From Juba to Shashemene

Dearest,

I take advantage of a forced stop in Shashemene to write about the first twelve days of this journey. The itinerary is rather screwed, but this was quite predictable. After ten days of peace and gorgeous, breathtaking sceneries, the stage between Arba Minch and Shashemene was a combo of bad luck.

I broke the chain just after seeing a gigantic (dead) crocodile. People were very helpful and in two hours I was back on the road. The landscape evolved into never ending fields of maize, grain, bananas and taf, the cereal used to prepare the world famous Ethiopian Njera. Just 15 kms before destination, tack… my engine immediately stop as the broken chain was stuck. Quite disappointed I started to work on it, while a crowd of thirty people surrounded me with curiosity and smiling faces. As the sun was setting, it sounded a better idea to be pulled by somebody else up to town so I could have got a new chain. With uncertain balance I reached the place of Silvia, Daniel and their two delicious children whom where hosting me. Teodorus, the youngest asks me to see the crocodile that I saw.

Nooo. I came to realize with optimistic hopes that I had lost the backpack with camera and passport on the way. I did the road in the opposite direction, and Silvia presented me the hard reality, it was stolen during my last stop. My mood was underground. I was lost and with me the whole journey as that backpack contained the only pivotal item to continue the travel. Thanks God Silvia employees helped me to report the issue to the police, we collected info from the community up to eleven at night or five in Ethiopian time. Everybody was very optimistic that I would have got back the backpack as we had eye witnesses. The following day we diversified our strategy, after promising a good amount of money to the police for speeding up the process, I was suggested to ask the help of a local elder for whom it would have been easier to find the items as people shut their mouth up when policemen are involved. I went up and down the whole day with Silvia’s staff, in the early afternoon I was almost hopeless and I said a rosary to keep calm and a positive attitude. Two hours later we reach the house of the thief, who was not there, but I got everything beside the driving license. Great joy, I paid out the agreed rewards and was forced to report back to the police. There they wanted to keep my stuff under custody as a proof against the thief. No way, I was going to allow that. I enjoyed the drama, started pretending I was calling the embassy, trying to walk out without consent and it did not work. So I played the humble card begging them to let me go. Somebody suggested they take a video of me presenting the items contained in the bag and, good enough, that was it. I was very lucky.

Today I fixed the bike with a new chain, fixed a crack in the engine with some epoxy glue and added some engine oil. It was now a bit late to leave so I decided to enjoy the late afternoon here to write you and with Daniel and the Children at home. I am afraid I will have to skip even Lalibela and not only Aksum If I want to reach the Sudan border in time, before my Sudanese Visa expires. Too bad, but I will have time to visit those wonderful places in future accompanied by people I love, which will make it definitely more meaningful.

Up to now the days passed rapidly and smoothly. Going out to Uganda has been like going back home, it was a pleasure to greet the old friends made in these three and a half years across South Sudan and North Uganda. It is hard to describe the wonder of my eyes after crossing to Kenya when I reached the highest point of the plateau, starting lowering in altitude through a beautiful tarmac road which was as pleasurable as my Mossini-Triangia in Valtellina. The only difference being that I arrived into a semi desert on the way to Lodwar and camels where popping up on the road while grazing. I spent the night in Kainuk which is the beginning of the Turkana’s people land. I had to leave the bike at the police station as no hotel had a compound were it could stay safe. All the people I was meeting thought I had something wrong in deciding to travel on that route alone. Police and travelers scared me to death telling me about all the ambushes that occurred in the last years. I was about to consider the idea of going back, when I took a big breath, did some minor fixing at the bike and left. While praying that it was not my day to go, I rode as fast as I could for the first hundred kms which were supposed to be dangerous. Fiuuu, how light my heart was when I realized I was out of danger. In Lodwar the diocese received me with great hospitality and I could see that Turkana people, as pastoralist they are definitely as proud and as though as my old friends of South Sudan. I greeted the bishop after the morning mass and followed his suggestion to take the road nearby the western shore of Lake Turkana. I think I have almost cursed his grace bishop Dominic when I found myself in a very, very sandy road. The bike was loaded with full tank and luggage, including water and balancing my way out was possible only between the first and the second gear. The thought of going back and using the longer and better road crossed my mind, and was soon discarded. I found little villages of nice and peaceful people every 20 kms., women were wearing tens of necklaces which exalted their long necks. I discovered that they never remove them even when they go to bed, it would be rather uncomfortable for me. After six hours the lake was revealed to me in his beauty like a mirage. In the middle of it I could see what seemed a spaceship at the beginning. It was the northern island. I was not far from the border town of Todenyang. I stop for some minutes to contemplate what looks like a bigger version of the dead sea. At five I arrived in the catholic mission and was happy to meet with the charismatic Fr. Steven who run a very well organized mission in support of the local population and tries to broker peace negotiations between the Turkana of Kenya and the Dasenash of southern Ethiopia who still kill each other over access to grazing land and water. He was humble and lucid in acknowledging how little progress was made in that regards. The evening was special; we prayed and hate dinner with a lively group of young Kenyan volunteers on break from their universities and eventually enjoyed the rainmaker under an ocean of stars.

The following day I crossed the border, immense and desolate infinity beyond the reach of my eyes. I was happy when I met a German on his bicycle (yes paddle bike) who was going from Israel to South Africa. He was still thinking that travelling alone was a great thing, I start thinking that sharing is likely to be the only real travel experience.

In Omorate I had to cross the Omo river. It was Sunday and the ferry did not work. Thus, I hired six people with the help of Stevie and loaded the bike on a small boat. It worked out pretty well, beside some hiccups of the boat engine. The immigration department of Ethiopia was an hilarious experience. A drunken official couldn’t find neither the keys to his office, nor the stamp or the ink-pad. Eventually he was so confused that he put the exit stamp rather than the entry one. He was a small man with huge spectacles which kept on falling from his nose. I just tell you that instead of my surname he wrote my nationality. So I was registered as Gabriele Mario ITA. This because in Ethiopia official documents must bear also the name of your father.

The following day I followed Paolo’s suggestion of looking for the famous bull jumping ceremony of the Amar tribe. I found a guide, also stinking of alcohol and full of local Kat, and reached the place just after lunch. This pastoralist tribe is quite similar to those of East Africa, they go around with their little chair and their gun, the women are more attached to traditional clothes and decorations. In few words the ceremony is for the initiation to adulthood of a young man. All the women from his extended family after drinking a good amount of local beer are supposed to get whipped by a team of whippers in order to show how much they love their relative who is about to jump on the back of ten bulls to prove he is ready for marriage. These women are gorgeous in their outfits made of goat skin, they have sharp and attractive facial features and their proud chest makes them quite gifted by Mother Nature. The only bad thing is that they smell terribly due to the fact that they are not supposed to wash themselves above the knee and the mix of soil and incense with which they paint body and hair is everything but a perfume.

Their back were bleeding from the hundreds time they were hit. It was impressive to see how they were pretending to be hit stronger and stronger. At sunset we move to a new location on top of a hill, bulls were prepared and the young man, completely naked jumped amid suspense. The bells on the women ankles and hips went crazy and immediately after the jump everybody started dispersing back to their hut. As for myself… I realized my lights were not working and thus I luckily found two Chilean with their girls who hired a bike from the closest village and returned under their guidance. These guys are also crossing the continent with bicycle. Much more remarkable than my trip!

What did I learn up to now?

The first day my legs where shaking at the idea of the never-ending set of problems, hardships and risks I would have incurred into. Suddenly I found this thought inside my helmet which calmed me down better than a bottle of good wine. When you are aiming at great objectives, such greatness might make you feel too small, too imperfect and not daring enough to try to embark in such an enterprise. Eventually everything starts with just one step. So instead of focusing on the journey I focused on the following one hundred meters. Do them well, taste the beauty of the small piece of world where I am setting my feet and tires. If I get a broken chain, a puncture or whatever else, I will stop and find my way around the problem. It will also be a gift of this trip after all.

In some stages I was so exhausted that I could avoid other people’s company and my mood became unfriendly. This happened also in my daily working routine. And that is when you lose all the richness of life which comes largely from the meeting with other people and the mutual exchange of views, thoughts and memories. There is enough beauty to cure any paining heart in the relationship with others. The moment you close yourselves to become a lonely traveler it will be the moment when no matters how many kms you do or how many days you live, you will not move ahead of a single step. With all the corners of one’s mood, opening to what the other could give is a delicious medicine.

Tomorrow morning early I head to Addis, hopefully Yamaha authorized dealer can get me a new spring for the starter which is making a rather worrying sound. It will have to be fast, I must cross the next border by 19th of June.

A special hug to each of you.

Gabri