ETHIOPIA, NEVER AGAIN!

Liberation. With the GPS in one hand, I determined the exact point on which to kneel down, just right behind the border line. Here I am, in Kenya, overwhelmmed with joy and sending Ethiopia my most heartfelt farewell gesture.

Translation courtesy of Dakota Bloom
 
I have thought of more than a dozen titles for this closing passage about Ethiopia. From all possible aberrations that came through my mind, the lightest and the one that I consider the original is: “Fuck you Ethiopia”. However I have wisely let 6 months pass to write about this country with the simple aim of avoiding my lowest instincts and my darkest thoughts to dictate the words that I write today. So I have decided to go for the most moderate title: “Ethiopia, Never again”. And very moderated were the harshest words that I have written in all the posts that preceded this one. 

Where are you go?

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.

After four days of resting in Wukro and recovering a bit of the lost faith in the Ethiopians thanks to father Ángel and his mission, we resumed the long journey to Addis Ababa. We had already crossed tens of mountain passes to get to the Tigray and go across it, bearing the tireless harassment from the evil Ethiopians, and tens of mountain passes we still had to go across to get to the capital, but to our surprise and relief, we would experience a calmer Ethiopia, at least for a little while.

Angels of Ethiopia

From all I have written about Ethiopia so far, it should be already clear that the main problem we find again and again in this country is its people, particularly children and teenagers. Since the day we arrived and until today when I write these lines, already several months after having left, I have been trying to understand, to find a coherent explanation for this abhorrent behaviour. I don’t know if I have found an answer which explains all my questions (and frustrations), and probably there is not just one but several answers, but through talking to people I consider clever I have probably got closer to the beginning of an understanding. This post is dedicated to these people, whom I like calling the “angels of Ethiopia”.

Faith with Ethiopian flavor

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.

The Tigray region was the main reason, if not the only one, why our route across Ethiopia was almost double the distance that takes to cross the country along the shortest route. The one that pretty much everyone else takes. From the very beginning, my thoughts were that if we were going to have to suffer Ethiopia anyway, then we'd better doing it trying to find a way to compensate the bad with the best the country has to offer. In my specific case, I had been dreaming for years to visit this enigmatic region of the world of ancient religious practices and exquisite vernacular architecture. We arrived there with a very irritated spirit and filled with susceptibility after having accomplished the exhausting long odyssey of the “route of the Italians”, but believing once again that in this remote province everything would be much more relaxed. Once again, we believed wrong....