After some cultural enrichment at Lalibela, Shea and I headed toward the Sudan border. We’d heard news of riots in Northern Ethiopia but hadn’t thought much of it. After all, we are young enough to still be invincible.
About an hour down the road, Shea and I were greeted by a policeman who informed us there was conflict further along the route to Gondor (a town 100km short of the Sudan border, not to be confused with the fictional realm from J. R. R. Tolkien). We were ordered not to take the road. Now there are other routes to Gondor but they were not what one would term “direct”. We eventually decided to take the northern option which took us past Axum and the Shire. Yup, the Lord of the Rings references just kept coming. It was a minor detour of around 1,000km. We spent a night camping in a parking lot in Axum, the supposed home of the original Ark of the Covenant, before snapping a photo of the tourist sites and heading along.
The particular route we had chosen led us through the Simien Mountain pass. An incredible route winding to 3000m above sea level. The area had some of the most breath-taking views we’ve experienced all trip. Giant looming mountains resting in blankets of wispy grey cloud. The Lord of the Rings references were starting to make sense.
On the way up, Shea and I passed a small wall of rocks placed across the road. A slightly concerning sign, but we had nowhere else to go. We certainly weren’t going to retrace the 1,000km we had just covered back to Lalibela. Our plan was to be strategically oblivious of whatever lay ahead and we stuck to it, passing villager after villager frantically waving their hands to indicate we should stop and turn around. The reason for the rocks became clear as we rolled into the town of Simien, greeted by a substantial welcome party of angry men holding sticks and rocks. We promptly shat our pants. Luckily, one of the individuals at the front of the mob recognized the fear in our eyes. He turned and started yelling “Forenji! Forenji!” (translating to “Foreigner”) as we slowly traced his steps through the crowd, hands in the air and faces bleach white. This was to be our mantra for the multitude of protest towns and makeshift road blocks encountered over the next 80km.
We made it to within 20km of Gondor before we hit our biggest challenge. At this stage our track record was looking surprisingly good:
We rolled through into the final town, cautiously. The place was desolate, in the same way a Wild West town is desolate just before a shootout. This was a bad sign. Street vendors are one of the best pieces of evidence that everything in the town is carrying on as normal. When the shops are all bolted shut, it is either a public holiday or something is going down. It was not a public holiday. As we continued to roll through we noticed something we hadn’t seen since Lalibella… soldiers! Lots and lots of soldiers. Maybe this meant the town was under control! They gave us a wave as we passed and we breathed a temporary sigh of relief… until we hit the most impressive obstacle Bubbles had faced. A hundred meter stretch of road completely covered with a blanket of broken glass bottles. We rolled to a stop in front of the impassable obstacle just as another mob emerged from the side of the road. I’m going to be honest, I got a bit existential at this point.
We clearly did not die, because otherwise I would not be sitting here writing this post. Fortunately, our belief in our own immortality is coupled with a considerable amount of good luck. Again we managed to find a patriot for our cause from within the mob. This individual, let’s call him Captain Awesome, guided us down back alleys and past tin homes till we emerged on the other side of the broken glass wall. He convinced the crowd to clear a path back onto the road, allowing us to pass, and walked us slowly down the street alongside burnt piles of rubble and at least 30 locals hiding behind the verge of the road, guns pointed directly at us from their makeshift trench.
Shea and I rolled out of the town speechless. It took at least 15 minutes of soothing latin beats from Shea’s Salsa collection before we were close enough to normality to reflect on our harrowing ordeal. That night was spent wild camping at the Sudan border after a refuel in Gondor. We had made it through Ethiopia, but only just.
Joburg to Scotland 