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Bread-crumbed cotoletta?
It is raining. Spaghetti with two types of lentils, water and coffee, a part from the beer it is the repeat of last night dinner. I tour the town looking if maybe there is an internet point … there is not … I knew it … two boys point the tip of a hill where I can go if I have a MTN modem … I think Ethiopia is one of the few countries in the world with a mobile phone network monopoly … either MTN or MTN …
At the departure there is the rest of yesterday uphill, on top there are the rests of a fortress probably Italian, then you go down in a nose-dive, while I aim at reaching the 70 km/h I find in front of a me a herd of cows crossing the road. The brakes are still there luckily!
Many discoveries happen by chance. So when we got off the Moyale Express, I did not have time to fix the panniers properly, I just leaned them on top of the yellow wrapping, tied to the carrier, which holds the tent, the sleeping bag and mat. Yesterday morning I tried to fix the panniers in this way and the result seems not bad, even though esthetically is not the best, this asset allows to keep the panniers far off the behind gear or to avoid bumping it when the terrain is uneven.
Today more dromedaries, then squirrels and macaques when they crossed the road I recognized that monkey with the red bottom which I used to look at on the animals’ encyclopedia when I was little, at a certain point it seemed to be in a Walt Disney cartoon, with cows, sheep, donkeys, squirrels and dromedaries. These last ones, which here are called camels but they have just one hump, are at the origins of tensions 
between Borana and Gabra, two tribes who live here. If I understood correctly the firsts who are sheppards feel exploited, and in danger, because of the others who are more traders. Towards the evening before Surupa I met some smiling men carrying rifles, in Yabelo where I stopped for a fast snack and internet, I was told that mainl at night there are fights. Yabelo, or Yavelo, is the first ‘civilised’ town after Moyale, before houses made of mud, straw and iron sheets when it is lucky dominate the landscape. The post internet on the gate of the hotel induces me to stop, I ask for something fast to bite on since I have still another forty kilometers to go … the waiter asks me if meat is ok … sure … what do you have? … cotoletta alla Milanese … better than many found in Italy …
Even here road works, a couple of Chinese, but nothing compared to Tanzania which is literally colonized. I saw there is a project for the Mombasa – Nairobi – Addis, in Ethiopia they are certainly ahead, but in Kenya …
I have to correct myself from what I wrote yesterday, not all the musungu can move easily where they want, Charly, American who has overtaken me on an enduro BMW, told me that at the Embassy in Nairobi he was bounced because of his stars and stripes passport …
In Surupa there are no hotels, the school is deserted and teachers and Headmaster have disappeared, hardly anybody speak English, it is sun set … some boys take me to the house of the Headmaster who is not there … I did not want to cycle overnight … while I was returning dismally to the road a tall man appears saying he has a room … iron door and windows … floor of compressed red soil … a light and a socket hanging from the sealing … bags piled … round pit latrine with no roof … there is nothing to sleep on … they bring me a mattress still in its plastic … and a blanket … I will see how I will sleep …
At the restaurant a lot of people is curious, some almost put me under interrogatory, it does not seem possible that a musung passes by here by bicycle … even though I am told that in February a German stayed the night here in somebody’s house.
If the wind will help me tomorrow I will try to reach Dilla, otherwise village!
Mega N 4° 05.696’ E 38° 31.155’- Surupa N 5° 13.579’ E 38° 29.433
131 km