Day 21 Kembolche to Addis
Well after yesterday’s grump we all cheered up a bit and got cracking quite early. We weren’t sorry to leave Kembolche, it really is a hole.
The road south was quite good and we only had 380km to Addis so we didn’t have to rush. The Chinese are building a lot of new roads and when they’re finished travelling will be very easy. Lunch was in a small town after about 200km and finally our phones started to work.
Shortly after lunch, on a rough stretch, I punctured. The change was quite quick but some SOB pinched my dark glasses. Apparently I got close to being arrested for threatened violence. It didn’t work; I still didn’t get them back.
We’re now in Addis in Wim’s Holland House, a backpacker/over Lander establishment with some a reputation for beer and ‘Bitter Ballen’, a traditional Dutch food. Hell after hearing about them 5000km ago in Cairo we finally sampled them. very good. Helped down with lots of beer! It wasn’t long and everybody was in fine form again.
Tuesday:
We hit the town last night. We’d heard that there were 5 over landers with bikes staying at the Sheraton and we discovered it was the 3Boysonbikes team. They had taken massive strain on the Isiola to Moyale stretch, 3 broken shock absorbers, a bad crash etc.
They’re now waiting for the spares to arrive and 1 one of their team to catch up who couldn’t get into Ethiopia without a passport.
M and J were ready to wreck the town and we were with a retired Shell employee, who has an Ethiopian wife and spends time here and in Scotland, and he took us to some night spot. Anyway we didn’t last too long before retiring.
We’ve now ridden 4900 km and on checking my itinerary I see we’re only a day behind schedule.
The next decision we must take is the route out of Ethiopia. The usual way is Isiola to Moyale, a 500km hell run that breaks equipment and people. You normally budget 3 days but even then it’s extremely tough. There is another route, which we had considered, via a track which detours down via Lake Turkana into Kenya, also about 500km but equally tough and no border crossing point so the potential for some hassles with passports and carnets. Yesterday we found 2 other routes one of which looks very appealing via the Olmo valley, across the river feeding lake Turkana by canoe and then onto a new road, apparently under construction, on the west bank and down to Nairobi. It might be longer but quite frankly anything is better than Moyale road.
We’ve decided to take today off to regroup so we’ll head out of here tomorrow.
Later, Jim.
Well after yesterday’s grump we all cheered up a bit and got cracking quite early. We weren’t sorry to leave Kembolche, it really is a hole.
The road south was quite good and we only had 380km to Addis so we didn’t have to rush. The Chinese are building a lot of new roads and when they’re finished travelling will be very easy. Lunch was in a small town after about 200km and finally our phones started to work.
Shortly after lunch, on a rough stretch, I punctured. The change was quite quick but some SOB pinched my dark glasses. Apparently I got close to being arrested for threatened violence. It didn’t work; I still didn’t get them back.
We’re now in Addis in Wim’s Holland House, a backpacker/over Lander establishment with some a reputation for beer and ‘Bitter Ballen’, a traditional Dutch food. Hell after hearing about them 5000km ago in Cairo we finally sampled them. very good. Helped down with lots of beer! It wasn’t long and everybody was in fine form again.
Tuesday:
We hit the town last night. We’d heard that there were 5 over landers with bikes staying at the Sheraton and we discovered it was the 3Boysonbikes team. They had taken massive strain on the Isiola to Moyale stretch, 3 broken shock absorbers, a bad crash etc.
They’re now waiting for the spares to arrive and 1 one of their team to catch up who couldn’t get into Ethiopia without a passport.
M and J were ready to wreck the town and we were with a retired Shell employee, who has an Ethiopian wife and spends time here and in Scotland, and he took us to some night spot. Anyway we didn’t last too long before retiring.
We’ve now ridden 4900 km and on checking my itinerary I see we’re only a day behind schedule.
The next decision we must take is the route out of Ethiopia. The usual way is Isiola to Moyale, a 500km hell run that breaks equipment and people. You normally budget 3 days but even then it’s extremely tough. There is another route, which we had considered, via a track which detours down via Lake Turkana into Kenya, also about 500km but equally tough and no border crossing point so the potential for some hassles with passports and carnets. Yesterday we found 2 other routes one of which looks very appealing via the Olmo valley, across the river feeding lake Turkana by canoe and then onto a new road, apparently under construction, on the west bank and down to Nairobi. It might be longer but quite frankly anything is better than Moyale road.
We’ve decided to take today off to regroup so we’ll head out of here tomorrow.
Later, Jim.
You can do the Moyale road. You can do it!
ReplyDeleteif you take another route, I'd be really interested in your travel notes when you get back.
Hi Peter, We did find another route. Turned off at yabelo, 200km short of Moyale, and routed west down to the Omo river. Then crossed and rode to Lodwa. Read trhe bvlog it was a wonerful; find and got the bikes through to Nairobi unscathed. The worst part was the last 500 into Nairobi, damaged road and very hard ride.
ReplyDeleteJim
Incredible. That's a great route. Enjoy Nairobi. Good luck on the last half of the run. PJL
ReplyDelete