Äntligen – efter att ha väntat I flera dagar i Djibouti City – får jag ett positivt besked när jag går till hamnkontoret på morgonen: det finns en båt som kommer att resa till Yemen samma kväll.

Klockan tre på eftermiddagen ska jag återkomma med cykel och bagage – kommer gör också ett japanskt par, några somalier, en djiboutier och en full etiopier. Två timmar senare släpps vi in på hamnområdet för immigrationskontroll och ombordstigning.
Den lilla öppna träbåten ligger inklämd i hamnen mellan stora containerfartyg när vi kommer, och liknar mer en av dom större båtarnas livbåtar. Om ens det. Jag och japanerna breder ut våra medhavda madrasser på övre däck – en enkel plattform i plank som sträcker sig över den bakre halvan av båten med styrman på pall allra längst akter ut. Lasten består av “sim sim” – sesamfrö – och det är knappast förvånande att kackerlackorna är både välgödda och många. Jag tror bestämt det är vi som är piraterna!

När Etiopiern kliver ombord på båten ställer han sig vid relingen för att sedan triumferande dra upp blixtlåset på sin ytterjacka och visa upp de tre flaskor St George öl som han klämt ner i jackans innerfickor. En fjärde flaska håller han i näven, halvt urdrucken. “Fuck the Arabs!” proklamerar han högljutt, och liksom övriga passagerare ignorerar jag honom så gott jag kan – bäst är väl att bli frände med den yemenitiska och tillika arabiska kocken ombord, tänker jag, även om erbjudandet om att få dela ölen med etiopiern också kändes rätt så lockande.

Strax efter det att solen gått ner lägger vi ut.

Själva resan mellan de båda kontinenterna tar längre tid än beräknat. Ganska så hård sjö, ett par sjösjukepiller och 24 timmar senare når vi fram till Adens hamn, men måste sova även den natten ombord då det är fredag och helgdag för immigrationspersonalen i hamnen. Jag drömmer mig framåt längs vägen i Yemen – öde kritvita sandstränder, byar som i sig själva närmast definierar ordet lugn, och en faslig massa poliseskorter till skydd mot landets få men farliga galningar.

A little more from Djibouti City now after I’ve spent a few days. Maybe the most quiet capital city I’ve ever visited in Africa, it’s yet a wonderful mix of people and cultures thanks of it’s place right on the crossroads between Asia, Middle East and its own continent. Yemen, Somaliland and Ethiopia are the most evident contributors to the melting pot. A recent, less pleasant reason for its multi-culture is the conflict in nearby Somalia and the not-yet great security in neighboring Somaliland. In fact while I visited the Internet café today, three Somalia passport holders sat outside in the shadow, filling in the forms for entering Egypt. That’s where the UN has a large refugee centre, and that’s from where they will eventually – Insha’Allah – be able to enter Europe. They where all from the vicinity of Mogadishu.

A man at an internet café arranges an interview with national TV RTD for me. It’s my first ever, and it’s in French which isn’t my strongest side (I just picked up a little of it in West Africa two years ago, and hasn’t practiced since). The most amusing though is that the interview is broadcasted in four versions – one in each national language: French, Somali, Afari and Issa – with my voice dubbed. I enjoyed watching myself speaking Afari. The boys in the local convenience store asked me for my autograph the next day.

Of the many things Djibouti has to offer – mostly dramatic desert landscapes, beaches and diving – I didn’t experience much due to the high price tag on activities here. But one thing will inevitably be there to enjoy – the mixed melting pot that this country and especially Djibouti City is. I’ve eaten bananas from Somalia, drunk coffee from Ethiopia and spiced a delicious Yemeni oven-baked fish. On Rue d’Ethiopia, nightclubs are as plenty as in the very country its name refers to; the girls just as business minded, too. On the streets of Quartier Heron, where I’ve stayed, you’d often see a stationed French soldier on his way to the supermarket. The Americans have their base a bit outside the city though, so they’d rarely be seen. In the supermarket, typical French goods dominate the shelves: chocolate, petit yoghurts, pâté de foie gras (goose liver pâté) and bathroom perfume sprays. All but the latter is delicious, of course.

The weather forecast map on TV yesterday: five suns spread across the country, and four arrows pointing inland to mark the direction of the wind. I can imagine the map being the same 90% of the year.

Att lämna Sudan österut var ganska ointressant – flack savann och akaciabush med de till ytan oskiljaktiga byarna emellanåt – men lika trevligt lugnt och avslappnat som det Sudan jag redan lärt känna. Faktum att Etiopien följde gjorde därför gränsövergången ovanligt intressant eller snarare hektisk. Från en kultur som mer eller mindre definierar orden frid och lugn, och en religion som förbjuder alkohol, till en av de stökigaste (på gott och ont) kulturer jag någonsin mött. Musiken (bussarna har vanligtvis högtalarna monterade på UTSIDAN) till den kryddade maten, supandet och prostitutionen. En hel bok skulle nog kunna skrivas om den enkla lilla gränsövergången mellan de två små orterna – i sig själv bara en mindre betongbro över en lika grå, torr flodbädd, men med en mycket större inverkan på de som korsar den.

Hur som helst så var det mesta av det nya välkommet: öl, billigt boende och billiga restauranger, underbart kaffe i landet vars ena region ‘kaffa’ gett namn åt drycken, glad musik och i städerna även fina caféer med billiga bakelser och färska fruktjuicer av mango, papaya, guava och min favorit avokado. Och även om min väg genom landet från öster till väster innebar en del rejält branta, snirkliga vägar, som tog mig från ca 500 till 3000 meter över havet och tillbaka ner igen – ofta på dåliga sten/grusvägar – så betydde det också belönande, underbart vackra vyer och landskap.

Men det finns ett problem med Etiopien – de ökända barnen. Även om folk generellt sett är trevliga om man stannar och pratar med dem, så behandlar dom dig som en åsna om du ‘bara’ cyklar förbi. Barnen springer efter dig, skriker ‘you, you, YOU’, ‘Give me’, ‘Book’, ‘Pencil’, ‘Money’ och avslutar emellanåt den ensidiga konversationen med att kasta sten på dig. Och jag lovar – barn som börjar arbeta som herdar vid fem års ålder är inga dåliga stenkastare. Jag kunde inte kasta ens hälften så långt som dom. De äldre i byn sitter vanligtvis och ser på – kanske skrattar dom lite; annars ett godkännande genom sin tystnad – och om du frågar dem varför barnen beter sig som dom gör, förklarar dom att ‘dom är ju bara barn’ eller ‘Etiopien är ju ett fattigt land’. Jag har sett många fattiga barn, men aldrig tidigare sett stenar haglandes över mig.

Nog om landets märkliga gästfrihet – höglandet var ändå underbart vackert. Och vilken passande plats att fira jul på – kalla nätter och svala dagar som får en svensk att känna sig som hemma. Underbar mat och god öl!

Österut bjöd landet på lite ökenlandskap som vägen tog mig ner mot Djibouti vid kusten. Här vilar jag ut hos vän till vän, och avvaktar färjan tillbaka till Asien – denna gång till Aden, Yemen.

After two days of cycling in the bare desert landscapes – not sand, but instead stones of all shapes and colors – I finally reach Djibouti City by the sea. I hitchhiked some 40 kilometers because of a bad stomach. I’ll stay in Djibouti City for a few days to rest up, treat my belly (fifth time on this trip) and obtain the visa to Yemen before I finally hike with one of the dhows across the sea.

I stay with French Francine who works here as a teacher – I got in touch with her via another Swedish cyclist. Her kids are on a visit, too, so I camp in the garden right next to the apartment building in which she stays.

Information on Visa to Yemen
I applied for visa at Yemen Embassy (tel 352975/356680) in Djibouti . 08.30-11.30 Sunday-Thursday. One photo, one passport copy and 7150 DF (about 35 euro). Got it the next day, but might be possible to receive same day.

Information on Boat to Yemen
Started asking for boat at Port International on the 4th of January and finally got it on the 8th. Just before the main gate, to the left is the so called Surveyors Office, with the boss Abdul Karim(tel 870284), who is very friendly. Office is officially open 08.00-14:30.
On the 8th, I paid 7,000 Djibouti Franc (DJF) (bicycle was free of charge), received a ticket in the morning and was asked to come back at 15:00 to board the boat. It was said to depart at 16:00 and if the weather was good reach Aden 14 hours later. Destination Aden is unusual though – a friend of mine got to the more usual Al Mokha last March (reached within 16 hours). My friend had to wait ten (!) days to find a boat. I’ve been told that there are only some 5-6 boats that accept passengers.

Tänkte förut på det där om deprimerande att lämna allt det goda i Etiopien. Nu när jag ätit min första hemgjorda pasta med olivolja och ett par grovt skurna rödlökar som dom gav mig, och sover utomhus under stjärnorna på vassmatta, så känns det inte speciellt pjåkigt längre. Ingen dörr att låsa när jag går på toa – jag ser cykeln från buskarna en bit bort.

Dessutom kan jag nu drömma om en riktigt god måltid, längre fram, istället för att faktiskt äta den. Som Martin L. King sa:
“Only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.”

In Bouldugam, I meet local Muhugeta whom chase away the locals and help me to order some food – tibs b-dabbo (fried meat with bread). Then a short visit to a newly wed couple. Women and men separated in two different locales, a few blocks away from one another. The men chewing Kat and drinking Coke. The women just drinking sodas. The latter came in crates as gifts from visitors, and was then shared with the guests. One of the guests acted speaker of the ‘king of the day’ (the groom) and played a game in which he accused the visitors for giving too few gifts. The guest accused was then asked to explain himself, and if he failed could face punish such as dancing in front of the others.

Diche Oto – from Italian “Diciotto” (18) – is named so since it is 218 kilometers from Eritrean port Assab, although that road is currently closed due to the conflict between the two countries. The town is no more and no less than a truck-drivers’ stop.

There are a few prostitutes in town. I meet a man who’s been working for the security services – once bodyguard for the country’s president when on visit in Stockholm, he mentions proudly. His ethnicity is Tigrayan, of course. I got that part explained to me earlier in the day by a young man whom I met: all government folks are Tigrayan, since the president himself is. He told me further how 5 million people demonstrated in Addis Ababa a while ago – in other words at least one million from outside the city – but that like a sign from God a hailing rain had begun, so fierce as he’d never seen it before: ”I couldn’t open my eyes!” Everyone went home – the anticipated pressure on the government didn’t realize. The military cut off the power and demonstrators started to vandalize. More than 1,000 people where shot dead.

Speaking of the stagnating democracy, he continued: ”I’m ready; my family is ready.” He expressed it as if a danger of genocide on Tigrayans was imminent: ”There’s just a couple of millions of them.”

It’s been easy to adapt to fresh juices, cakes, good food and good beer being available on a daily basis – even though I often abstain the latter if I plan to cycle the next day. But I almost need a clinic to re-adapt to it’s absence – and to keep sane despite the hot desert air, the head wind in which ones voice disappears before it’s even heard and the life-less villages with crazy villagers. And once again people smoke like small coal power plants. Depressing.

Nazret Hotel. A tour group invites me for dinner.

Djibouti Café, Dubai Boutique – I can tell by the names of things that I’m cycling in the right direction. Besides, mosques are getting plenty and Al-Jazeera English is the choice at most cafés with a TV.

Literally sit back and roll down the 600 meters altitude and 25 kilometers of tarmac to neighboring town Kombolcha. I stay the night there and take it easy; enjoy the good food and cafés – already missing it, as I know Djibouti will be far more expensive.

When give the price, I’ve pretended to leave almost every single hotel so far in Ethiopia – always resulting in a 5 to 10 birr reduction of the price.

Up again to 2,400+ meters altitude and main-town Dessie. Tarmac. Enjoy the cool air for the last time – the road ahead will once and for all wind down to sea level in Djibouti as it continues through some arid landscapes.

Stay at an anonymous hotel with its name written only in Amharic. It’s owners are Muslim, indicated by the praying room nearby the entrance, and as such a sign in itself that I’m closing in on the lowlands where Islam predominates as opposed to the Orthodox Christianity of the highlands. A second-floor room with a window towards the busy street outside is 20 birr.

My stomach has started to rumble and every now and then feel a bit warm – I’ll probably end up regretting all the fresh juices I’ve been drinking. The juices are normally watered out with a bit of tap water and thus not 100% safe to drink. For futures sake, I buy a set of Ciprofloxacin for a dollar – no prescription needed, of course.

I stayed in Woldiya and Dessie partly because I wanted to see if something had changed since my last visit as a backpacker a few years ago. Both towns was almost just the same – one or two more buildings; the same “under construction” main street through town. One thing I noted though was the show-off kind of mosque that was rising outside Dessie. The kind that is built to rise above town – indicating that it’s about politics and not religion. I hope Ethiopia can resist – I always thought the monasteries here where so beautiful partly because they where so subtle, simple buildings. Always shadowed by the eucalyptus trees, yet always colorful.

I think of the even more simple churches in East Africa – often just wooden tin-roof shacks. In comparison, the show-off buildings are ridiculous – be they minarets in Dessie or church towers in Stockholm. It’s so dated to see such constructions in the 21st century. Religion as if it is still politics.

An easy day on the saddle – the tarred road almost finished – leads me to small but pleasant town Hayk, situated by the lake with the same name. I reach in late afternoon and find decent ‘Fasilidas Hotell I’ with a second-floor room for 20 birr.

Like yesterday, the road continues to follow the mountain ridge with relatively boring, rolling hills in comparison to previous days’ scenic mountain passes and snake roads. But come afternoon, the exciting descend to Weldiya (at 2,000 m.) begins: a twenty or so kilometer long snake-road, winding down to the fertile valley floor below.

Weldiya will be my host for Christmas – celebrated on the 24th by Swedish tradition. How? What about bananas, peanut butter and fresh avocado and mango juice available for the first time in a few days? Yummy!

I stay at Ganet Hotel for 15 birr per night plus give myself some extra hours of rest by paying for wash – 2 birr a piece.

I’m still new to the cold up here, so I tend to split my showers in two: body one day; hair the other day. Brrrd!

Spend the next evening in the bar/restaurant at Tinsae Hotel. Christmas Eve feels distant. St George beer, tibs b’dabbo (meat stew with bread). The music is deafening – it doesn’t matter much that I have no-one to talk with. The red light inside is weak, but just enough for writing a couple of sentences. The locals watch me curiously – ponder over who would eat and drink by himself. They make me feel uncomfortable. I’d more than gladly share a bottle of red with another faranji, but there is no one around.

Gashena – junction-town between Woratta, Weldiya and Lalibela, with an amazing ten kilometers of fresh tar to the East – is very much ‘junction.’ Roadside motels, a petrol station and a whole bunch of truck drivers – needless to say more.

The truck drivers occupy most of the hotel rooms; their trucks stand parked along the main-road. Together with their mechanics, the drivers spend the last hour of daylight to prepare their vehicles for the next few days of rough dirt road.

The sun sets. I notice the many people here who’ve been infected by polio – many limping legs.
The little tarred road here is very thin, maybe two centimeters. For how long will it last?
My large hotel room is so dirty that I don’t have to feel ashamed at all when I drive my bike inside, and clean the chain there too.

Another 45 kilometers up the road, passing just below Mt Guna, I make another early stop – this time at main-town Gaind. If it was only the terrible gravel and the occasional steep climbs, I would continue to cycle throughout the day, but with the infamous groups of children that follow me at least once every kilometer, I’m completely stressed out by noon. They even end up throwing stones at me, on average maybe five times a day, and occasionally threaten me with their walking/herding sticks. Ethiopian children (silently approved by their elders who act bystanders) treat visitors the same way they treat their cattle.

Stay at Atlas Hotel.

In the evening, a boy and his friend leads me through the darkened valleys of sand and edgy stones to this evenings big event – Arsenal will play Liverpool. English football is huge in Ethiopia, and the small room is cram-full.

We’re lucky to catch the last few seats. A dozen or so wooden benches are lined in tight rows in-front of a large canvas. The beamer has been put up in a handmade wooden box in the roof above us. For once it really feels as if I’m on the pitch – or rather in the changing room after the game. The smell of sweat from the fifty or so villagers – most of them probably farmers in one way or another – is intense. The stuffed, hot air is suffocating. There is a lack of oxygen not because of the altitude but because Ethiopians insist on keeping doors and windows closed at all times. The cold and fresh air seems to be viewed as an evil creature, to be fought and kept at distance at all times; at any cost.

Start at seven and cycle just 30 kilometers, but reach Kamer Dinge only at noon. The road is constantly climbing and will continue to do so for another day or two – from the 2,000 meters around Lake Tana to the 3,000+ meters nearby Mt. Guna (4,135).

Kids threw stones after me at three occasions today – at one time terribly persistent as they followed me for some three kilometers. Besides, I’m such a terrible thrower, especially compared with them who throw stones at their cattle day after day to corral them. So my only chance to escape is to cycle fast.

The hotel is decent and simple, as is usually the case in the smaller villages. At the market – very busy with mostly spices, fabrics and cattle for sale – I successfully find the only stand selling fruits and vegetables. Bananas, tomatoes and carrots; a kilo of each for a total of just 14 birr (1,5 euro). The stand and its saleswoman was hidden under plastic covers – maybe because of the harsh sun; maybe to protect from insects and flies.

I head back to my hotel room and make lunch – spaghetti with a sauce from the veggies that I bought. Tomorrow to Gaind and another 40-45 kilometers of bad road; probably steeply ascending. I look forward to finding coffee and fresh juices again in that slightly bigger town.

I’ve already spent more money in this country in two weeks’ time, than the Per Capita GNP quoted in my 2001 guidebook.