Sudan

22nd December

It was sad leaving Addis Ababa for a few reasons. Mainly, because we had to say good-bye to Becks, who flew back to England to get studying for a medical exam early in January, and also wanted to surprise her family for Christmas. Becks has been very sorely missed by us all since she went, but as we have no doubt that she will make an amazing doctor it will definitely be a worthwhile trip. Before we all left for South Africa, Becks had all sorts of worries that she wouldn't be able to keep up, or that she would hate the cycling and want to come home. Then after only the second day on the bikes she said, "You knooo, a don't actually like cycling that much!" It turned out she was very wrong in both ways. Not only did she very soon start to finish every day and definitely keep up, but she has became an amazingly strong cyclist, whose only worry was her increasingly massive thighs! She flew up hills, used her 'no balls' advantage over rocks and is much better than me at telling Rob to shut up when he tells us how easy it all is. Off the bike, Becks has been tirelessly patient with everyone we met, and gave time and a biscuit to anyone that didn't throw a stone at her. All of this, of course, shouldn't be in the past tense, because Becks is only missing a small section of the route before joining us in Egypt at the end of January when exams and interviews are all over. Becks, I have spent 6 hours a day for the last 4 months following your peachy behind along the road, and following that speck in the distance, which might be Rob, is just no comparison. We can't wait for you to come back.

Despite having enjoyed Addis, the road out was exciting, particularly because we are cycling towards Christmas in Bahar Dar, an ancient town on the shores of Lake Tana, in eastern Ethiopia. In the last few days we have also seen some of the most dramatic landscape of the entire trip. From Addis we climbed another 700m to over 3000m, into the highest areas of the Highlands where the air is thin but the views are stunning. Something on the map that we had our eye on for a while since we came into Ethiopia was the Blue Nile gorge, about 300km after Addis and in between the villages of Gebre Garacha and Dejen. On our relief map, this section goes from purple to brown to beige and back up again in about an inch, which meant that it was about a mile deep, a mile wide and about 70km by road. To make it both more exciting (Rob) and worrying (me), the tarmac ended about 5km before the gorge began, so the descent and climb would be rocky and very dusty, which wouldn't be too much of a problem if it wasn't such a busy bus and lorry route. As soon as we arrived at the top we knew it wouldn't be as hard work as it looked on the map, because it was just so beautiful. The road wove down into the gorge that the Blue Nile had somehow carved out of the olive mountains, and over a bridge that gave us our first sight of a river we would be following all the way out of Africa. Our time at the bridge itself was a bit dramatic, as when Jono arrived to meet us at the bottom, having done some shots of our descent, we were surrounded by four soldiers with big guns who demanded to confiscate the tapes due to the bridge's strategic importance. We tried to negotiate by showing them the footage and deleting it, but they weren't convinced until we recorded over the offending minutes with a shot of the chief soldier and his big gun. Seeing himself on film made us the best of friends and we could have probably taken a chunk out of the bridge as a souvenir after that and he wouldn't have minded.

Having opted for slick tyres for the tarmac section I was still stuck with them for the rocky gorge, and so the mile up was probably the hardest three hours of the trip for me, but it was made very worth it by the shouts and cheers we got from the children on the way and the incredible views from the top. Unfortunately, a group of old men walking near Dejen were clearly not impressed by our performance and one batted me with a cattle stick…and I couldn't even say 'please don't do that, you nasty fellow' in Amharic.

25th December

Merry Christmas! The chances are that when you read this it may actually be on or around the Ethiopian Christmas, which is 6th January by our calendar, so although we did our best to recreate being at home today, there hasn't been much help from the locals. We are staying in Bahar Dar, at the Ghoia Hotel on Lake Tana, which is known as the source of the Blue Nile and is also famous for ancient monasteries established on islands on the Lake hundreds of years ago, from which many of the monks have never parted and to which women have never been allowed entry.

We have done our best in this last week to feel as Christmasy as possible. On the evening we had to say good-bye to Becks in Addis, we went to the Luxury Sheraton Hotel to have a drink, where the decorations were fantastic and carols were being played on the piano. It was here that we had our first real Christmas moment, and although I didn't envy Becks having to miss out on the last chunk of Africa, I wished that I was going to be able to spend the next few days at home. The following day we were on the road again, cycling through villages that had no idea who Santa Clause was and within 24 hours I had food poisoning in a tiny mud motel room north of Addis. Despite this, we kept our seasonal spirits up with Christmas songs playing constantly in the Land Rover and tinsel on our helmets, and this morning we did everything we could to celebrate. Rob and I were 'mum and dad' and Jonny and Jono rushed in excitedly and jumped on our beds in the morning. About an hour later Jono, who had promised to cook us a special 'poike' Christmas lunch, began on the preparations. About 6 hours later we were a bit cynical about Jono's cooking methods, as along side 10 empty bottles of beer and a sun-bathing South African, swaying to the dulcet tones of Kenny Rogers, was a giant cooking pot over a flame the size of a matchstick. "…. orff and come back later pommees" was duly heeded and when we did three hours later, after taking a boat out to swim across the source of the Blue Nile, Jono had somehow produced some of the best grub of the entire trip, and served us up a delicious stew followed by fresh fruit salad. Definitely a memorable Christmas Day.

31st January

Today we left Ethiopia and crossed the border into Sudan, about which we have heard wonderful things, and its hospitality seems to be renowned throughout Africa. We still, however, find that the impression Ethiopia left on us hard to agree upon. Two days after Christmas we spent a day in Gonder, the old capital of Ethiopia and the site of five royal castles built in the 17th and 18th centuries. Here the people are more used to tourists and although a little more cunning, certainly less intrusive. This was my favourite day in Ethiopia and made me certain that I one day wanted to come back and visit the country's other early cities. After cycling out of Gonder, we spent the night in a tiny but hugely welcoming village not marked on any of our maps. Within half an hour Jono was giving an English lesson to about 80 very excited kids, and Rob was entertaining 50 more. These couple of days was Ethiopia at its best, but the border town reminded us of what else has been on offer. At both the hotels where we went to find a cheap room the prices were massively inflated for us. We had to split up to find parking for the car, which for the first time was to cost us a few dollars on top of the room. At the main hotel the man offered to bring round some food from next door. He added his take to the prices and then demanded $5 for getting it, which he very aggressively pursued when we refused. In this town we were just money to most and everyone wanted some. This is always worse at the border and has happened consistently on a smaller scale throughout the trip, but here the attitude has sometimes seemed to be that if you aren't providing cash then you can go to hell. The one man I agreed a price with for watching the car had become four men by morning, and they all wanted more money than previously agreed. When I paid the original amount they surrounded me shouting demands. I didn't feel particularly threatened but I was angry that this would be my last memory of Ethiopia.

Before we arrived in Ethiopia we associated it with famine and poverty, with desolate, windswept land and fly covered, swollen tummied children. The reality is very different, and it has become increasingly obvious that the disaster of the 1980s was predominantly due to the communist government's ill-conceived settlement and land policies, and the endless tribal disputes over territory and power. We have heard that there are still some serious problems with water and irrigation that are stalling growth, but on the whole we have cycled passed lush and green plots in the south and well organised large scale agriculture in the east. People who come to Ethiopia seem to be surprised at what they find, and although since Addis I have been whacked by a cattle prod and had a rock thrown at my head(it got stuck in one of my helmet vents!), we can all agree that we would like to be able to come back one day. The welcome we have had has varied massively, but on the whole we have come to the conclusion that the rock throwing, spitting and 'YOUing' thing is more out of excitement and amazement than animosity.

When we are on our bikes, perhaps more so than in a car, we have a lot of time to gauge people's reaction to us, and to see how they respond to waves and hellos. We haven't at any point, apart from the first section in South Africa, melted into the background or been even slightly anonymous, and this makes us have to address constantly the question of being white in Africa. Beyond the colonial history and the modern day aid and development programmes, which are of course immensely important to Africans' perception of us here, we are also seen as exciting and interesting. People want to find out what we are doing, where we are from, what our names are, if we can pass on a message to David Beckham and if we know John from London. Many people also want money, and Ethiopians are particularly forward in asking for it (normally in exchange for a small job, such as peeling the stickers off the Landy or pointing us in totally the wrong direction), but that is inevitable when we clearly look as if we have plenty to give. Moreover, within a country and a generation that spent ten years having to be fed and rescued by the west, it has become natural and very understandable that the question is always asked and the hand is always out. Ethiopians have also been incredibly hospitable to us as visitors. On a day when I had some food poisoning and the Land Rover was still in Addis waiting for visas, I was given free lifts, bought drinks by people who clearly had very little, and given help by anyone who saw me stranded. We met a couple in Kenya who were very relieved to be out of Ethiopia as they couldn't stand the pestering, and the British cyclists in Lilongwe said that because of the stones and the shouting, they had enjoyed it least of all on their trip. At the same time, we have met travellers here that love Ethiopia, get on very well with the people and appreciate their brand of hospitality. In Bahar Dar we met Tom, an English traveller who had Christmas lunch with us and then came in the Landy to Gonder, and having travelled all over the world, Ethiopia is one of his favourite places. The ancient cities of Lalibella, Gonder, Axum and Harar are apparently some of the most fascinating in Africa, and the northern highlands are the site of 'Lucy', perhaps the first upright homo sapien. Our views are mixed and change all the time. Being second in line on the bikes, I seem to get a much more pain based welcome than Rob, and so often feel more frustrated with Ethiopians. Similarly, Jonny and Jono in the vehicle get asked constantly for money, biscuits and bottles and get surrounded and prodded while they wait for us. At the same time, Jonny has had some very touching moments with children when he gets the camera out amongst them, and we even got a 'Jonny Polonsky' chant going in one village. Similarly, Jono has delivered some inspired English lessons to huge crowds of children (not the same English he uses when driving mind), which they love. We have all had amazing experiences here, and would hate merely to fulfil the stories about rocks and demands, because that really doesn't say anything about the country we have been cycling through for three weeks.

4th January

Sudan is a country with very little in it, and a very small population, so the first thing that has struck us is the peacefulness of the countryside. Ethiopians seemed to be everywhere. You could think that you've stopped in the middle of nowhere and within five minutes you might have thirty children surrounding the bike and a chorus of 'YOU, YOU!' Here, you could think that you have stopped somewhere where some people might emerge but no-one does. However, when we do meet the Sudanese they are extremely welcoming and unintrusively hospitable. Men (only men, as the women and children seem to remain hidden somewhere in Sudan, which may well be why we have to be so careful about the slavery issue here) come up to us, introduce themselves, and find out about what we are doing. We get help all the time and offers of places to stay with no demand for money. The Sudanese want us to enjoy their country and want us to come back, and so we find ourselves welcomed unconditionally into villages and homes everywhere we go.

One of the down sides of Sudan is that alcohol is prohibited, which didn't bode well for our first day across the border, New Year's Eve. We decided the best answer was to find a deserted patch of countryside, which doesn't take much doing here, and set up camp around a fire and a couple of imported bottles of Ethiopian spirits. Again, this isn't one of those New Year's Eve parties that will blend into all the others, and under some of the clearest stars we have seen it was easy to get excited about the fact that we have reached our penultimate African country, and London is only two and a half thousand miles away. Happy New Year everyone!

New Year's Day was not a classic recovery day, as we had to cycle 80km on terrible roads to get on towards Khartoum. We had decided to have the morning off, but that only meant that by the time we got on the bikes it was over 40°. To make things worse, Rob was violently ill from some water he had drunk the day before. When he had run out, some locals had helpfully offered him a tub of very brown, murky liquid, that he was too polite to refuse, and took a couple of swigs from. The consequences lasted two days, although being the maniac he is, he wouldn't stay off the bikes for longer than about 50km, despite stomach cramps and the runs…fighting slavery means that much to him!

Sudan is very hot, which means that we have to adjust our day to cope with 45° C days again. Its also extremely flat, which is in many ways a relief after mountainous Ethiopia, but at the same time the landscape often doesn't change for days at a time, and not being able to see the end of a dead straight flat road for hours can be a bit monotonous. This is also the kind of terrain on which the wind is decisive. We already knew before we arrived that the wind blew south, but also that it does not blow everyday. The difference it makes can be up to 20km/h. With a tail wind, which unfortunately we haven't had since South Africa, we can cruise at over 40km/h on the flats, but with a strong head wind that becomes about 18km/h, so at the moment we are desperately hoping for still days when we can get up to about 30km/h on these roads. Up to Khartoum we have been pretty lucky, as we only had a couple of stretches of strong wind and we were able to cover the 300km from Gedaref in two days.

6th January

There is not a huge amount to Khartoum and not much goes on after about 9pm, but it is a busy and exciting city during the day. To make up for the lack of alcohol, the Sudanese take their fruit juice very seriously, and there are juice bars everywhere here. The food is also very good, and having eaten 'fuul' (beans with beans) every meal since we arrived, it has been great to have kebabs and falafel on offer. What we are also able to discover here is why the issue of slavery is so important and controversial.

When we started to organise appointments with organisations here, we were advised not to advertise our cause too overtly, as although the trafficking of child soldiers for the civil war is rife here, the government do not acknowledge its existence, and timidly bracket these movements as 'abduction'. Despite this, this is the first time that people we meet on the street immediately recognise the relevance of our charity to their society. In a hotel, a waiter saw Jonny's t-shirt and immediately expressed how glad he was we were here, as the issue affects and is understood by everyone, even if it is not officially addressed by anyone. Yesterday, when I asked a taxi driver if the word slavery still meant anything in Sudan, he knowingly nodded, and replied that few recruits for the civil war are willing participants, and many children are bought, sold and taken. In other countries, the phrase 'Anti-Slavery' was met with surprise and puzzlement, but here it is met with 'ah, yes', and 'that is good.' Consequently, we have met a lot of people who are involved in issues that overlap with that of modern slavery and are willing to help, and over the next couple of days we will be spending some time with these organisations and with some of the trade's victims. The problem will be getting them to talk to the camera, as they also understand the intent and reach of a government that does not appreciate prying foreigners or disloyal citizens.