15 March

15 March, Tuesday

We are now in Ethiopia,  Moyale at Koket Hotel.  This is ok, with an en suite bathroom, and western style toilet and shower -  although with no running water at the moment.  Maybe later?  So, we have taken out our portable bucket shower, and will use that.  We are hot, tired, and very dirty.

We left Marsabit on Monday morning, after visiting a volcanic crater on Sunday afternoon.  This was impressive, about 600 m deep, and only 1 or 2 km wide, so gave a better overall view than Ngorongoro.  Very steep sides, with one path down to the bottom.  We caught a glimpse of 2 Dik Dik on the way there (small antelope ).

The Road from Marsabit to Turbi, 125 km, our next leg, proved to be the toughest, as we had been warned.  Long stretches of loose volcanic rock, in a single lane track with steep sides,  long stretches of corrugations, very dry deserted, flat, barren lava fields.  We were incredibly lucky that we had a bit of cloud cover which kept us fairly cool together with a strong wind.  We had been warned of temperatures reaching about 45 – 50 degrees.  Linda had the first fall in the loose stuff and I took a little tumble, pannier caught my foot again but nothing serious.  The corrugations were there all the time and the bikes and our bodies took a real pounding.  The trucks and bakkies passed us in batches and we were covered in dust as these don’t slow down when they see the bikes, they travel at a speed of about 70km per hour, way too fast for the road conditions while we managed to creep along at about 20km per hour on a good stretch, sometimes down to 10km – we had all decided that we didn’t want to damage the bikes or ourselves.  We stopped every 20km so that the shocks could cool down and we could have a good drink of water.  My bike had started dripping water the day before and we had to keep a very close eye that it did not overheat.

 There were huge flocks of goats and sheep with herdsman walking with them, their shelter was a dome shape hut cover with anything and everything that they could find from plastic to skins.  The rains are due to start on 17 March and so the whole region is at the very end of the dry season and there is just about no grass, don’t know what the stock is eating.  There were also lots of camels and donkey in the area, the donkeys are used mainly for carrying water and this is one of the main struggles to survive in the area, trying to find enough water for both humans and stock.  It is amazing that anything can survive in this place!

We eventually arrived at Turbi, a small village in the middle of no-where after travelling 125km in 8hrs!  We stayed at the local woman’s community centre in a very small room with two beds and nothing else.  We had to have a bucket shower once again, this time with only half a bucket of cold water, it is really amazing how you can wash and get clean with a tiny amount of water.  The centre was fenced off and provided good security for the bikes, the children of the village spent a large portion of the afternoon hanging around the fence watching us.  We went to the local hotel for supper and we had the choice of meat and rice or chapatti (a local pancake / bread) or beans and rice or chapatti.  We all chose the meat, it arrived as fried goats meat and rice all mostly cold.  I am battling with the strange local food but the others all seemed to enjoy it.

The next morning we were up bright and early to tackle the last stretch of bad road to Moyale, the border town between Kenya and Ethiopia and the beginning of tar roads again. The road proved to much the same as the first day, lots of corrugations and a little bit of soft sand.  Once again we were very lucky with the weather, fairly cool and we rode through a long patch where they had had the first rains of the season the night before, good luck to the Three Farmers and a Greek riding this road after the rains have started!  We could see by the huge ruts in the road, that this will become really difficult in the rainy season!  The Chinese are camped in Marsabit and getting ready to start the road works on the section of road that we have just ridden, so soon it will be tar!  We managed to do 125km in 6 hours, a very pleasant day with no more falls, bikes still working and bodies sore but ok.  The town is big and we managed to find a fairly nice hotel, but the water crisis in this section of Africa is really critical and so the town doesn’t have water for most of the day so once again back to the bucket shower!  The entry into Ethiopia was fairly easy, no visas available at the border here. 

We have been in our little dome shaped bedroom with the noise of a church service going on for about 2 hours, we were told it is the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.  It is taking some getting used the differences here in Ethiopia as to today is the 2 of the 7 month 2003, the people are all very friendly and pleasant but very little English is spoken or even understood here.  All the road signs, menus etc are now in Arabic, and English, driving is on the wrong side for us, and we are on East African time zone and we have to drive on the right hand side of the road!!

We will spend two nights here to do a little maintenance on the bikes and get some laundry done.

The road from where the tar ends (120km before Marsabit, 125km to Turbi and 125km to Moyale) is the worst road we have ever encountered, not very difficult just bone thumping horrible, hot and dusty with corrugations and the worst section of loose volcanic rock which is like riding on marbles, but all in all great and the scenery was fantastic and a wonderful sense of achievement and the company was great, thanks Harry, Linda and Angela.  We all agreed that we worked very well as a team.

L & S