We wanted to stay a couple of days in the youth hostel in Khartoum to get some rest and to meet up with David. Unfortunately the power supply shot down in the first night so the fans weren’t working anymore. Like with everything else there are to side of the story. For us it was a very sweaty and sleepless night, but for the mosquitos it was a feast… big time.

David had some trouble to get his bike off the ferry in Wadi Halfa and it was not quite clear how long it would take in the end. So we decided to hit the road again and wait for him a little bit more downstream in Ethiopia. The landscape changes a lot while crossing Sudan vertically. When you leave Khartoum you’re still in a desert, but 100 km to the south it suddenly starts to get green. At first there is very light green colored grass, that makes the whole landscape look like it was in pastels. The green gets darker with every km you travel south and more and more plants appear. (Some nice pictures from the Afri Pi)  

We had a good run (10.09.14) and stopped 60 km in front of the border for our first “bush camping” in Africa, next to a field 😉 of cause we asked for permission before we put up the tents. In the evening our camping site was visited by some ethiopian guys who were walking all the way from Ethiopia to Khartoum. We didn’t find a common language so we don’t know exactly why, maybe to find a job. It is a tough thing for them to do, because it is a really long way with a climate getting hotter and hotter and the only thing they were carrying was a wooden stick. No equipment, no supplies, no water… we shared some food and water with them, gave them some pounts and whished them good luck for the rest of their journey .

The border crossing in the morning was surprisingly easy without any hassle and after less than 3 h we were good to go. Maybe it helped that one of the customs guys thought that Topher was looking like Thomas Müller :p ( I, Topher, was not happy with that) or because it was the first day of the new year in the ethiopian calender. With a “Melkam Adis Amet” (happy new year in amharic) you had all smiles on your side 😉

Our next stop should be the Tim&Kim village in Gorgora at the lake Tana, but because we were already low on fuel and didn’t want to use the black market gas on the road we took a detour over Gonder to find a proper gas station. This was unfortunately not a good idea. Although we did get benzin (the third gas station had it) the gravel road from Gonder to Gorgora (50 km) was in a really bad condition due to the raining season. There were many ups and downs and we had to cross many deep mud puddles and small rivers which were over floating the street. At some time I got stuck with my front wheel in knee deep mud while trying to cross a mound. Pulling the bike out again was a mayor pain in the a… One puddle got Topher, cause it was a lot deeper than expected. He went through it and shot out on the other side (dribbdemudpuddle) up a small hill. There he wanted to lay the bike to the side but it still had too much momentum. It turned over and came to rest standing upside down. Luckily Topher had no problems getting off the bike right in time. He then pushed the bike back to the side and with the help of some locals we were able to get it upright and on the road again. The result of this maneuver was a broken windshield, a missing right mirror, a damaged mounting of the toolbox in front of the engine and a not so amused Topher. But there were no injuries and the bike was still working perfectly so we kept on going. We mastered the whole 50 km in 3 h and arrived 20 min before sunset totally exhausted but very happy at Tim&Kims village and were welcomed with an ice cold beer. Probably one of the best in our lives.

After a refreshing night in a bungalow we cleaned the bikes and started the operation on Topher’s bike. As you can see she survived and is almost as good as new. The toolbox was easily reattached, the two parts of the windshield are held together by three big screws and the mirror got some tapeing. In the end it wasn’t too bad, just pure type two fun.

Coming soon: Days at the lake Tana, meeting David, getting to Lalibela and hopefully some fast WiFi…