We had a great stay at the Lal Hotel and it ended up costing half of what we initially thought. We also had nine eggs for breakfast, all due to the communication gap. It great fun. Tania, for instance, asked for a ‘makiato’ and they say ‘NO!’, but then the person next to us get one. Or I ask for bread and they say ‘NO!’ and deliver four bread rolls. Great fun! 🙂
We packed up after breakfast and went to the internet shop around the corner. Fast internet! they said. Yeah right, we couldn’t manage to post one image. Sorry about that! We’ll make up in Sudan…hopefully!
We left Woldia around 12h00 as we only had 130 km to do, but with the last part being 65 km dirt…and it was starting to look like rain again. After 65 km there was a road to the right with a heap of dirt blocking it and suddenly the GPS recalculated that we still had 130 km left. Then it started raining! When we stopped Tania told me she’d been thrown with rocks earlier. I saw the guys gesturing, but didn’t know they had hit her. This made me shake with anger and the rest of the day was the most emotionally draining experience of the trip so far! Most of the people still waved, but a lot of them pulled angry faces and swung sticks or an umbrella at us. Some threw stones from behind. I was so disappointed as we waved friendly to them until the end. Luckily the dirt road was not too bad. It’s rocky, but not muddy. Here also, the people scared me. It evoked feelings of aggressiveness, which after you’ve had time to think it over turned to guilt. How can you be mad at someone that has to survive on so little. It is really important to stay calm and relaxed and try to keep perspective. The landscape surrounding Lalibela is absolutely stunning and we’ll try to enjoy it more riding out again in a day or two. At some stage we reached 3 541 m if I remember correctly and the Motomia still managed to breath fine. Here is a picture of this point.
And the view from the top…
We checked in at the Seven Olives Hotel as we were wet and cold (it rained so hard the last 5 km that we could almost see nothing), but will now be moving to another hotel that is a third of the price. We also saw a BMW GS1200 and a Honda Africa Twin there, hehe). We also organised a guide to show us some of the rock hewn churches this afternoon. We’ll get a feel for it and go back tomorrow morning for good photos. The people here are really friendly and helpful, and we just need a day or two to reset our experience of yesterday. Sorry we still cannot post photos and I hope the next post will be more positive. Thanks for the following and for hanging in there without any images.
Is dit nie ‘amazing’ hoe eners mense en die lewe maar oral is nie?! Elkeen reageer op sy/haar unieke omstandighede en jy wat toevallig verbykom, raak die teiken… Dank die Vader, julle het meer positiewe ervarings as andersom, en dat julle dankbaar en nederig bly. WAT ‘N LEERSKOOL! Sterkte! Lief vir my drie ‘amazing’ kinners! En groot bewondering vir julle!
Ai, jammer oor julle slegte ondervinding. Maar bravo vir julle vasbyt en positiewe gesindheid. Ek stem 110% saam met Esther. Trots op julle!
Sjoe dit was voorwaar ‘n rowwe emosioneel uitputtende dag vir julle.Voorwaar ‘n toets vir julle resilience. Mens kan net dink hoekom die mense so optree – Lord Kitchener het in Ethiopie dieselfde optrede teen die plaaslike bevolking gehad as teen die Boere in 1902….Luv. V1x
I asked if I could make it worse by swimming. He said, “probably not, but we don’t really know. If you do make it worse, we think it could be easily fixed.” Hmmm. I’ll hold off on swimming for the next few weeks and then give it another shot. I’m also having trouble holding my upper body weight on the bike; hopefully PT can help with that as well.