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--- News and reports ---

 

Nr.III: AFRICA, 04.04.2007 - ???

 

17.09.2007, Nanyuki (Kenya): We are leaving Addis southwards. Strange, but the rains are never catching us while biking :-) We stop for a day in Awassa - for us the most relaxed city in Ethiopia. Afterwards it is really going for business. It is extremly hilly (physically exhausting) and for several days there is no minute (we have checked on our watches) without ten to hundred children "you-you-youing" and running after us (psycological exhausting). Anyway, people seem to be much less aggressive here than they were further north. Not a single stone was ever thrown after us! On the last three days before the kenian border it becomes dry and fairly unpopulated - oh gosh, how relaxing! Crossing the border is easy. Driving on the left side now and the asphalt stops. 534 kilometers of dirtroad ahead - that is the "Trans East African Highway"! Big gravel, fine gravel, big stones, small stones, sand and dust. Almost impossible to drive on that stuff. On our worst day we had an average of only 6 km/h and just 50 kilometers done in the evening. In addition to the roadconditions we are facing heavy headwinds, hundreds of Tse-Tse-flies are always around us and the desert heat of more that 40 degrees. Only a few villages on our way where we can get water, basic food and can sleep at missions and schools. In the middle of the track we reach Marsabit. We are stopping for two days and relax our legs. Then we hit the bumpy path again. After altogether 10 days we reach Isiolo and the asphalt starts again. People are friendly along our way and compared to Ethiopia it is almost a holiday to pass through villages. We skip our idea to climb Mt. Kenia due to the permanent bad weather on the mountain - heavy rainfalls every day - and keep heading south. At Nanyuki we cross over the Equator. From Northcape to here it is 15.000 kilometers :-)

  

  

23.08.2007, Addis Ababa (Ethiopia): Since a couple of days we are back in Ethiopia at the Schmidt Family's place (http://www.schmidt-familie.net/), maintening our bikes. We enjoy the african flair of Addis und visit the "Center for Mentally Challenged Children", where Christoph Schmidt is working (see Help for Africa). The rainy-season is not finished yet (as we were dreaming of) and enormous rainfalls are going down for hours/days, flooding everything. Anyway, we will start biking southwards tomorrow. 800 kilometers more of "You, you, you..." until the kenian border...

   

10.08.2007, Graz (Austria) - "Holiday": Rain is pooring day and night in Ethiopia - rainy season has started. Spontanuously we are leaving the thunders behind us. We are working for a month to supplement our accounts and make a stop at home in Austria, for a very special celebration: we get married on the 04th of August in Graz :-) On the 15th of August we will get back to Addis - hoping for the end of the rainy season - and continue cycling southwards. Now our Worldtour has eventually become our honeymoon...

 

   

13.06.2007, Addis Ababa (Ethiopia): After some relaxing days we are leaving Gondar towards the south. The road is in good condition. Suddenly we bump into a solo-cyclist coming the other way. It is Alvaro from Spain (see bikers we met). "Ethiopa is hell on earth!", he says, "Everyday kids are throwing stones after me. I am really glad to be out of this country soon! Good luck you two!" Yes, Ethiopia has a very bad reputation amongst long distance bikers: Stonethrowing children, kids threatening you with their sticks, halvlings yanking on your bags. Permanently the annoying "You! You! You!" and "Give me... money, pen, T-shirt!" and the barked or screamed "Farengi! Farengi!", which means as much as "foreigner" or "white nigger". Everybody is begging. As cycling through Ethiopia is the only possible north to south route in eastern Africa, we have to face this challenge and experience the following: In order to "greet" us, people open their hands: </