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3111 over the sea level?
A beautiful stage, with crazy gradients in the day in which I am feeling the worst, I have nausea I cannot eat, I force myself to gulp down a couple of cereal bars with some tea. I do not know if the cause is the cold, the altitude or some dry barley I ate yesterday afternoon. At 3111 meters of altitude I have never been on the bicycle, in the first twenty kilometers you go up, and you swing around the 3100 meters, it is cold, the menacing white and black clouds are almost on the road, at the sides the green of the fields is interrupted here and there by the dark brown of the ground ploughed with the ox, I am weak but I go on, in a hut-bar I can manage to eat a small piece of bread and I drink three small teas, the guys present ask me if I know the top Ethiopian athletes … I say yes Abele Bikila, Gebrsailasse, Bekeke … and women? … here I am not prepared … I know there are many strong ones … then they ask me of Balotelli and of Juventus … I eat very slowly … I who usually is super fast in eating … I would stay the all day at the bar …
In the following twenty kilometers you go down to the 2500 meters of Gebre Gurach, and you stay there until the incredible last 44 kilometers, split in two by the Nile, the first 22 downhill and the remaining 22 uphill … You go down to slightly over 1000 meters … and you go back up to 2500 …
The downhill would be great if the wearing course would not look like an ice-cream which melted and then was frozen again, there are many humps, dips, folds. Despite all this I am faster than many trucks, the valley looks like a canyon, there are also a couple of waterfalls visible at the sides of the road, down below the Nile, which I should meet other times too, flows calm towards Uganda, it has a muddy brown color, I do not know why here they call it ‘Blue Nile’. Going down these 22 kilometers without having eaten, knowing I have to go back up for another 22, is like signing a check knowing you do not have any money on your bank account, where will I find the energy to go back up? … At the end of the downhill I realize that the bridges are two, one old and the Hadase Bridge, realized with the aid of Japanese cooperation, I stop in the middle of the 313 meter long bridge to take a picture pretending not to hear the screams of the many policemen telling me it is not allowed …
Then the uphill starts, the first kilometers are terrible tough uphill, I remove my goretex jacket and I go up slowly, I have no energies, some children push me like supporters, for short stretches, after the push effect it seems to be paralyzed, and you get stuck, today I have no other option but to take it easy and as it comes this uphill, with the panniers I am like one weighing 100 kg …, I stop to drink, I take some pictures, I watch the Nile getting further away, as the sun is setting … at the fifteenth kilometers on the uphill I get overtaken by a truck going 2km/h faster than I do … I should grasp hold of it I think … bit I let it pass … then further ahead where the road goes up badly … the truck cannot find the right gear it is practically still … so I catch it … and I hold on to a rope hanging from the left side of the trailer … I was going 6km/h … now we go up at 7,5 km/h … but I still have to pedal to avoid falling … and it is harder … then after 2 kilometers in a spot where the tar has melted … I fly away … I land like a biker with the hands on the handle bar … I have a scraped knee … I laugh out loud for my dampness … also because I am immediately reached by the inevitable children careless of the fall … of the blood … they tell me ‘give me money’, ‘give me pen’ … I climb back on the bicycle and I go up slowly the last kilometers I am missing to Dejen … I have always thought that shortcuts do not pay … I am certain …
At the Alem hotel I can manage to eat some spaghetti with vegetables, while I chat with a young surveyor working on the road maintenance with the Japanese, he is happy even though his wage of 200 USD only allows him a basic lifestyle, he cannot think of buying a car or a house, on the TV sport is given much relevance you see Nadal, who cannot take part in the Olympics and Ibrahimovich who was welcomed in Paris like a king …
Fiche N 9° 79.762’ E 38° 73.473’ – Dejen N 10° 17.698’ E38° 12.394’
116 km