Hi guys,

I have been riding in Ethiopia so far for 2 month and much to my surprise so far I have not got any stone thrown at me! All in all I ´d like to confirm that It´s a beautiful country, roads are fairly good, the weather is just incredible for riding, finding gas can be sometimes a problem but then you can find it for a much higher price in the black market. It´s true that you cannot camp easily or at all as every where there are people and also riding is very dangerous as there are many people and animals crossing the road but people are mostly very friendly. I have been to the north, east and part of the south and the only place I had problems was in some backroads in Tigray region where kids gathered around my bike and stole some stuff. It was any way my fault as I knew that a bunch of excited kids would only bring me problem but I still stopped to see what problems they would be. In a few occasions I had problems with the police and military too as I took a picture of a dead cow hit by a car and there was this man who came up to me, pushed my bike and took away my camera. When I asked him to give me back my camera he hit me! So I hit him back . People gathered around us and it came out that he was military (no ID, no uniform) and at the end I had to delete de photo. He didn´t even say he was sorry! Another time the police stopped me in Addis driving the car (they are very nice when you are on the bike and almost never bother you) and was saying that I did something wrong, etc.... He was less aggressive and in the end it was fine. Anyway, I am very happy here and like Ethiopia much more than Western Africa. I just think that it´s also a bit about us being tired and burnt out because of prior trips and take it a bit more negative. So try to be as positive as possible .
One thing that really worked with the kids was that each time I sensed that somebody would throw a stone I started putting a friendly face, waving, saying hello and being entertaining. I only got nice waving back. I also did a lot of rides with Ethiopian riders and they have the same problem. What they usually do is to ride right towards the kids and frighten them. Here is the link to some of my rides in Ethiopia. -
Enjoy!
Mahsa

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