The Omo Circus

Warning: many of the commentaries and opinions that you will be about to read might sound very harsh, but I promise they are the most accurate account of the frequently miserable experience that is crossing Ethiopia by bicycle. Given the radical difference that exists between those of us who travel by bicycle across this country (and those who walk the world too) and those who travel by any kind of motorised transport, I don't feel particularly well predisposed to accept any objections coming from those who haven't crossed it in the same way.

Translation courtesy of Pato Stickar

The departure from Addis was the starting point of our long scape from Ethiopia. We had already spent a month and a half in the middle of the country, and our general state of mind and predisposition was exponentially decreasing each extra day we spent there. Leaving Addis was unusually calm, we passed pretty much unnoticed and barely bothered by anyone. So much that, at the end of the second day, a fresh optimistic air filled our lungs; the worst seemed to had been left behind and the last days seemed as though they were going to be good. We were on our way to the remote and inhospitable lands of the tribal countries and one of the most enigmatic crossing borders of the continent, but to get there, we would discover that the worst hadn’t yet even happened.

From the capital of sand to the border

 

  A month in the capital of sand

From an aesthetics point of view, sincerely speaking, Khartoum is not the most attractive city in the world. In terms of architecture it is a city built half-way, in fact there is no single building that seems to be fully finished. The skyline reveals a mass of buildings with brick walls without finishes, unfinished concrete structures, walls without paint and rundown public buildings among hundreds of sharp minarets from the many mosques in town. The exceptions are, like it happens in many countries that are run by tyrants stuck in power, the monumental buildings of the military, the police, the government houses, embassy and a hotel here and there. In urban planning terms, the city is also definitely incomplete. Beyond the main paved arteries, it is all streets of sand and sidewalks are absent even right downtown.

For a few crumbs of gold

 Much more than the idyllic images of silhouettes of camel caravans walking at a slow pace along the undulating golden dunes at sunset, the Sahara is for many, the place to come to earn a living. In this vast ocean of sand, the abrasive heat, the harshness of the wind and the cruelty of the sun make it unthinkable that a place to work can be possibly found here. However, since the dawn of time, the Sahara has provided humanity with the metal it yearns for the most: gold. That golden glow that, from ancient Egypt to the China of the 21st century has blinded the world, leading millions of people to move in search of it wherever it may be found.

The Sudanese

I perceived it from the very beginning in Wadi Halfa, while walking along its streets of sand in that very hot Saharan night. I looked around me and the hundreds of merchants that filled the whole place with life, coming and going in their immaculate gallabiyas, and they all seemed like brothers to me, acquaintances at least. Such a pleasant atmosphere, so familiar if you will, was hard to believe for a bordering town. It was only the beginning of two months of living every day with what probably is, (together with Tibetans of course!) the most wonderful people I have ever met.

Sweating Sudan

We are on the queue to buy the tickets for the boat to Wadi Halfa, it's 46 C in the shade. While we wait, two nice Egyptian tour agents get on the queue behind us and exclaim effusively the usual: “Welcome to Alaska!” to engage in a conversation with us. The ask they usual things about the trip, the bicycle, the distances and I mention to him that during the last days before Aswan the heat began to be an issue. One of them bursts out in laughter and very tenderly asks me: “Do you really think that today is hot?....wait until you reach Sudan, there it will be hot, this is nothing” - and he takes a handkerchief to wipe the sweat off his forehead while I can feel my stomach shrinking.

Welcome to alaska??

Only when you reach the Nile after having spent weeks in the desert is when you are finally able to understand its historic and present day relevance. It is very easy to see that without it, the Egyptian civilization would've probably never had the opportunity to exist (at least not in such grandeur) and Egypt itself wouldn't be what it is today either. The Nile is responsible for the existence of a long strip of fertility right in the middle of the desert, that extends for thousands of kilometers and around which most of life in Egypt revolves. It is by no coincidence then that most of the population of the country settle within a reasonable distance to its shores. As a result of it, this is where we encountered the traffic and the noise again but also the life that it is only possible thanks to it.

Sahara...

After the epic journey across Mongolia from last year, my memories of the magnificent Gobi desert remained very present inside me. There, we spent days that were as hard as unforgettable. I left with images, sounds (or complete lack there of) and sensations that were recorded in my mind forever. Sublime moments that make the mere experience transcend and stick it into one's body. The kind of moments that I live for. It is for this reason that during the days we spent in Cairo I was filled with so much enthusiasm for the upcoming ride across the most famous of all deserts, the Sahara. Enthusiasm and nervousness, not only because the very idea of cycling across it intimidates, but also for being the way of immersion into this whole new continent, completely unknown to me until now. Far from scaring me though, this is the elixir that feeds my spirit, and perhaps very few things I enjoy as much as feeling that itching inside the guts that the uncertainty for the unknown generates. 

The door to Africa

Between traveling, working and living, I have spent little over 8 years of my life in Asia. Exploring and discovering this continent had always been my life's dream for as long as I can remember. After several years of living there and feeling it already like “my place” in the world, I can't still help but feeling a strong curiosity as to how I ended up being born in the exact opposite corner of the planet in such a different culture when at the same time I feel so strangely connected to another one. I guess they are the existential games of karma playing on us. The fact is that when you feel like fish swimming in the water, it ain't so easy to just jump to another pond. However, my thirst for adventure is insatiable and it is already telling me that it is time to give Africa the long journey it deserves, for it is the only continent where I have never ever been before. It is for this very reason that I finally decided to cut the umbilical cord and once and for all take the leap out of Asia. For months in advance I have been evaluating different alternatives to reach the continent exclusively by bicycle but the social situation in three key countries, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen has deteriorated so much that it is virtually impossible to reach the north of the continent without flying. Therefore, we had no other choice than flying and from Delhi we went straight to Cairo. 

Mongolia in the heart

Having cycled across Mongolia meant having made a long-time dream come true. 55 days that felt like leaving the time and space in which one is used to live in. It is probably true that you must have felt some romanticism in all of what I have written about this country, but it's just that the beauty of Mongolia takes you out of your own orbit and invites you to romanticize. Its landscapes of smooth shapes and slow paced "precarious" life pacify the mind and evoke a feeling of magic inside. It is true that these are images of its brief summer. Soon after we leave the country, temperatures will plummet down to -20C and by the end of December they will stabilize between -37 and -40C (when speaking, Mongols unconsciously omit the "-") and a windchill of much lower ones. Even with its extreme weather, I suspect that even spending a winter here should be an intense experience which I'll try to make happen some time in the future. 

There are many beautiful countries in the world, or better said, all countries are beautiful or have something beautiful in and/or about them, but there are countries that apart from being beautiful they are special. In my perception, when I'm in this kind of places I can sense an extra quality that separates them from the rest. Until today I have trouble describing what that quality is and I certainly have no definition for it, but it's like a series of phenomena that happen in the same space at the same time invoking a physically and mentally positive body reaction inside oneself, a sort of mix of joy and inner-peace. I have come to feel this truly powerful sensation in my several years of traveling across the Tibetan plateau, and I have happily felt it once again here in Mongolia. It is not by coincidence, I think, that both Tibetans and Mongolians live both in very extreme regions of the planet and carry out ways of living and have spiritual beliefs that are very similar. Mongolian nomads are by all means extraordinary people and that's to say little about them. Their affection has gotten very deep inside us and we have lived some of the most truly special moments in some of the most unreal and remote places that I have ever been to. I think I will never leave Mongolia because it is very deep inside me and has grown on me, in both my heart and the sheep smell that seems impossible to wash away. The series of photos at the top of this post are a very brief summary of the infinite images that were recorded in my retina. 

Stardust

The more I travel the more I understand that idyll doesn't come in one but multiple forms. As time passed by, I discovered that the beaches of turquoise crystal-clear waters are as idyllic as the snowed peaks of the mountain ranges or the infinite grasslands of the steppe. I learned that what changes is not beauty itself, which is always the common denominator of any idyllic place, but the effects that the phenomena produced by a certain type of beauty has on oneself. This basically makes that each idyllic place feels completely different than the others. In this aspect, the crossing of the Gobi desert revealed to my eyes a new form of idyll that I would have never imagined would be possible. Because the initial image that one has of a desert is that one of a desolate and inhospitable place, and it certainly is in many ways, however, the Gobi, of all the deserts that I have already ridden across, ended up being a dazzling surprise that I didn't expect.