On to the northern hemisphere - Matt

It's been a week and a half of big days for Sam and I. When you last tuned in we were waiting in Nairobi for our visas to Sudan due to a clerical error within the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The day after writing, we found out that the visa wouldn't arrive for another two to three days (which could mean as much as a week in Africa time) and then it would take two or three days to get the visa to us for some reason (we'd had friends who just gone through the process). Being that it was Tuesday that meant we weren't going to leave with a Sudanese visa till maybe 7 to 10 days hence, so leave without a visa we did. We decided that to gamble and try to get a transit visa in Addis Ababa and to use the week seeing literally anything other than Nairobi sounded better than sitting around eating pizza, watching movies and drinking in cosmopolitan Nairobi.

Five days of doing nothing but riding and finding a place to sleep and eat brought us into inner Ethiopia and up into the highlands of the Bale Mountains. The first day we circumnavigated Mt. Kenya through rain and traffic and left the southern hemisphere in our dust (felt like a long time coming), ending up in a nice little hovel on the edge of Isiolo.

Sam on the equator

The next day we drove what we thought was the long and empty up to Marsibit. The landscape was much like what I've come to expect from the south western US. Long expanses of dry and fly broken up by towering plateaus and pillars of sandstone breaking up an otherwise empty horizon. Along the road side is mostly acacia trees, the occasional camel train and the local Kenyans decked out in about five lbs of colorful beads and decorative trinkets and a single pound of clothing.

We'd heard of a decent campsite outside of Marsibit called Camp Henry, run by a Scandinavian fellow, from some other overlanders. Marsibit is really nothing more than a way station on the top of a small plateau in the middle of the great plain that stretches north from Mt Kenya, allowing travelers to break up the long roadway migration from the rest of Kenya to Ethiopia or vice versa. We woke in the morning to mist you could cut with a knife. Soaking wet, we plowed our way out of the town down to lower and dryer climates. If we'd thought we'd seen empty the day before nothing had prepared us for the Martian landscape that lay before us. Small clusters of huts that would have fit right in next to tusken raider villages on Tatooine were scattered about but other than that we didn't see plant nor camel for miles for before our border crossing at Moyale.

132 km to Moyale

These two days of riding through barren rocky waste represents, for me, some of the greatest time I've spent in Africa. The riding is smooth and easy as the roads are some of the best we've experienced, I attribute this to the fact that relatively little exists in the area to ruin the road. No rain. No traffic. No erosion. The area is remote and devoid of the stresses that seem to accompany most long distance travel within the rest of Africa. But most of all, this is the area we have been told is most dangerous. It is the area we've heard that people fly over or bus through to avoid any potential dangers as hundreds of miles separate any semblances of civilization and water, nor fuel, is not to be found anywhere in between. It is the area of Kenya that has offered me the most beauty as well as the idea of accessing the inaccessible. Richard Burton, African explorer and incorrigible polyglot, described it better than I ever could 150 years ago; "around like drifted sand-heaps, upon which each puff of wind leaves it trace in solid waves, flayed rocks, the very skeletons of mountains and hard unbroken plains, over which he who rides is spurred by the idea that the bursting of a water-skin or the pricking of a camel's hoof, would be the certain death of torture - a haggared land infested with wild beasts and wilder men - a region whos very fountains murmer the warning 'Drink and away!'... Man's heart bounds in his breast at the thought of measuring his puny force with natures might and emerging triumphant from the trial. This explains the Arab's proverb 'Voyaging is Victory.'"

The crossing at Moyale brought it's own set of challenges. After arriving shortly after noon we decided to neglect declaring our motorcycles at the border since we had heard from other travelers that it wasn't really a big deal, we'd avoid a small fee, and would speed our crossing. Everything went as we were told and we crossed the border without issue by 2pm. We hoped to push on another 100km into Ethiopia and get out of the dust ridden border town. First we needed to get petrol for the bikes. Five gas stations in town and non of them seem to have any gas. Finally one of the attendants whose sitting there monitoring the empty pumps tells us 'you must go and buy at the black market.' I had to forcibly stop myself from asking him where this 'black market' could be found. One of those 'oh' moments. So we found some men on the side of the road with large plastic jugs and some smaller 2 liter water bottles full liquids of varying shades of yellow. These guys are everywhere in Moyale and the rest of Ethiopia. As soon as you know what to look for gas is at your finger tips for about 6.30USD per gallon.

With gas acquired we get about 10km down the dirt road out of town when we reach a customs check point asking for customs documents regarding our bikes. Apparently it is a big deal. We tried to talk our way through but the lady cop (they're always the honest/not lazy ones) wasn't having any of it. So we turned around and headed back into town. After bouncing back and forth from Ethiopian to the Kenyan side of the border three or four times we ended up leaving our registration at the Kenyan border office but had a paper stating that we could take our bikes into Kenya. This will make them a bit harder to sell, or at least we won't get as much, AND we're stuck in Moyale.

Next morning packed, with papers in hand we charge out of town bright and early, ready to shove our documents in the faces of whomever is manning the customs gate this morning. When we get there the gate is empty. No ones there. I guess it wasn't a big deal after all.

Ethiopia is different and it is marvelous. The charms of Sub-Saharan Africa were beginning to run stale with Sam and I and Ethiopia is a great departure. The food is rich and flavorful. Injera, sour-dough crepe more or less, about 20 inches wide is served on a large plate with the ordered lentils, cabbage, spaghetti or meat poured in the middle. The coffee is strong and made with care (sometimes they add salt instead of milk or sugar, jury's still out on that one). And since being in the country we had our meals bought for us four times by three separate strangers even when trying to avoid it. Food is relatively cheap but this is the first time in our trip that anyone has even offered to take on our financial burden.

The drive north from the border gave us excellent an display of the acacias, grass huts and 5 - 20ft tall ant hills that make up the southern Ethiopian landscape. The end of our first day's ride found us with sore butts from the terrible roads and scrambling to find a room in Dilla to get out of the rain. We scored a cheap place, 8 bucks for both of us to have a room each, but you get what you pay for. My room was had nothing but dirt in the corners and a bed. Not even a lock and key, just a dead bolt on the inside. I didn't even consider getting under the blanket on my bed. In fact, I tried as hard as I could to isolate myself from contact with anything in my room. Even though I got us a great deal on a room, Sam still won't let me choose the places we stay.

The next day we climbed up into the Ethiopian highlands to the town of Dinsho and the Bale Mountains National Park. Smooth roads up steep winding mountain passes, a fun beautiful and challenge for our 150cc motorbikes, brought us to the gates of the national park. Talking with park rangers revealed that we were only allowed to hike the park with a guide and the route that we wanted to take up to the Sanetti Plateau and the high elevations took three to four days to climb to over 4200 meters (nearly 14,000 ft.) and traverse the high plateau. It may have been an ill conceived notion but Sam and I were short and time and immediately convinced we could do it in two. We managed to convince a guide that we were capable and agreed to meet in the morning. Now we hadn't been hiking since South Africa and hadn't even put our backpacks on in the last month and a half. Not to mention that Sam had never even been as high as we were going and I only a time or two prior.

It was painful and left us sore but we covered the 50km in the two days we allotted ourselves and climb the majority of the elevation from Dinsho on the first day. The days were cold and the nights were colder. We were both inadequately prepared since, you know, we're traveling Africa. The Sanetti is a barren and inhospitable roof of the world. The horizon always seems close with clouds at always eye level beyond it. During lunch on the second day we were watching clouds roll in over the highest peak on the plateau when our guide came to us and said we had to move now to avoid weather socking us in and trapping us in the fog, at which point we would be unable to navigate. The instant after he said the thunder rolled down from the mountain which was quickly being swallowed in the clouds. The rest of the kms were covered quickly as thunder rolled around us. We camped near to what our guide said was the highest highway in Africa, though I've found nothing to support this. It was essentially a dirt road that saw a car going either way about ever 15 minutes.

In the morning, after about 45 minutes hitched a ride down to a more civilized elevation in the back of what is essentially a dump truck without the dumping mechanism. We shared the large space with with a four or five blue poly tarps, a few spent truck tires, a couple empty jugs of engine oil and a blanket entirely covering what I was sure was a corpse for the man like shape didn't move for the first 20 minutes of our journey. Only at the exit of the park was the cadaver required to reveal itself to make sure it was not actually contraband being smuggle out of the park. A dirt covered man in even dirtier clothes appeared before us and made brief conversation with our guide before retreating back to his bed of tarp and blanket. How he slept through the ride I'll never know. Our driver seemed very confident in his abilities, as well as his vehicle, for we took corners and bounced over pot holes while descending the steep dirt road at a remarkable speed which got us to the town of Goba, and eventually back to our motorbikes in Dinsho, very quickly.

Our guide, Armaye, in the back of the 'dump truck'