“Il fuoco di un camino
non è caldo come il sole del mattino…”
(“The fire of a chimney / isn’t as warm as the morning sun”)
After yesterday rain finally the sun, the departure is hot on a easy road … I do not remember a hot day since Addis …
The buses in Ethiopia have a speaker on the roof, it is nice to hear them come, they are joyful and I think the music also keeps the children away from the road and maybe donkeys and cows too … today my theory that the closer you get to touristic centers the more begging and stupidity increase has today found many practical demonstrations … the stones which were not reaching me for some time have reappeared … one thrown at me by a nice young shepard from a hill was the size of a apple … then today a child with a whip run towards me frantic shouting ‘money money …’ and cracked the whip 50 cm from the bicycle … I was really pissed off with him and with the mother … who shouted at him … but seen that, a part from the first 250 km from Moyale, it has been like this everywhere I suspect that either the parents, or the older brothers, have a two face, or that to ask money to tourists is something taught at school …
In general when everybody is asking it is difficult, if not impossible, to understand who really has the need, but asking like this I do not think strengthens the dignity … in Africa luckily often too much is asked to others and too little to one self … on a downhill or at the beginning of the stage … I am more understanding but at the end on a tough uphill … I would like to have the sword of Gamon and cut all of those hands stretched out asking for money … also of adults asking for preconceived ideas … There are spectacular elderly, adults and children who clap their hands to me and shout ‘welcome’ and they are the ones I will remember, we communicate with smiles they are spectacular and really welcoming. Who gives a birr to a child does a infinitely bigger damage to development than the birr donated.
Towards one the warm morning sun disappeared, and in the proximity of the second tough uphill of the day, I notice around the still far top, lightning and black clouds which are not promising anything good, I climb hoping the clouds will change direction, forlorn hope … rain mantle … Flood … the mantle is useless … when I turn right the wind helps me but at the same time it fills my back with water … downhill always fun … another 10 km of rain … and then adverse wind which dries me but makes me arrive in Gondar prostrate but at a decent time. I would have wanted to see some of the remains of the royal city but at the hotel of high standard where I am writing from there was no water then there was only boiling water … so in Gondar I will have to come back … with the little one …
This morning there was water everywhere at the sides of the road people was washing themselves, the clothes, the cars and the children were diving in these muddy natural swimming pools … at a certain point one of these children seeing me passing jumped out of the water and got on a bicycle and he started overtaking and zigzagging pedaling naked … with all the others on the road screaming and laughing …
Hamusit N 11° 78.333’ E 37° 56,667’ – Gondar N 12° 6 E 37° 46,666’
134 km