incredible places we've been to and the most friendly people too.
We will try and upload some photos but Internet is a bit slow!
Mark
When leaving Arba Minch in Ethiopia we also left behind relative civilisation - from here on to where we are now (about 900km) Internet is nonexistent, mobile phone reception is dodgy at the best of times and food is pretty limited. Some places even failed the Coca-Cola test, no Coke available, which is a sign you have entered the lost world!
After Arba Minch we made our way to a small town of Konso, which wasn't the most inspiring of places. Here we realised that as we were moving farther from civilisation, prices seemed to go up accordingly for everything, including hotel rooms. We also had a hard time finding a place to eat - since trying to avoid injera there is not much else available - so we settled on scrambled egg on bread. At least the meal was made memorable by a drunk guy who wouldn't leave us alone and eventually decided to help himself to my food while I was eating!
Fortunately leaving Konso also seemed to leave all that we disliked about Ethiopia behind, from here on it was so remote that the stone-throwing kids were a faint memory. In fact we hardly saw a soul for most of each day, apart from passing through the odd village.
After a few climbs out of Konso we found ourselves looking down over an enormous valley, with the opposing mountains in the hazy distance and flat bottom extending to the North and South. This was the start of the Omo Valley region, which I think was the highlight of Ethiopia for us. Untainted African bushveld stretched as far as the eye could see without any sign humans apart from the road we were on, and when we did come across people, it was the traditional Omo tribes people with all the traditional dress - mud caked hairdos, bear chested women and men carrying their customary AK-47 to ward off predators (animals or other tribes people!).
As beautiful as this region is, it is also harsh. We both felt constantly dehydrated from the oppressive heat and lack of drinking water available - water is available from the odd water pump or village but we found ourselves starting to reduce our intake, not knowing where the next water could be found! Tips for other cycle tourists - if you carry about 4 litres with you at all times you should be OK. Also, they are currently in the process of building a tarmac road between Konso and Woito, but this does not stretch very far out of Konso at the time of writing, however the dirt road is in fairly good condition apart from some sandy river crossings.a
After leaving Konso we also spent our first night wild camping in Ethiopia as it was the first time we could safely find a spot to camp without being noticed. Unfortunately the spot we chose was in a wetland type area which meant there were so many mosquitos and bugs we could hardly turn our headlamps on without being bombarded by flying insects, so we retreated to our tent as soon as we were finished eating our usual meal of pasta, onions, tomatoes, garlic and chilly sauce.
The following day we made our way to Turmi, and cycled through some more incredible wilderness. Initially we made good progress as the hard-pack dirt road followed the valley bottom, with the rugged mountains rising up to our right, covered in rocky outcrops, deep kloofs (ravines) and Acacia trees - we frequently saw troops of baboons crossing the road ahead and did not see people or vehicles for hours at a time.
We then had a absolutely gruelling climb (600m) over a ridge, where the road deteriorated significantly. Fortunately on bicycles it was no problem (apart from the gradient), but some parts would have been a challenge in a 4x4! We later found out that the road had only opened 3 days before after heavy rains had made it impassable for vehicles. We were so hot from the climb that when we crossed a big river just before arriving at Turmi we could not resist the urge to submerge ourselves in the cool(ish) water!
In Turmi we had the opportunity to stay in the first official campsite for a long time, which meant we could do some relaxing in the shade of trees and slowly rehydrate ourselves.
Just when we thought things could not get more remote, when we left Turmi the next morning we were surprised again. We saw even fewer signs of humans, with 360 degree views of unspoilt wilderness, dotted with brown ant colonies towering into the air. This continued almost the entire way to Omorate, the last town before crossing to Kenya. The road between Turmi and Omorate was initially OK but eventually became quite badly corrugated.
Omorate was a bit of a disappointment after the pleasantness of Turmi, with some ramshackle shops and a main road that most 4x4's would find hard to drive along! It also had the usual slimy characters loitering around which you seem to find at any border town, trying to be the middle man for absolutely anything! Probably the most interesting thing about the place is the massive iron bridge which lies, collapsed, across the Omo river. Apparently it collapsed just before completion a few years back - I wonder what the head engineer is up to these days?!
The next morning started with negotiations to get us and our bikes across the great Omo river in dugout canoes. Since the bridge is not very useful, this is the only way across the river, which we were quite happy about as it was a great experience!
From there we headed off into the Lake Turkana delta region, a wetland type area with abundant bird life quite a lot of tribes people and villages dotted around. The road through this area was nothing but a dusty jeep track, which changes course every time the delta floods and dries up again - which may explain why the distances we logged on this leg were so different to those quoted by other cycle tourists!
We passed through two Ethiopian police checkpoints who simply checked for our exit stamp on our Ethiopian visa (which we had stamped the previous day in Omorate), before entering no man's land, which was yet another unique experience - not being in a country! There was not much in no man's land to be honest and we had to cycle around a flood plane in order to relocate the road toward Kenya. When we finally spotted some signs of life it was a Kenyan military camp, where we were asked by some very friendly English speaking soldiers to see our passports - what a refreshing change!
They directed us to the Kenyan Police checkpoint another 1km or so down the road where we almost ran into some trouble. Again, the very friendly and talkative (casually dressed) policemen wanted to see our passports. But when there was no Kenyan visa inside the frowns started appearing pretty quickly! They seemed to be completely unaware of the fact (as we had feared) that South Africans travelling in Kenya for 30 days or less do not require a visa. And without radio contact or cell phone reception, there was no way they could contact their superiors to find out.
Eventually we managed to convince them to let us go, after telling them over and over how we spoke to the Kenyan ambassador in Addis Ababa, who insisted we would not have a problem at the border because the officials there would know the rules! So we were finally instructed to get them stamped in Kitale (which turns out we can't do either).
From here on it was more desolation until Todenyang mission station, where we were able to get some much needed drinking water. Up to this point the road had been sandy in parts, but we had managed to get by without much effort or pushing. But from here on things deteriorated massively, with the road becoming extremely sandy in parts. We managed to keep on our bikes most of the time but it took a lot of effort to keep rolling without getting bogged down in the thick sand! And when the sand stopped, the corrugations would start! Fortunately the view of the massive lake Turkana to our left provided some distraction from the tortuous cycling.
Eventually we got to Lorengak, a small village just off the shore of the lake where we asked the local Catholic mission if we could camp the night on their grounds. Since it was Christmas Eve, there was a big celebration planned and so we were told we were more then welcome to pitch our tent in the nearby parish compound, which would be a bit quieter. But before setting up camp we needed a wash, so we headed to a set of 4 small local dams which serve as the bathing facilities for the village. It was so refreshing to jump in for a swim, albeit with a big crown of villagers watching the "Mizungos" having their bath! And for supper we finally could add some protein to our usual pasta dish, in the form of Nile Perch - a fish found abundantly in the lake.
And then it was Christmas... we had hoped we would be somewhere where we could sit back, relax and enjoy a nice meal or two. But it was not meant to be! In fact it turned out to be one of the hardest days of cycling of our lives! The road from Lorengak to Kateboi was atrocious, a sandy jeep track the entire 72km. The plan was to cycle all the way to Kalekol, which was a slightly larger town about 100km away, but when we got to Kateboi, after about 8 hours of riding, we just could not muster up any more energy for another 30km of sand! And so we were to spend Christmas (the evening anyway) in a remote little village on the shore of Lake Turkana. It turned out to be rather pleasant however, as we were escorted by the extremely friendly and excited villagers all the way down to the Lake where we all went for a refreshing swim - it was fantastic! We were a bit hesitant about swimming in a Lake which supposedly has the highest concentration of Nile Crocs, but we were assured that they do not come to the side we were on until late evening!
Unfortunately our Xmas meal was one of our least appetising meals yet as there was only one shop open which sold pretty much nothing apart from some beef flavouring and cooking fat, which we added to our pasta and onion dish! Many thanks to Pastor George (from Uganda) and Pastor Charles who were most helpful at making us feel at home and treating us so well.
The next day held the promise of tarmac road, which was enough to get us up before light and set off on the last stretch of dirt to Kalekol. Unfortunately our expectations of this tarmac road were a bit too high! Initially it was great, but very soon it deteriorated into a state worse then most dirt roads - the problem was that in places, the tar had almost completely disappeared, with the hundreds of massive potholes merging together to form huge ditches in the road, which were all but impossible to avoid even with two wheels!
In some places the tar road was so bad that vehicles had formed a parallel road through the bush, but this would inevitably be sandy! We couldn't decide if we would rather cycle on the sandy corrugated jeep track or the pothole ridden strip of tarmac, so ended up constantly switching between the two in an effort to find the best piece of road. This road was taking its toll on us and our bikes - we were feeling utterly exhausted from days of bad roads, extreme heat, dehydration, stomach issues and minimal food (we were surviving mostly on biscuits, dough balls and warm coke during the day), and then my handlebar and pannier bag started giving up -so we had to do some emergency repairs under the shade of a thorn tree!
After another gruelling day, we finally rolled into Lodwar, a town of relative civilisation, where we immediately stopped at a restaurant to have the first cold soft drink in about a week followed by a Tusker beer, it was heavenly! Lodwar is a dust bowl of a town but at least there were a few shops to buy some good food and we could also withdraw some Kenyan Shillings from the local ATM.
The following day was pretty similar in terms of the road condition, poor all the way to Locichar. We had been told along the way by various people about the dangers of cycling between Locichar all the way to Kitale - there have recently been numerous attacks on travellers on this stretch of road by bandits from the local tribes. So once in Locichar we asked a few more people on the situation, including a few soldiers who were passing through - their advice was clear - don't cycle, there is a definite threat of being attacked! We had hoped to avoid taking alternative transport on this trip as far as possible, but with the prospect of all our stuff being taken from us and the trip coming to a premature end, we decided to bend our rules a bit!
Fortunately there were buses scheduled to leave to Kitale that evening, so we could sit back and relax for a few hours before catching the first bus at about 7pm. One thing we were concerned about however was the safety of our bikes on the trip - we knew how rough the roads where and our bikes would no doubt we strapped on the rood of the bus with a whole load of other things on top of them - a recipe for disaster!
Not sure what to do about it, we spotted a medium sized flatbed truck outside with a crowd of people standing around trying to negotiate a spot on the back. This was perfect - we could get on the back of the truck with our bikes no problem! So after James did some masterful negotiations with the truck driver we bargained him down from 5000 Shillings to 1500 Shillings to get us and our bikes to Kitale. We were told it would be around 5 hours for the 210km journey.
Well... this turned out to be a journey from hell! The 5 hours turned into 9 hours, arriving in Kitale at 4am, and we had been battered and bruised (not to mention our bikes) trying to hang on to this truck as the driver sped along the appalling road. Most sensible drivers of any vehicle would probably not have exceeded 15km/h on this road, this guy must have been doing about 60km/h! The bumping was so rough we were bouncing off our feet completely, and in the end I developed a technique of trying to relax my body as much as possible to try to absorb the shock of the bumps. We had to totally reconfigure the way our bikes were initially tied down when we realised how much we had underestimated the bumpiness of the ride!
The truck driver seemed to get a bit more sense and slow down after we passed a big Coca-Cola truck which had just overturned - free cokes for all the onlookers! Fortunately at the end of it all our bikes came off with relatively minor damage - some damaged handlebar components, a hole in a pannier and a buckled wheel - but no broken frames as may have been the case if they had been on a bus! As for us, a compressed spine and ribs as well as a few bruises, but at least we have a good tale to tell!
So now we are recovering from it all in Kitale, which is a nice place - a big supermarket where we can stock up on decent food for a change, Internet and a decent hotel room to get some good sleep! Hopefully by the time we set off for Mt. Elgon on the Ugandan border we will be feeling a bit stronger again.
As a last word, despite the pain and suffering of it all, the last week has been a great experience, taking us through some of the most incredible places we've been to and the most friendly people too.
We will try and upload some photos but Internet is a bit slow!
Mark
