Blue Nile Gorge

Peering over the edge, a river as thin as floss, divides the gorge.  I have difficulty imagining the razor thin Blue Nile cutting such a swath.  The gorge looks prehistoric, as though a swooping pterodactyl would not be unusual.   Seeing the tin roofs far below, glittering like glass shards, I’m brought back to the 21^st century.

 

The river’s gumption is unbelievable.  If you were to have told the river it must carve a plain into a 1700m abyss, it would have probably given you the finger.  There is no way, I think to myself, that a thin strip of water could create such a dramatic scene.

 

We slowly descend 1700m and travel 22km to the bottom of the gorge.  Gravel grinds beneath our tires, adding to the lunar dust coating everything near the road.  My hands sweat and leave dirty fingerprints on my book pages as the temperature rises with the falling altitude.  Burning brakes add a rubber fragrance to the decent.

 

…To be continued         

 

Say Chinese in Khartoum

We’ve arrived in the capital of Sudan, Khartoum.  It was here in 1998 that Bill Clinton decided to bomb a pharmaceutical factory to divert from the Lewinski scandal.  As can be expected, the locals have mixed feelings towards Americans.  I do not mask my being American, but I have found that upon learning where I am from, our conversation hit a lull.  As Africans know best, a bad government does not reflect from the citizens.  A common saying of theirs is, “Good people, bad government.”

 

Yesterday, a group of us walked into a typical falafel restaurant for dinner.  The owner spoke great English and struck a conversation with us.  I mentioned to a shop owner that I was American which followed by an expected lull.  Breaking the silence, I asked him if this was his only business.  “No,” he replied, “I have another one in China.”  Then asking him Ni hui shuo pu tong hua ma?[ Do you speak Chinese?]  He laughs and responds—in Chinese. 

 

Here I’ve found a Sudanese shop owner, who speaks respectable English and Chinese!  Two non-native speakers are conversing in Chinese in the middle of Sudan.  He asks if I have a Chinese girlfriend and I ask if he drinks baijiu(China’s infamous noxious alcoholic beverage).  He is Muslim, thus does not drink, but asks, Ni yao jiu ma?— Do you need liquor? 

 

Sudan is one of the few countries left that heed Sharia—Islamic Law.  This form of law governs by the tenants of Islam.  Examples are eye for an eye or a thief is punished by chopping off the offending hand.  As it is against the religion to drink liquor, it is illegal to drink, serve or sell alcohol in Sudan.  As no one else knows what we are talking about, in the late afternoon, in a busy market place, he is asking if I want liquor. 

 

Yao! Yes I need liquor!  We have gone nearly two weeks without a drink, and I begin thinking that it is the longest time I have gone without a drink in several years.  He makes a phone call and asks for 32 Sudanese pounds (about 16 dollars) and gives my money to an unscrupulous character.  I feel like a minor again, waiting and hoping that he returns with the contraband and doesn’t steal my money.

 

As I explain the situation to the rest of our group, two Sudanese walk up wearing sunglasses and carrying black nylon briefcases.  A quick slip of cash and my money disappears inside a pocket. The accomplice brings a yellow grocery bag concealing four Coca-Cola bottles filled with a milky-white beverage, and sets it in the middle of our table.

 

“This is strong, you must mix it with 7up or Coca-Cola,” the owner explains to me.  Xie Xie, Xie Xie, I thank him in both Chinese and English.  The other staff sits with dropped jaws at what just happened.  I’m glowing and grinning ear to ear.

Matema's Two Worlds

Entering Ethiopia from the border town of Matema was a border crossing unlike any other.  The mosques, prohibition and other bits of Arabian culture stopped at a decrepit bridge, with no water passing below.  The tarmac ends and a dusty, gravel road lay ahead.          

 

The customs hut was a sad structure.  Goats foraged through heaps of litter by the entrance.  The fence and doorway were corrugated sheet metal and a beaten dirt path led to the immigration hut.  Inside were two desks, one emigration, the other immigration.  Tossing my passport onto a stack of others, I watched the finger of the immigration officer scan across an ancient-looking book, his finger dragging over hundreds of names.  Seeing this was no small task, I decided to walk around the corner for a much awaited beer.  

 

It is amazing the difference fifty yards can make.  Seated in a room strikingly similar to the immigration office, I drained a local Dashan beer and learned some basic Ethiopian.  Two locals, both able to speak some English taught me: Indene—How are you? and Amasiginalo—Thank you.  Though I cringe when I hear tourists butcher Mandarin; we are slated for 21 days in Ethiopia and likely longer because of skipping Kenya, so learning a few words can’t hurt, no matter how bad my pronunciation.      

 

As they taught and I repeated, dozens of children stopped by the entrance, backlit by the relentless sun.  Their enormous white and brown eyes danced around the room, quickly landing on me.  “You, you, you, you,” they hoot.  “Me, me, me, me, me,” I respond.  This confuses them and they wander off. 

 

I say amasiginalo to my teachers and return to the immigration hut.  Sitting inside, my eyes wander about the room.  Someone had tried to spruce the inside by painting it with purple and green paint, but as the mud aged, it cracked, making the walls look like a painted, dry riverbed.  An Ethiopian calendar advertises beer by featuring a breathtaking Ethiopian woman, tilting her head, beaming a smile towards the bottle and me.  A unclad women and beer, two things you will not find 50 yards east. 

 

The calendar states, as have many banners I have seen since, that it is the Ethiopian Millennium.  The Ethiopians follow their own calendar and along with their calendar, they follow Ethiopian time.  I was told in the immigration office that it was eight in the morning, whereas following the Sudanese time 50 yards away, it was nearly two in the afternoon.

 

The immigration hut was also the first place I saw Ethiopian script.  I am told by Wondey, our local support, that the language has over 200 characters.  Two or more characters make up a word, and the letters are phonetic, like our alphabet.  While reading a book on Eritrea, Ethiopia’s petite northern neighbor, it mentions how the Ethiopians are very adept at learning languages with nearly perfect pronunciation.  The English language has a possibility of 44 unique phonetic sounds.  Though I am not sure of the exact number, Ethiopian language has 70+ phonetic possibilities.    

 

I’m asked my profession and receive my entry stamp.  A little buzzed, as we have not had much to drink over the past two and a half weeks, I walk to our camp.  On my walk I’m hassled by a local, a consequence of their ability to speak English fairly well, and I feign ignorance.  They try more and more desperately to speak with me, with the effort ending with a Fine, Fuck You!  Yes, fuck you too I think to myself, unflinchingly, as not to give up my facade. 

 

On my short walk, Ethiopian culture is thick.  It seems to battle with the Sudanese for supremacy, and this is likely due to the Ethiopians being very proud people.  So proud of their language (they have the only written history in sub-Saharan Africa) and culture that many will deny they are Africans. 

 

Women are dressed comfortably and lively music blasts from huts.  Crowding the sides of the dusty road are huts no different from the immigration hut.  Walls are constructed from dried mud and straw and the roof is a thatched roof. 

 

In the shade of many huts, groups of five or six huddle around a large dish.  A thin, crepe-like bread sprawls across the large plate, slightly spilling over the sides.  In the middle of the dish is either a meat or bean paste.  Everyone uses their fingers, pulling thin trails of bread and using this to sop sauce and retrieve beans.  The pinched burrito disappears with one bite.  Ethiopians are very proud of their food, so proud, they call it National Food. 

 

Two days earlier, at a spectacular camp along the Nile, I was able to hang my hammock beneath a canopy of trees.  Yellow bursts of flowers, soft and round like felt spheres, carpeted the ground beneath me and choirs of birds chirped all about, happily distracting me from my book.  Occasionally a new species would flutter by, singing its song for a moment, and finding no reply, it continued its search for mates along the bank.  Soft chugs from a diesel pump echoed in the distance.  Our Zimbabwean driver wandered by, speaking as not to disturb the birds, “Yes, now it is beginning to be Africa.”

 

Back in Matema, chickens and roosters cluck throughout the day and into the evening.  Several hee-haws screech above the clucking.  As the sun sets over Sudan, we notice the hills are afire.  They flame not from the fading light, but from brush fires.  Burning to clear grasses and nourish the soil for subsistence farming.  The smoky haze and charred scent add another dimension to Matema.  Yes, after a month of travel, we have finally arrived in Africa

You, you, you YOU!

Locals are everywhere, and we fear we have not seen the worst of it.  Children continue their hooting of You you you you you you! and have added, Where’s my money.  Give me Burr [rolling the ‘rr’ it is the local currency].  Census results vary, but most agree the population is over 75 million people.  The two days of cycling into Gonder have been relatively peaceful. Ethiopia is notorious for the highest amount of stone throwing [scarily accurate, as children throw rocks to herd sheep and to hunt] and theft.

 

As one can imagine, they are masterful of English’s profanities.  After having a stone thrown at you, the verbal response is an irrepressible reflex: What the fuck!? Fuck you!  To which they somewhat innocently repeat, What the fuck? Fuck you!  Their insults are the most entertaining, from an American perspective, when they draw from British exclamations: Piss off! You Wanker! Bugger Off! You Bloody Muppet!

 

I’m still trying to put my finger on Ethiopians.  I’ve been told by others that they are impossible to understand (not unlike the Chinese).  For example, my boss once ran an NGO here.  Many of the Ethiopian staff were stealing and were soon fired for stealing.  When my boss brought them to the office to fire them, they innocently asked, “Why am I being fired.”  “You stole from me,” my boss said.  “No, you gave me the opportunity to steal, therefore it is your fault,” they replied.  After this happened several times, an Ethiopian friend of his told him, “Stop firing people when they steal from you.  Each new staff member will steal, because they think it will be the only chance they have.  If they steal and there is no consequence, they won’t steal anymore because they can steal at anytime.” 

 

I mentioned their time and calendar in a previous entry.  Driving to dinner last night, I saw another banner for the Ethiopian Millennium.  Joking with everyone in our car, I said, “On right, I forgot, happy millennium everyone!”  Our Ethiopian guide (and driver at the time), angered by the laughter, told me not to joke about their millennium.  I asked for the date of New Years Day.  He replied, “You should already know.”   

 

All I can say after three days in Ethiopia: the Ethiopians are a very proud people.

 

A Coffee Break

A continent where the mind purifies, the spirit repairs itself and we find God. Oh vast silence, oh nights spent in the open air, how you invigorate the body and strengthen the soul.
–Ferdinando Martini

The sun emerges like fiery peach against the purple plum horizon. It soon hangs in the empty desert sky, refracting along windborne sand. The ride is silent, except for the hiss of sand. It drifts across the road in steady streams, like beams of light, intent on collecting and covering the tarmac scar.

As oncoming trucks approach, I cower like an entrenched solider. The groan of the diesel engine gets louder and I wait for a spattering of sand. It passes and I point my face towards the ground. A second later, shrapnel-like sand numbs the front of my body and echoes off my helmet. Soon, sugar cube dwellings and a checkered water tower signal an upcoming village. I decide to stop for a coffee in a sad courtyard.

Three gentlemen crouch across from me as the water boils. Shroud in a tasseled, brown blanket, one squats and sips spiced chai, holding the base and rim of the glass with his thumb and forefinger. A stained white turban envelopes his head below the blanket. His ashy feet and scaly legs match his brown plastic sandals.

Squinting into the sun, he opens his mouth, exposing yellowing teeth, likely due to the amount of sugar in the local coffee and tea. He pulls a blue Nivia can from his pocket. Looking at his skin, I am doubtful that the tin still contains moisturizer. He opens the tin, takes a pinch tobacco and puts it under his lip—an adding factor for his yellowing teeth.

He pulls out a lid to a Twinkie box and flips it to show the cardboard underside. It has crude drawings of busses and trucks. The artist seems to be 18 or so but the drawings look like they are at a 2nd or 3rd grade level. There are two wheels with a rough frame that exaggerates the cab and clearance for wheels.

The other two gentlemen have three parallel lines on either cheek. They look like down turned whiskers. I ask about them and they gesture with their fingers that they are related to each other. They are all leaning against a cement wall looking like it has been blasted by sand numerous sandstorms. Flecks of paint are the only clue that this rundown courtyard has not always looked like this.
I finish my coffee and am on my way.

Football at the Zoo

I kick a cantaloupe looking ball with the local children that cleaned the zoo for us. They were nice enough to pile the litter and then burn it in small clumps throughout the property. We enjoy the cleanliness, but lament the sour smell of burning trash. We continue to kick the ball around and a passerby decided to join for a few minutes. He hikes up his robe, exposing sandaled feet and dribbles past the children using his slick moves.

Dongala

Our rest day is in Dongala, a small town between Wadi Halfa and the capital, Khartoum.

I took a ferry across the Nile though it was more akin to Noah’s ark. Passengers included an unhappy camel, whining the entire way, a heard of goats, a donkey cart laden with onions, fellow humans and several pickup trucks.

An abandoned zoo is our campground for the next two nights. Broken cages, sprawling trees, and grass surround our enclosure. We bring the zoo back to life. Children peek through the metal bars of the gates shouting and whistling, trying to get our attention. They scream hello and money, hoping for some sort of reaction.
Observing the locals and our group, we are the zoo, we are the animals! A watering hole after five days in the desert and where does everyone congregate? We are like animals at an oasis—cleaning ourselves, playing in the water, and watching out for predators.

Taming my Steed

My body limp like a cowboy, I cling to my handlebars, trying to control my bucking bronco of a bicycle. Thick sand and gravel send my bicycle into a frenzy. It is trying to follow the tangle of tire ruts in the sand. Correcting each wayward movement, I manage a course. Another patch of deep and I’m bucked successfully. I saddle up once again.

I continue to battle through thick sand, it feels as though three children from the last village are hanging on to my back wheel and digging their heels into the ground, slowing me to a crawl. The wind, whistles through my brake cables and I feel as though I am in a country western. All I need is a bar with swinging doors to burst through. Since alcohol is forbidden here, I will have to settle for a small café and a sarsaparilla.

AK-47s and Shisha

Our protection, AK-47 wielding Sudanese police, took a break to lie against a sandy bank. They were smoking shisha and enjoying the day’s final rays of light. One waves their arm and invites me to join their shisha circle. They point to the Nile and say Kneel, the way Arabic pronounce Nile and then pointed to the water in the glass base. We’re filtering the shisha through the waters of the Nile. As the sun disappears behind the opposite bank of the Nile, we look towards camp and see a poorly staked tent blowing across camp and into the desert. Laughing, we take another puff and watch the frantic owner chase his home.

Walking the Shore

My feet trod the silty shores of the Nile. A combination of silt and sand, I feel as though I am walking atop black, sticky cotton. Sinking in slightly, it is a slight strain snap the suction and continue the step. Lush patches of cultivated crops, grass and palm trees patch the banks and the northbound Nile splits the shores. The silt shoals look like brewed finely ground coffee grinds. The lapping waves create a milky brown froth, not unlike the top of a cappuccino, which floats above both the sand and the water. Song birds chirp their cheery songs heavily contrasting the barren desert only 50 meters away.

Nile Child

The shores of the Nile support many villages, all brimming with children. Children are both the most enjoyable and the biggest obstacle of our ride as they offer support and encouragement, but also throw rocks, shout obscenities, and jab sticks into our spokes. Their curiosity intriguing, it is always a treat to find one afraid of foreigners.

In one particular settlement, I noticed a 5-year-old girl; having caught sight of me, she vanished behind her mother’s legs. Backlit by the sun, the eyes of the child shone white against her dark skin, intensifying her scared, curious stare. Her hair flames from her head in random sprouts and she wears dirtied clothes.

As her father brought her close, maybe to see that I meant no harm, her features balanced. Crusty snot shone beneath her nose and above her lip and she innocently nibbled on one of her fingers. The way she was hoisted, her serenity, and her casual scrutiny of me, it looked as though I was watching a commercial: For just one dollar a day, you too, can give a child like this, a bright future. Though her village was small and poor, I feel that this child and her family are content.

Two Little Birds, On My Door Step

Two Egyptian vultures wait just out of camp. They look like plump, scruffy seagulls with a searing orange beak and willy-nilly grey head feathers. I can imagine they are happy to see us move along, perhaps happier about what we have left behind.

In the hinterland of desert and Nile, unusual plants thrive. During a desert walk, I came across a plant unlike the rest, as it was lacking thorns and other typical defenses for such a ripe looking plant. Wrinkled branches independently extend from the soil and directly from the branches, grow thick plate-like leaves. A green or brown fruit grows beneath delicate white flowers beneath the shade of the leaves. The fruit looks like a plump wrinkled walnut.

After asking our driver about the plant, he explained is not local. It is an invasive alien species. The fruits are actually seed pods filled with white, fuzzy seeds that burst upon maturity, sending seeds across the desert. It lacks thorns as the plant is poisonous to animals. Also an alien species here, I think to myself, I hope my impact is not as destructive.

Road to Dongala

The stucco clouds above complement the texture of our new riding environment. Steep, rock strewn hills surround us and ecru sand is everywhere; the sand licking towards the crests of the sinister looking mounds. It is as if we are visiting a distant moon or roving across some unknown planet.

Shaken to the bone, we cycle along the heavily rutted road leaving Wadi Halfa. The deep sand and gravel strewn route was an immediate sign that we are no longer in Egypt. Sudanese roads are rough. Patches of sand inhaled tires, slinging some riders to the ground or leaving others fishtailing to safety. Unavoidable ruts, caused by infrequent flooding, punished those without front suspension. We spent the better part of the day keeping a keen eye ten meters ahead and choosing the most solid patches of road. We see only as far as the hills and continue the ride across the craggy, tortuous road to Dongola.