A country many travellers discuss. The way you experience it says something about your mindset as a traveler. It’s a unique place in Africa, in the world. Named as the cradle of humankind it is a densely populated area often hit by drought and famine. Especially in the second half of the 20th century, when humanity aid was coming up as the right thing to do, the region was hit hard and the developed world came to the rescue. It has had a lasting impact on the country and its people.
The last kilometers in Sudan, leaving the sand of the Sahara behind.
Leaving the riots in Sudan behind us we move into a new chapter of our trip. We have now officially crossed the Sahara and the desert is now a thing of the past. We move passed our last flock of camels as we reach the border with Ethiopia. While stamping out we meet a small group of motorcycle travellers who are heading in the opposite direction and share our experiences of the countries ahead. They’ve had a tough time in the country and are looking forward for the next.
When we cross the border over the bridge, nothing but a rope signifies the line on the map that distinguishes between countries. We park our motorcycles at the waiting shack in front of the customs office and watch the people come by as they move between the different lands. We get a quick temperature check at the immigration office as a way to test for Ebola. Is that gonna be a thing from now on?
I think this border crossing is going to be quite smooth, after all the hassles we’ve had in Israel and Egypt I’m looking forward to the easier times. While Jojo waited outside and watches over the motorcycles I go inside and get the paperwork done for the bikes. After 5min of looking through the carnets, the guy tells me with a straight face, that it is not allowed to bring in two vehicles on 1 name. Since both motorcycles are in my name he is adamant we are not getting in with two bikes. I start to cry, grab the paperwork and almost run back to Jojo. I break because we’ve had so much trouble already and in the first moments I don’t see a way out of this.
“This is the end of our trip”
Jojo goes inside to give it a go, but comes back with the same result. To give ourselves time we leave on motorcycle behind and find a hotel close by. There we are again, stuck at some border town in a new country. Jojo gets some internet connection from his Sudanese simcard but mine is out of data but otherwise we are disconnected from the world.
We make some friends and borrow some of their internet to connect with home. It’s that time of year between Christmas and New Years. Nothing and nobody is working at this time so communication with Suzuki NL is bad. It looks like we are on our own.
Staying positive is not always easy, but at least one of us always is.
The next few days we take it step by step and tackle the problems facing us. We need cash, a simcard, food and a plan for the bike. We get around on the other motorcycle together while we leave our stuff at the hotel. It’s still unbearably hot in the middle of the day so we try to do the things in the morning and in the afternoon. We arrive just in time at the telecom shop to buy our new simcards putting lots of data on it for us to be able to search the internet for solutions.
With our bananas in hand we start to list our options. The easiest one is to just give up, but since we are still here that is unlikely to be an option for us. The customs guy suggested us to go back to Sudan, but we’ve stamped out so our visas are invalid. We could go and get new visas in Addis and go back but we are pretty much stuck in Sudan then. There is no place to go from there but home. Jojo could fly back to the Netherlands and transfer the bike in his name so we will never have any of these problems on the rest of the trip. You probably wonder why we didn’t do this before we left anyway but because the motorcycles are from Suzuki they told us that wasn’t possible. We believed them at the time but now we disagree. Unfortunately because Jojo is Austrian he can only transfer the motorcycle to his name in person. If he would have had a Dutch identification card it would have been possible to do this online. It’s a costly plan and takes up a lot of time and we don't like to split up. We try and figure out if my parents can help with the transferring of the title of the bike but it looks like that is also not an option. Our forum/facebook call for help replies, suggest to bribe the guy but we are not good at it nor are willing to do so.
Our last option seems to be to fake it. I’m lucky to be blessed with good photoshop skills and to have the software on my laptop so I give it a try. After a few hours I’m pretty content with the results. We head to a photo printing shops. of which there are many, and have a first test print done. After getting them plasticised it looks pretty real!
Let’s go photoshop….
Hard work, waiting at the print shop
Looking pretty decent!
We decide not to make any rush decisions and head back to the hotel. Our new friend invites us for an evening walk along the road. As the sun sets he explains us about this place as he works for the UN he is stationed here at the border to count the amount of people trying to make it to Europe. We are fascinated and keep asking questions. We learn that he is well aware of the illegal border crossings and the smugglers involved but are unable to act and rather keep count then have them go someplace else.
On our fourth day we walk to our breakfast restaurant down the road, where as we were shouted at on our first day with; YOU! YOU! YOU! now the people are used to us. There is something special about staying in one place for more than 3 days no matter if that is voluntary or involuntary. The lady who runs the restaurant smiles as she sees us sitting down in the plastic chairs. Jojo has easily settled into the new culinary style of the Ethiopian kitchen. Me, not so much since it’s quite spicy and I’m terrible with hot food.
At least Jojo loves the spicy shiro for breakfast
Shiro and it’s spicy
She doesn’t speak a word of English and we haven’t managed more then thank you, amasagnalo, so far. But we do know how to order coffee, tea and a injera with shiro. The coffee locally grown and freshly burnt and ground. The Injera is sort of a pancake/crepe made from the ancient grain Teff. The shiro a sort of curry based on bean meal with onions, tomato, and chili as the flavour. It is served on a big plate, you tear a piece of injera off and use it to scoop up some of the curry using your hands. It’s spicy but flavourful. We’ve tried to order other variations but no luck so far. Orthodox Christian Christmas is coming up and people are fasting for 46 days, so no meat, fish or dairy.
As we sit in our wobbly chairs, we watch the traffic go by. One morning a donkey drawn cart passes us with many people surrounding it. On the wood we see a woman lying with a sheet over her knees. All of a sudden she lets out a painful scream, nobody seems surprised or upset, it all seems normal. We guess that she is in the middle of labour being rushed to one of the local clinics. I cannot imagine what it must be like to give birth to a little human let alone to have to be moved mid labour on a wooded cart. I feel sorry for her and hope she and her baby will be alright. To us, unimaginable, to the locals, business as usual.
Talking about children, every morning we are surrounded by them. At least 5 to 10 kids are playing next to us. They are curious and often just stand around and look at us eating breakfast. It reminds me much of India, quite similar to the amount of people and the lack of things to do or places to be. However we feel like Ethiopia has more children. We look it up and learn that there is a big difference between the two countries in their population pyramids and that our suspicion is correct. Here in Africa there are way more children, especially the really young ones.
It is something that other travellers also voice when they told us about their experience about Ethiopia. It’s very crowded. What we experienced here on our first day, the shouting. YOU, YOU, YOU. It’s seems to be persistent throughout the country. I hope we can find out for ourselves soon.
We decide the next day to go ahead with our forging the papers plan and make a strategic visit to the customs office. We meet the same guy as before and we share our carefully crafted story. We’ve changed the paperwork online and are now waiting for DHL to deliver here to Ethiopia. We don’t know when it will arrive but we hope soon. He seems to be falling for it and shares that if it arrives tomorrow he will still be there, otherwise we’ll run into a colleague of his because he is going on holiday or his shift ends. Perfect! I think our package will arrive in two days time…
We decide to place our bets, is this a sign?
We perfect our papers, even write an accompanying letter marked with the official logos from the Dutch Vehicle Authority and find the best place to make a convincing fake. It takes us the entire afternoon, much waiting and testing for size, but in the end we ourselves are even convinced it looks real.
With the letter and card in hand, we walk into the customs office the first day of the new guys shift. Nervous, sweating but with a straight face we share our story and he calls his colleague to confirm. As we hear him talk in Amharic we sneak a look at each other, it seems to be working! He wants to know the website of the Dutch Vehicle Authority to confirm the card is real…. We have no idea what he plans to do with a completely Dutch website but share the url nonetheless.
Somehow this convinces him and gives the all clear over the phone. YES! We did it. I’m about to explode with happiness and almost cannot contain a big smile on my face.
Both bikes parked at the hotel :)
We did it!
It’s been a unique experience being stuck in this small town. The faces the hotel staff pulled when they saw that Jojo was cooking for us and not me. The toilets…. will not be missed. The stories shared with our new UN employee friend. The interactions buying food on the local market. Our breakfast lady with her beautiful smile. It’s now a place etched in my memory forever. A place that most travellers pass through as fast as possible. You will never find this in any tourist guide. Yet it might just become, our most authentic African experience of the trip.