Felt a bit more on time this morning as I was getting ready – but didn’t bother with breakfast first – just grabbed a handful of bananas. However when I was finally ready I went back to the breakfast station and made myself a porridge sandwich – bread roll with porridge on top! So I think that’s my new breakfast plan!
We left as a good group knowing there was gravel just 1 km down the road. Sounds like a fairly simple day of 105km finishing in Arba Minch for our rest day! The terrain was a mix of paved gravel. The reason it is gravel is that they have lifted the top surface of the old road ready to lay new tarmac – so it is quite smooth gravel in places but then get to an area – a river or something – and have to take a detour round and that’s when it can get really bumpy! I got up front – not going too fast but steady, but suddenly realized there was no-one with me. Eventually after about 20km I caught up with Kim and went past him – he immediately came after me and went in front – brilliant – I just sat behind him and followed his wheel through the gravel. After about 30 km Paul and Scott caught up again at the end of the gravel section as well as Dennis – but Kim had done all the pulling so it was great!
The bike has done amazingly well on this sort of terrain – I will check it out thoroughly. We were rattling like crazy over the ground – bouncing around – it was super rough. Really wish I was on my full suspension mountain bike – none on this one at all!! Scott has front suspension – which looked rather nice today! Rattle, rattle, rattle – bounce, bounce, bounce – good fun though!! No major hills in the morning – mainly flat! In fact where there was paved road it was brand new and super smooth – perfect tarmac - some areas were still closed to the traffic although we were allowed to cycle them
We arrived at lunch together. After only a few minutes Paul said he was leaving but was going to roll slowly over the gravel. I was a bit wary though as that is what happened yesterday and then there turned out not to be any gravel and he gained 15 minutes onme!! However today there was more likely to be dirt so we stayed and had a sandwich. Then I left with Scott and Dennis – there was a climb out of lunch followed by a bumpy gravel descent where we could see Paul ahead of us. So we all rode together again. There were lots of kids again in all the villages – and lots of animals! We were back to the tarmac – but bad – full of potholes – very bumpy! We had to stop a few times for herds of cows – more or less had to push our way through them.. We had a great view of the lake on our right – we were away from the lake but kind of traversing it – to our left the whole time. Ahead of us we suddenly saw a group of baboons run across the road – I slowed down to take a photo but wasn’t quick enough!
Carried on a very bumpy road – Dennis did his usual and sped off at about 90 something km – we let him go as we knew there was a 5 km climb ahead.
On our way through Arba Minch sped up a little and then eventually reached the last climb. I immediately sped up – I wanted to try and catch Dennis which I did after about 1km. Nearly took two wrong turns at two roundabouts – directions weren’t quite right but the flagging tape works really well so that was OK. I then took off up the climb and wasn’t sure until I looked behind when I reached the top where the others were – I had about 100 m on them. So I sped up again – it would be nice to get to camp completely on my own for the win – there was another left turn which first I missed but then saw the tape so was able to correct myself. Went on another smooth gravel road and then on to a bumpy one which took us to the hotel and camp ground – up on the cliff side with great views. Monkeys everywhere! There are two lakes down below – one rather muddy, dirty looking one and the other a lot cleaner looking on the other side.
Anyway – another great day – I really enjoyed the different terrain – and a win for me! I feel good – never felt that I had to push myself too much – except up the final climb to get away from the others. I felt I could have gone faster – when I caught up with Dennis I actually changed gear and slowed a little – I am trying to save as much energy as possible! A great day!
The other hotels in town were all booked so we decided to stay at the one on site – not the nicest but very cheap – about $10 – there were no shared rooms left so I have a single – which is massive – so I have my bike in it and all my gear scattered all over the place.
We ate at the hotel – pretty awful. So we went in to town and found a place that advertised St George’s beer – which is quite good – but they didn’t actually have any!! Tried to order some food but there were no menus and nobody spoke English – but we ended up with the local dish – injera – a sort of flat bread you wrap around a variety of meat sauces. Despite the many reports I had heard about how bad it was it actually tasted good. Later in the evening we went back out again to celebrate Scott’s birthday at the tourist hotel where we enjoyed a good meal with a few drinks.
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