Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

There's something so wonderful about riding alone. It's also quite nice to have a fellow rider. Even a few riders can be fun. Riding in a convoy is a new form of hell.

Riding into Nairobi was both wonderful and heinous. We started the day with nothing but hills, glorious hills - did I mention how much I love how my bike takes hills? I'm now comfortable with 85km/hr downhill, and at that speed, it brings you right up the other side. Lloyd followed me for some time - he was having a bit of a hard time and asked if he could use my cadence. It was nice to be able to help him, even in the most passive way. Lloyd is a bit of a hero in his ability to fix or solve anything. When you greet him with a "Hey Lloyd, how's it going?", he turns to you every day and says "FABulous! Can't complain!" Great guy.

We all met up at a hotel, and then rode an extra 20km to where the convoy would actually start. Once there we sat around and waited, again. And then it started. The worst convoy in the world. We rode anywhere between 6-12km/hr. It was horrible. A root canal would have been more pleasurable. It took over 2 hours to go 20km. When we got in we were all tired, hungry and DESPERATE for toilets.

That night I was trying to get ahold of my friend Bart who lives in Tanzania but is often in Kenya. I had to decide whether or not I wanted to go and visit him - this was resolved over the next few frustrating email encounters where I just couldn't get in touch with him. The problem with travelling in Africa after having travelled anywhere else is that you get used to phones and internet just being available and working quite efficiently. Even in the middle of nowhere Siberia you could find decent internet or a phone line that they didn't charge three dollars a minute for. Here in Africa, it's often an impossibility.

The other important event that happened that evening was that we were all saying goodbye to Jansie, Wimpie and Ronelle, our drivers and crew. It's both sad and hard. It's funny how regimented we've all become, and part of that is that we've gotten used to following the routines of our crew. Unsettling that is ... unsettling. And while we see everyone everyday, they are the people we talk to, guaranteed, every single day.

The next morning I woke to the sounds of retching. Another element of rest days is that on the first night people generally drink too much. It was Eric, our Communications fellow - kind of funny, given all the "toughen up" lectures he gives everyone. So with all of that going on, I decided to run away with Martin and Alasdair. We took a Metatu into the city. These are micro buses that are super-cheap, run constantly, and are usually filled to the gunnels with people, baggage and livestock, though there's less livestock in the cities. We were on a hunt for Indian food. In the Lonely Planet it describes a restaurant which can be found in "Little India", which was the direction we gave the money-taker. He was confused, and didn't really know the street we were looking for either. The woman beside us asked us if we were looking for material. I got where she was going and said "yes" - Little Indias are always filled with material. She gave the fellow directions and said to him - "I think they are calling it Little India because the shops are all owned by Indians.” It's funny how much we take our own colloquialisms for granted.

We went to the first place, but it was closed down and had been for four years. Martin, being the managing editor at LP, was a little concerned - there's a two-year turn over on the guides. He started to check to see who he was going to have a word with, and then looked at us and said, "Oh, well I guess I'll let that one go." The author had passed away the year before. The food was amazing, and afterwards we walked around town for a while, taking in the surroundings and people watching. The streets of Nairobi are busy, and though it's a capital city, like most African cities it pretty much has a "large town" feel.

Back in camp we had the official turn over, as our old crew disappeared and our new crew started taking up their duties.

We woke up to a 165km day. Lone rejoined us and it turned out that her ankle was broken. What will happen with her has yet to be decided, but she'll be going ahead to Arusha and at least doing the safari with us. Something to be noted is that she rode for two days on some insane roads with that broken ankle. I really like Lone - she's unbelievably athletic and has a great sense of humour. She also manages to come up with the craziest expressions. It's like if she feels as though there should be an idiom for something when there is not she will go ahead and invent one. At one point Graham asked her to pick up a dead snake so that he could take a picture, to which she responded "I wouldn't pet a lobster." Apparently this meant - why would she do something weird like that. I love language.



The day was filled with rolling hills. We skirted around Kilimanjaro in the morning, but at such a distance that it was merely an outline in the haze. Mt. Kenya was clear and close. It was so incredibly beautiful. Kenya is a place for climbers. Everywhere I look I think about how I would like to go up this or that peak. Maybe someday, when I'm not attached to my bicycle.

I rode with Martin and Alasdair all day. Martin and I are perfectly matched on the pavement. Similar bikes and identical tires, and we both trained by being commuter bikers. He's great to ride with. As is Alasdair, but he was having a bit more of a hard time on the pavement with his mountain bike. We rode into Namanga, and on to another goodbye. Randy, our tour director, was headed back to Canada to deal with his burnt-down house and to move on to heading the TDA South America tour. Funny, I complain about how hard it is to communicate through most of Africa, while Randy had been spending over a month trying to sort out the insurance and everything else involved with having lost his house from here - and barely letting us know what was happening to him. He was also a wonderful fellow. Shanny, our new director, has some big cleats to fill.

Is That a Supermarket?!?

I woke up this morning and prepared myself for the best ride ever - paved hills! I joked with Jim, one of our fastest cyclists, and a sectional from the Lonely Planet, that all he would be seeing was my back. Shortly thereafter I was overcome by pain and had to jump on the truck until lunch. Alex gave me some naproxen and I was good all the way to Nanyuki.

I had my camera mount on but, sadly, it busted. Between that one dying there and my front one being taken off by the winds while soaring down Ethiopian mountains, I have to figure out some other kind of set-up.

When I got off the truck at lunch, it wasn't too long before Jim showed up. The look of shock on his face as he said "How did you get here?" was so funny.

Once again I headed off, wishing him bon appetit for my dirt, and didn't see him for ages, until finally I was called to a halt by the police. Now I've definitely gone over the speed limit on my bike a few times on this trip, and I was seriously wanting to stay ahead of Jim, but I didn't think that I would get stopped! Turns out, they just wanted to ask me about what I was doing. Being the sore loser that I am, as Jim sped by I called him over. He stopped and asked what was happening. I told him we were being arrested. His face dropped and the police officer was shocked "No,no,no!" he said, as I started to giggle. I guess I embarrassed him, as he had us on our way seconds later. Sadly, while I did stay close to Jim, I never regained my lead.

And what a day - rolling hills with Mount Kenya drenched in crisp morning sunshine. I zoomed through pastoral countryside covered in sunflowers. People on bicycles pushing loads of charcoal strapped to the rat-traps - the weight must have been an easy 50kg. It was also actually chilly - we were up around 2600m, and so my t-shirt wasn't enough anymore. I found myself wishing for my sleeves for the first time since Egypt.

In Nanyuki we found ourselves on the grounds of a hotel with a pool. It was wonderful. The city was wonderful - I had a proper pain au chocolate! I think I've said before, African cuisine has not been very impressive thus far - stews and fried food. Not much spice. One of the shocking things we encountered was just how many foreigners there were in town. Not just the odd overlander group, but loads of ex-pats and the like. It really felt like we had just come out of "real" Africa and come into a globalized Africa. There's a strange brew of emotions that goes along with that. Relief at the return to the familiar, but sadness at losing part of the true adventure of this expedition.

That night we had our equator party, as we would be crossing the line the next day. James cooked us up burritos but the party was a bit of a bust - this is a very tea and cake kind of group, so it seemed more like any other night: most were in bed by 8 and the evening comprised of all of us sitting around chatting. Nevertheless, there was a pub upstairs and some of us went for drinks and pool. Erin and I took hold of the table and kept winning, which meant we were up way later than we wanted to be, but it was fun. The table was warped and the pool cues had no nibs, but it was fun no matter.

The following morning we were in for a ride even better than the last. I flew on my bike, up and down hills with countryside that was exactly as you would imagine Kenya. Red dirt hills covered in tea and banana plantations. Lush tropics everywhere. We went through towns that had grocery stores with trolleys and automatic check-outs. There were flush toilets more often than not. We were definitely moving into an easier part of the continent.

When the day ended we had a long journey down a dirt road that ended in cobblestone. I cursed at their choice of campsite, knowing I'd have to ride up it in the morning, and then when I got down there I was so excited! It was such a beautiful site, right on a river. I joined a few people in taking my thermarest for a ride down the river, and sat by the pool drinking Stoney Tangawizi - Non-alcoholic ginger beer - it's my drink of choice at the countless coke stops we have during the day.

We had BBQ that night, and when the sun went down many of us went for a moonlight raft adventure down the river. The river was low, but I had never rafted before so it was incredibly exciting for me! Light-bugs were everywhere, the full moon was out, and we went between crashing down 6-foot falls, to ducking our way through vine and tree overgrowth (startling a ton of bats), and then even getting to drench ourselves under waterfalls! A few fell out of the boat, one boat flipped, and we all had an awesome time - even when we were just drifting down the river. I love Kenya. I keep planning out all other adventures I'll have when I come back here some day.

Feels Like Civilization...

It appears that Ethiopia is not the only place where I'm destined to get sick. Or any of us, for that matter. We left camp and the roads deteriorated immediately. The days we travelled to the rest day were now in reverse, so only three more days until pavement again. I wasn't feeling very well all day, and when I left lunch I decided to have a nap under an acacia tree for fifteen minutes. When the lunch truck passed a few minutes later, I gave it the thumbs up. I figured all would be well once I'd had a nap. I was wrong. It turns out that my roadside nap made me invisible to the sweep, so i caught up to Eric after a half hour of riding. The truck let him know that he had gone past me. I was slow and in worse and worse pain. About 15km from camp (neither of us knew how far we had come), we called for a rescue. It turned out I had diarrhea and a bladder infection. On the way back we passed by a corrie bustard and ostriches. I guess today was the day of the big birds.

In camp tons of tribal women were hanging about selling their beaded jewelry. We were on school grounds, and that night we would go and talk to the students at the school. They were all orphans and lived-in. Randy talked about tourism and how they could consider it as a viable career opportunity. We all introduced ourselves, and then the students asked us questions ranging from what problems we encounter to why we hadn't come last year - Randy explained it was because of the political problems and they all understood. One student asked us if we would be visiting our president Obama's home village. I guess Obama is now president of the world.

Actually, the Obama thing is quite funny. Everywhere in Kenya you see pictures of Obama, and t-shirts of Obama with "I have a dream" printed underneath. In Sudan, people were glued to his inauguration speech.

At one point during the night I woke up to visit the washroom. I did the kilometer hike to the drop toilets, and just when I was at my most relaxed a bat flew up out of the hole and bumped into me in an area where no woman should ever have contact with a bat. I have never screamed so loudly.

The following day I did nothing but sleep on the truck. I woke up once to see a Thompson's Gazelle, and went quickly back to sleep. Though our camp was beside the highway, there was no noise of passing vehicles in the night.

The next day I was feeling better, and so I rode the half-day. During that ride, the corrugation finally ended. It was wonderful. It went from corrugation to hard-pack, which I rode on until I came into sight of the construction people. I was a bit cheeky and would ride it right up until they spotted me and asked me to get off of their freshly graded roads, and once I was out of view I would jump back on again. As we approached Isiolo, we hit actual pavement. I wanted to kiss it.

In Isiolo the rains hit. You never really appreciate the drainage system in your city until you get somewhere where there is none. It was an instant flood. I went into the hut where Mark was hanging out to time-keep the racers. When it stopped I got out and discovered a flat. I walked my bike up to the store where it was rumoured that they sold ice-cream. Because we were changing our tires that night, I debated just hitching the last kilometer to camp and not bothering to fix my flat. At the shop, Hinchy convinced me otherwise, so we pulled it apart. This was a huge mistake. Apparently in Isiolo there is a huge glue huffing problem, and the kids were all over us trying to steal what they could. We got the tire together and the minute we did, it exploded again. Fortunately Eddy came by with the runabout and I tossed my bike on the top. Just before my rescue, Graham came in with his bike and asked me to watch it while he went into the shop. I wanted to say that I couldn't but he was already gone. It had been such a long time since stores were readily accessible that many came in wide-eyed and slightly lost at the wealth of purchasing possibilities. Imagine - pineapple slices, chocolate, AND ice-cream all under one roof.

The kids swarmed me while I was holding the two bikes. One immediately grabbed Grahams, and I had to pull it away from him and keep mine safe at the same time, and watch my bag on top of that. We made it into camp and there were actually showers. Mind you, the water heater electrocuted you a bit when you turned the shower on, and if that didn't get you then the wasps would. I got stung by both. But I was clean. It was worth the cost.

Kenya tell me how you really feel?

The aftermath of the Northern Kenyan desert rain was intense. I walked around in my sandals that were so thickly caked in mud it was like wearing foam mattresses on my feet. We jammed our muddy tents into their stuff sacks and then threw them into our lockers. It would be a disaster in the evening, but the following day was a rest day, so it didn't seem that important.

And then the ride. The red mud kicked up, splashing us entirely, but the roads dried up as we went on. I had such a late start that I wound up riding with Mark, the bike mechanic, who was on sweep that day. He was such a great riding partner. We laughed and joked the whole day, which was all you could do on a day like that. The truck was like a vacuum cleaner that day, picking up dirty, weakened cyclists along the way. The most frustrating thing was how impossible it was to find a line. Looking at the other side of the road, you might think that there was a line over there, but when you get there it turns out to be corrugated. And then everything disappeared and it became deep sand with corrugations. I was amazed I could still see straight after a day of riding those vibrations.



***WARNING - do not read the following paragraph if you are easily offended***

Mark and I caught up with Ernest. We figured we had about a kilometer or two to go until lunch (the wire on my odometer had snapped the previous day), but then we learned that we actually had 16km left. We were so disheartened. When we saw a surprise coke stop, our day became brighter. We stopped for a drink, and then a second one, and then a chapati. Evelyn had been there for an hour already - it was clear that no one wanted to go on. But we did. And when I got into lunch I informed the group of what we had renamed the section, normally called "Meltdown Madness". It seemed far more appropriate to call it "Anal Sex on a Hot, Sandy Beach Without Lube.", and when Evelyn came in shortly after me saying that she felt like she had just been anally raped, everyone cracked up. Shortly after that, Mark came in saying he felt like he had just visited a gay prison, and we were in hysterics. We all decided we were done for the day.


***Resume reading below, sensibilities intact***



Every once in a while the truck would pass a tree, and under it would always be 20-40 goats, all crammed in the little bit of shade, some even standing on the backs of others. I had to wonder why we were choosing to be in that heat, and not only that, but also exerting ourselves heavily.

As we drove up the side of the volcano, things got more lush and tropical. We entered our camp at Marsabit, and it was a lush, tropical jungle filled with baboons. They were so much fun to watch until one dropped on Ronelle's tent. Most of us then moved from under the trees. When Claire woke up the next morning to a tent covered in monkey excrement, the rest decided to move.

That evening I went into town and had dinner with Frankie and Swend. The ATM didn't quite work for me. It made the sounds of doling out cash, but nothing came. Thoughts of unaccounted debits filled my mind, but there was nothing I could do until morning, so I borrowed some cash and joined the boys in a dining experience of nsima (white polenta used to scoop your food), mboga (stew), and camel milk tea. African cooking, excluding Ethiopia, has been boring thus far. It seems that food here is merely comfort food. No spice or excitement. It sounds like we can't expect that to change much as we progress southwards, either.

At 5:30 in the morning on a rest day people were already up and starting their laundry. Some of these folks are nuts. I couldn't get back to sleep so I sat alone amongst the tall trees and watched the baboons play and fight, greeting the dawn. I then hung out in my tent for quite some time, just reading. We were scheduled to have a brie - pronounced bry - that night, and so I had to get into town to pick up some meat and ingredients. That gave me a new appreciation for James' job. trying to buy meat from a butcher who doesn't speak your language is impossible. I went to a butchery, which essentially looks like a wooden lemonade stand with dead carcasses hanging from it, and asked for a small piece of lamb. what I walked away with was a half kilo of beef tendons. Fortunately buying salad ingredients was pretty straightforward, and I wound up with a mango, avocado, tomato and cilantro salad, with red onions mixed in for good measure. The market was filled with tribal women wearing huge stacks of beaded necklaces. Their headdresses were a combination of bead and button-work, and were attached to their heads by their earrings. I ran through the tons of chores I had to do that day, and then enjoyed the evening, right into the big campfire we shared. It was a great rest for all of us.

Floods in my tent and fire in my heart

Getting into Kenya, while a huge relief for all of us, was not an easy task. It was only 86km, but through headwinds on corrugated dirt roads with loads of hills. I was unhappy - my lower back started to buckle with the constant thumping of my camelback. I got to lunch, took some painkillers, was called a wimp by the nurse, and carried on. It got worse. The hills started after lunch, and that seemed to exacerbate the pain. I rode with Michele and Dennis - they blocked wind for me when it got to be too much.

My happiest moment was seeing a parade of baboons crossing the road. When they saw me they ran, but I got to watch for a bit as they had to get their babies across the road.

The border crossing was nothing like the other side of Ethiopia. It was a brick building, not a mud hut, and no one was there to serve us beer, but they did still take hours. We all sat around at the pub eating our last injera and having pop with the last of our Ethiopian Birr, and finally we did the cross-over. The roads turned to red dirt track immediately, but it wasn't that bad to ride on. It certainly didn't seem like the lava-rock hell Randy had been describing. Of course that night they let us know that, not to worry, the worst was yet to come.

We woke the next morning to a great day of riding. It was dirt, it was corrugated, but it was not the hell they had described, once again. I was starting to be skeptical. The unfortunate thing was that they had built it up so much that a lot of people chose to ride the truck.

My back was still killing me, but I gave the thumbs down to two of our trucks and neither of them noticed, so I rode on without painkillers. It was such a relief when I got them at lunch. It's funny, I never like masking pain when I do athletics because you should be listening to your body, but when the riding is good, you don't really want to have to miss it due to a little bit of an injury. A weighing of the pros and cons had me going for the decision that I wouldn't have made at home.

At camp tonight the local village sent over this Irish fellow who was staying at a local hotel. He had been on the road for 3.5 years, riding from England to Morocco, down Western Africa to Ghana, flew over the Congo, crossed over again, looped the bottom and was currently on his way up to Ethiopia. His accent was fully unrecognizable.

John lent me some sun-proof sleeves that have been a godsend. My red blistered arms are now fine for the whole day. I call them my happy pirate sleeves - big white floppy things that somehow make me want to do a jig when I wear them.

We had all gotten in early, but it was so hot that we sat around chatting instead of being able to actually move around. We watched the baboons playing in the trees. For dinner we had steaks - big, Fred-Flintstone sized things that we had to eat with out hands, as none of our camp knives would cut it. They buried the bones and the carcasses and later in the evening we were visited by a whooping hyena who dug them up. There were an unfortunate few who camped near the burial site and therefore could not go to the washroom all night. Frankly, none of us were leaving our tents when we heard them, but we didn't get the added fear of watching them 15 feet away. When the hyenas cleared out, the baboons moved in. Welcome to Africa. The funny thing was that Jansie had been telling us stories of waking up with a hyena breathing over her head, so I had a nightmare about a hyena right outside of my tent, drooling on me. I even wound up shouting for Jansie to rescue me. Oh, the embarrassment.

In the morning I rode off alone again. The truth of the difficult roads was starting to come through. When we hit lunch, Carolla had been having flats all day, so I offered her my bike so that she could still compete in the race. It turns out that she had decided to quit. I can understand why. The race isn't actually that fun. You ride through everything quickly and don't get to actually stop and take in the country. But it also meant that I didn't have an easy out from riding, so I rode on. Amazing what a bit of stubbornness will do. I'm really not usually that way.

The road was sandy and corrugated and there was absolutely no line to follow. Occasionally it turned to corrugated gravel. And then the lava rocks started. Big black lava rocks in amidst the red sand. I rode around the corner and downhill into the vast lava field that would be hell for the next few days.

Getting into camp was a relief. What was even more of a relief was the storm cloud coming in. Eddie said there was no way it would rain. It rains in these parts every six years. But the sky opened up, and soon we were out in the sand getting down to our skivvies with soap in hand. It was wonderful. After about ten minutes it got cold, though. Then our tents started to flood. I dug a trench around mine, but it didn't help. That night it was like sleeping on a waterbed. I was just glad that the water barely came through, only where I sat on my thermarest, and where the wind blew the water over my the lip of my tent.

Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire

In camp in Yabello I had a chat with Wondie, our local fixer. He was almost in an apologetic state. He was explaining to me how many times he had tried to explain to the villages that we go through that they shouldn't throw stones. He said that Ethiopians think only of today, but not about the future, since in the future they may die, so what of it. he comes from a tribe in the North, the same one which has been leading the country for decades - they keep getting in power by imprisoning the opposition. While he felt that his tribal roots have nothing to do with his success, others do, and therefore give him a hard time. I can see why - he landed himself a job with the embassy that has since swung him a two-year visa to the states. He plans to work there under the table and come back with enough money to start his own travel company. He went on that that is the only way he can get ahead without being back-handed. But he would never leave Ethiopia for good - he can live there cheaply and have a good life, so why work hard and start fresh in a new country? He was an interesting fellow. Nice, sometimes a little dodgy, but fun nonetheless.

Going from Yabello to Mega was a great but tough day. It was our last total day of Ethiopian riding. The next day we would be in Kenya. We woke up to no bread for breakfast. It was meant to be on its way, but after half an hour I went for the cookies I had picked up the night before. Shortly thereafter it came. We're entering a restricted food area, and while we'll always have enough to eat, it will be harder for James to find it. Water is rationed out only for drinking and hand-cleansing purposes.

The roads were paved, and the start was late, so I took advantage and rode on my own all day. Lost in thoughts about home, it was like riding on my own again. I don't think I could do another group adventure, as fun as it has been.

A local woman gave me a branch from a toothbrush tree. You chew down the tip into bristles and use those to clean your teeth. It has a very pungent aroma.

From hilltops you could look out upon pastel-coloured vistas. I passed the remains of castle ruins, and found myself swooping down into a village where a bunch of folks were sharing in injera (the sour fermented bread with curries on it) and chat - leaves they chew that get you a bit high. We ate until I realized it was already 4:30 and I still had 30 km to go. I raced hard up and down hills and made it in by 5:30. Everything was running late as folks were still out convincing the bakers to bake bread. No amount of money could get them to budge on their decision not to. It was late before they finally acquiesced. So we went for a walk in the desert through tons of cacti to see the singing wells - great craters dug out by the locals to find a source of water. Looking into them you can't help but get chain-gang songs in your head.

We were in a desert camp with no one around and we're back to being able to sleep without covers on our tents. Sleeping under five acacia trees, we could all look out at the millions of stars.

Happy Endings

Arba Minch was a strange rest day. We had none of the amenities we needed to do our regular chores - no water, power was sporadic, and internet was questionable. Skype is illegal in Ethiopia, and the only connections are dial-up. When it works. When there was water, we ran to it and poured as much as we could into buckets to try to get as many errands done as possible. When there was no water, we ran into the town to buy snacks and juices - I did mention the layered avocado, mango, guava, papaya smoothies, right? - and eat up as much of the local fish as we could. Claire, Erin and I headed off to do a yoga session, and then Claire and I went off for some injera. While we were out, the power went out, and we walked the potholed streets in darkness. The little shack grocery stores were lit up with candles, and people were filling them buying batteries for their flashlights, or more candles. We went for the gingersnaps and headed back to camp - cookies and pineapple slices have become an important commodity for desert camps. The pineapple provides you with a bit of juice, and the cookies - well I don't think ants could crave sugar more than we do. The water has been getting worse, too, which is part of why we crave the juice. It is now brown in colour, and tastes heavily of chlorine. It never quenches the thirst.

In the morning we left for Konso. Even after a rest day my mood towards the kids was unaffected. At the screams of "You, you, you", or "give me money", I responded with "piss off". I was in a terrible mood, and the mornings rocks, sticks and slaps weren't helping. At the lunch stop I caught up with Alex and we decided to ride ahead until the lunch truck caught up with us. I am thinking of riding less in Ethiopia because the kids are really getting to me. Today while getting on my bike they crowded me so intensely I couldn't get my leg over without kicking one. And then I realized that I didn't feel bad about it. I really need a break.

On the up side, the local dress has become a beautiful sight. The women mostly wear dresses that have a cut that remind me of the eighties acid-wash double-layered shirts, only with a rainbow-striped material. Other women wear traditional peasant dresses - thick white cotton gauze, all bulked up to emphasize a heavy bosom and child-bearing hips. They have beautiful multi-coloured embroidery around the neck and down the chest, and sometimes also on the rest of the edging. Women have also started to wear jewelry - thick silvers and beads, even some dangling from their foreheads.

When Alex and I rode, I fell while racing around a rocky corner that turned into sand - not a serious fall, but others fell there too, and Lone even sprained her ankle there. Then we were bullied by some kids and their bulls.

We camped along the Omo River. It's meant to be the longest in Ethiopia, but at this time of year it was merely a trickle. In all actuality, we camped where the river should have been, and then we joked about the possibility of flash floods - creating the sort of dreams Larium thrives on. I walked down the bed, through lush banana trees and tropical scrub, and made my way to the small trickle for a bit of relief from the heat. Splashing small handfuls over my head and my clothes made everything more bearable.

The next morning we woke up and headed off down the gravel road to Yabello. It was hard riding - my bike kicked up constantly. I shook so much I could barely walk straight when I got off of my bike. As I rode I passed the bodies of those who had given up along the way. Hinchy and Princess Anna were on the side of the road and had decided to hitch. Then I passed Mike who was also laying under a tree waiting for a rescue. I rode on to tell the lunch truck about where they were.

The most exciting thing about this part was that it was where we might start seeing animals. I saw nothing except beautiful birds. And cows. There may have been animals, but I couldn't take my eyes off the road for long enough to find out.

I rode on, and when the van passed I gave it directions to find the others. And when it passed me again on the way back I was feeling so sunstroked I could barely tell them I was okay to ride on. And five minutes after they passed me, I got a flat. I was so out of it by that point that it took me forty minutes to change it. I just kept getting confused.

Shortly thereafter the lunch truck came back for me and another who had succumbed to the heat. Though sun temperatures are never accurate, one person metered in at 47 Celsius.

I ate some food, drank water, and fell asleep on the bus. Finally we arrived in camp - it was a hotel! It had cold drinks and showers! The sick people all took rooms. I had a shower, did my laundry, set up my tent, and then ran to get my first nice cold beer in days. And then cold mineral water, and then a pop, and then another beer. It was deluxe. That night I even got to speak to Rob on the satellite phone - they bought too many minutes, and so now they are selling them off. It was so wonderful to hear his voice.

And once again the people have changed and started to look more Kenyan. They wear layers of sarongs - the men have them draped across their shoulders and another wrapped around their waists; the women pile on the cloths. The men are also now carrying spears. Their faces are significantly darker, more aquiline. The area we are in has also changed - it's now a scrub-filled desert. And the children have stopped attacking us. This is the Ethiopia I dreamed of.

One Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Upon leaving Addis, I spent two days on the truck. Riding on the truck is never a good option. It's slow, hot, and filled with sick people. I was anxious to get off. My first day on the truck was packed with sickos, and we barely spoke a word. I took some gravol and went to sleep. For the next two days I couldn't eat a bite. Between not having any appetite and fearing the repercussions of having anything in my belly, I was just unable to.

On the third day I decided to give it a go. I ate some breakfast but, less than a kilometer out of camp, that left me. I rode for 68km with nothing in my belly. I was slow, tired, and sick. Evelyn was kind enough to ride with me. I was stopping frequently to cough until I vomited. That's when the kids would surround me and start asking me for money, hitting me and grabbing my ass. After a while of this, I burst out into tears. Evelyn put her arm out and helped push me up a hill while I cried. People are very good here.

At lunch I jumped on the truck and laid down. Simon, thinking it was just the kids, offered to ride with me. Since I was laying down and had managed to get a bun down, I thought I might be up for it. Let me put in here something about this trip, because I know that many of you are reading this thinking I'm an idiot to keep going on a day when I'm so obviously done. Usually when I ride and then get sick or something happens, I can get off my bike, have a rest day or two, and then pick up where I left off. Here, when you get on the truck, that's it. You don't get to see or smell or experience that 100+km. If you're on it for a few days, you miss entire regions and the subtle changes of everything along the route. That's why its hard to get on and stay on the truck.

When asked if I would ever do a guided tour like this again, I have to say no. Not that there is anything wrong with this trip - we're hugely catered to and all of our needs are met, and it takes out a ton of the organizational problems we could have coming to a place like this, but that being "catered to" is also part of the problem for me. And the speed of it all - our rest days are over before we even get to stop and take in our environs. This trip is all about the biking, but not as much about the experiencing.

So when Simon came in and offered to ride with me, I jumped out. I got about a half kilometer again before my stomach seized and my lunch bun evacuated. And then some kid threw a rock at us. Simon chased the kid all the way to his house - right into the sightlines of his father. Knowing that whatever his kid had done couldn't have been good, he started smacking him, and continued on as he shook Simon's hand and Simon departed. When he came back we rode for a little and kept an eye out for the lunch truck. I jumped on and stayed there this time.

I got up in the morning with the knowledge that I would only ride for a half day. We were riding into our rest day at Arba Minch - the town on a hill overlooking two great lakes filled with hippos and crocs. The ride in was a treacherous one. Amazingly, I didn't have the troubles that some people had. I experienced the ass-grabbing and stone pelting, but that was about it. At one point I passed a group of kids holding hands across the road. As I came close I saw that they were covering a rope that was stretched across the road. I waited in front of them until they scattered and pulled in the rope. Then I grabbed a big sip of my water and sprayed it at the kid holding the rope. All of his friends laughed at him, and apparently they didn't do it to anyone else afterwards.

We were riding through road crews and almost everyone was wielding machetes. I was saying "salamno" (hello or peace) like a battered housewife trying to calm the beast. I was terrified at what they would do today. While it didn't happen to me, some of the other riders were threatened with the machetes. We're all on edge. We all want out of Ethiopia.

At the lunch stop the kids swarmed around the truck, as usual. There was a perimeter set up and they respected it. We all complained about our day. One rider went too far, saying "They all look like animals, they dress like animals and they act like animals." We're frazzled, but her racist roots are sprouting to the surface. I don't really speak to her any more.

As we cleared off, the kids started to attack. They started cutting the perimeter rope with their machetes. George got into a tug of war with them trying to get it back. They tried to push their way into the truck, they jumped on the back. George reversed and went forward a few times, trying to shake them off the truck, and then we were out of there.

We got to the hotel to find that there was no water. They would turn on the water for a couple of hours every day until we left, and then they turned it all back on. The city was having constant power outages - typical in Ethiopia. I stayed in camp that night, just eating at the hotel and sitting around the fire with the crew. We drank wine and baked bannock. I was happy to not have to deal with the outside world for one evening.