Khartoum/Sudan – Gonder/Ethiopia
Addis Ababa, that’s where we are right now, today, Monday, March 19th. Three weeks have passed since our departure from Khartoum. I hope you all are fine and happy and healthy! Springtime is coming! We arrived here last Friday around midday, right on time to apply for a new Ethiopian Visa, without paying the penalty fee of 20 USD, as we know now.
But let’s look back on our last days in Sudan and our first days in Ethiopia. We stayed one more night in Khartoum, on the bank of the Blue Nile at the Blue Nile Sailing Club, before saying Good bye to David, early Sunday morning. There were about 600 flat, hot and sunny Kilometers to the Ethiopian border ahead of us, fortunately on good asphalt. So we let it roll and arrived in Metama only 4 days later on March 1st with one hotel stop in Gedaref. The exit and entry procedures were relatively easy. Welcome to Ethiopia! 4 more days we pushed us and our bikes over 190 km dirt road and 25km asphalt up to the historically important town Gondar, some 2240m above sea level.
A very nice story happened right on the first day, Sunday the 25th, when we arrived in Al Kamlin, about 90 km southeast of Khartoum, a bit tired still after a short night. We wanted to rest, were looking for shelter from the burning sun.
People are watching us, we are watching them. Then a man started to talk to us in a polite and friendly way, invited us to a lemonade. He introduced himself as Mr. Mubarak and after a short conversation he invited us to his house, only 5 minutes walk away, offered us to have a shower and a proper rest on a bed after a coffee and some glasses of water! Well, that’s exactly what we needed! Unbelievable!
After an hour of sleep we had to eat of course! So we went to his sister’s house, where we were already invited and had this fantastic meal together in a relaxed family atmosphere. Hmm. Delicious! Home cooked is home cooked! Of course there must be more then fuul and falafel (which we enjoyed most of the time, no question) on the Sudanese menu! Thank you very much! It was already after 4:30pm when we had to say Good bye and Good luck to each other. Again, what luck, that we just stopped there, that he approached us, that we accepted his invitation! In our ‘tour book’ he wrote, that we arrived at his life, like fresh air in a hot summer… What a feeling! On our bikes again, cycling through the late afternoon hours, fully regenerated, physically and mentally! We were smiling. And the world around us was smiling back.
Maik
pictures to this article: Khartum/Sudan – Gonder/Äthiopien : Fotos
One Response to “Khartoum/Sudan – Gonder/Ethiopia”
1 Luis Rafael Barrera 22 März 2007 @ 5:52
Maik and Tom
I`m very happy because of your news.That road is very very long and I was afraid about you but you find this spectacular human beeing (Mr Mubarak)that makes me think that de human kind has a real future. God bless Mr. Mubarak (by the way, our Shakira, the colombian singer, es Mebarak too. Have a good time and a good trip.
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