Wednesday, 28th Feb 2007

To: Camp Ethiopia #10 (past Mega)

To the left is a random photo, having nothing to do with this trip. From somewhere near Kapchorwa, Uganda. I thought it was very funny. Apparently, only decent and beautiful ladies could drink at the advertised saloon. Ugandans like to call their hair salons "saloons". It always cracks me up.

But back to the trip.

Babboons in the morning! About 20. There they were, just crossing the road. Super neat and made me think that we are getting close to another part of Africa!Also, another great story. At the top of one long hill in the morning, came across 4 men and 2 spears. It was a long hill and it was that time of day when my friends all start to pass me. Which they did. Lots of "Good morning, Leigh Anne!" "Good morning!" "Hi!" "Hi!" So, there I was, toodling along, and finally, finally, I crested the hill. It hadn't been a steep hill, but looonnggg - several kilometers. As I crested the hill, that's when I came across the 4 men wearing traditional cloth, and 2 of them porting spears. (I don't know if "porting" is a word, but just imagine that it is.) It was very funny because they teased me about my pokey speed. With a lot of pantomimes, they showed me that my friends were going "fast"! And they rotated their hands in a "fast" way, to pantomime riding a bike. "But you!" they said. "Sloowww." And they pantomimed slow. One of them, holding a spear in one hand, even rotated his leg around in a very big slow cirlce, to show how slowly I was going. This really cracked me up, so I really laughed and said I was in no hurry! These are the kind of interactions that I just adore. It was probably only a 20 second interaction, but when was the last time you had spear-bearing men
teasing you about your bicycle speed?

Rode with Duncan after lunch. He's very nice. In Dubuluk, I convinced him to take a side adventure to go see a "singing well". The friends that I'd met in wonderful Yabelo had said that I must see the "singing well" in Dubuluk. Well, this well may have been super cool, but it was
way off the road. Had to walk over rubble and sand to finally find it. Then, when we found it, what it appeared to be was a long downward slope, leading to a water source at the bottom. Apparently, it is called a "singing well" because, when the community comes to get their
water, they work as a team, relaying the water out, and singing the whole while. However, when Duncan and I wanted to walk down, the "guard" wouldn't let us unless we paid. Yet, we saw Ethiopians walking in with narry a problem or a word of payment. Furthermore, the guard
wanted a LOT- 200 birr (that's about $40), just to walk in the well. So, Duncan and I said, "Oh, that's alright," and walked away. But we were followed. One young man asked me, "How much do you want to pay?" I said, "Nothing. I want to go for free" He said, "Oh, no, no, no." I said, "Do you go for free?" He said, "Yes." I laughed and said, "You free. Me free." He also laughed, but said, "Me poor. You rich." Well, what can I say? I wasn't going to pay. I wanted to see something natural, not something commercial. However, for the remainder of the day, Duncan and I joked about our little adventure down to the singing well, where we saw nothing.

Later in the afternoon, had another fun adventure. It became very difficult riding and I was, at this point, very, very tired. Duncan was a ways behind me, trying to pretend that he wasn't riding sweep. (He's so cute. He knows that I don't like the idea of somebody "having" to ride with me, just because they are on sweep duty. So, he pretends that he's not riding sweep, that he could pass me and hurry to camp any time he wanted, but that he just WANTS to ride excruciatingly slowly the whole afternoon. It cracks me up.) So, as I said, Duncan was a ways behind me when I just had to pull over and lie down. Was completely drained of all energy. While lying there, I heard a coughing sound. Without opening my eyes, I said, "Duncan? Is that
you?" No answer. Another coughing sound. So, I opened my eyes and that's when I saw a father and his son, and the son had a spear. I just smiled, pantomimed that I was tired, and closed my eyes again. I could feel the continued presense of the father and son, but it didn't bother me. After about 5 more minutes, I felt like enough energy had drained back into me, so I took my arm away from my eyes and opened them again. Sure enough, there were the father/son duo, just standing there, looking at me. So, I stood up with a bound of energy, smiled, and pantomimed to the son what I hoped to convey was, "Can I throw your spear?" He seemed to understand because he handed it to me. I threw it, quite clumsily, which made the duo snicker. I then asked the boy to throw it and he threw it like a pro! Cool!

Finally made it to camp. Coincidentally, Duncan made it to camp at the same time. We were there by 6:00, just in time for rider meeting, and we gave each other big high-fives for a nice ride!



------------ TODAY -------------- TOTAL
Cycled ----- 128 km (80 mi) ------ 2,885 km (1,796 mi)
Sagged ----- 0 --------------------- 1,264 km (897 mi)
Total ------- 128 km (80 mi) ------ 4,149 km (2,693 mi)
In Saddle --- 8 hours 40 min ------ 181 hours 31 min
Ascended --- 2,581 feet ----------- 39,479 feet