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Official website: www.londoncapetownrally.com |
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Day 13 to Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
There
were 1000s of people at the border and lots of police
military to control them.
Ethiopia had a few surprises. There are thousands, if not
hundreds of thousands of people lining the village roads as
we pass through. It reminds me a little of the Hong Kong to
Beijing rally except the Chinese were very quiet. These guys
jump up and down and yell and clap.
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The guys in blue fatigues had big sticks and didn't hesitate
to threaten the crowd if they wanted them to move back. The
guys in the blue uniforms would stand at attention and salute
as we drove past. As we reached Bahir Dar, where we are
tonight, crowds grew thicker and would applaud us. |
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The
country side is changing as we go south. Ethiopia is quite
green and attractive in parts. The housing in villages
consists of small log houses and brush thatching. It's
clearly a very poor country. Many people, often boys, on the
edge of thr road looking after one or two cattle or
sometimes a donkey. Some seem to be looking after small
herds of goats.
Competition-wise,
there was one road section today where we worked to make
the time. We were two minutes early, so I don't think
anyone will have too much trouble with it. The last time
we did any competitive driving was in Egypt!!!
Hotel here in Bahir Dar is the Summerland Hotel. It's luxury in comparison to Gedaref and the ferry cabin. We start at 6:30 tomorrow, but as it's not yet 5pm as I write this, we will catch up on sleep tonight. |
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The carpark of the Summerland Hotel |
Time for a drink |
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The
car has been pinging badly on the low octane fuel. Mark
has just gone out with a local to buy a heap of octane
booster (later- he couldn't get any, so it will
have to go on pinging).
Getting
local currency can be tricky. On the first few occasions,
the organisers acted as our money changers and gave us
enough local currency for the country in exchange for US$
or euros.
In
Saudi, the fuel was ridiculously cheap. Something like 6
cents a litre I think, but in Sudan last night we only had
18 Sudanese pounds, left and couldn’t fill the tank. We
weren’t worried as we had enough to get to the border
where we expected to get more currency. We needed another
28 pounds of Sudanese money to get out of Sudan and were
just about to hand the dollars to a guy when the police
started coming towards us and he ran away. He later
signalled from the edge of the crowd and we followed him
to a road side stall where he was doing a roaring trade
with rally crews.
We later discovered Sudanese officials will accept $USs. |
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Day
14, Ethiopia - Bahir Dar to Awassa via Addis Ababa Mark was unsuccessful in getting any octane booster so we have to put up with a bit of pinging. I haven't noticed it today but the engine does seem a little sluggish some times.
Rally crews were in 3 different hotels last night. The one we were in was very good and after dinner we were invited outside for coffee ceremony (left). They had music and dancing girls who tried to get all the men up to dance. Then after moving a couple of cars to a safer distance, started a fairly large bonfire and served up coffee and damper. The coffee was awful.
Mark fed
his to a pot plant and I then passed mine to him for the
same purpose. |
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The rally started with 250 Km rough gravel today. So rough I'm surprised this computer still goes.
There were
2 competitive stages, but unfortunately we were behind a
Volvo and couldn't get close enough to overtake. Stuck in
dust for 15 of 40 km on the first section. We damaged 2
tyres and had to put the spares on. Despite that I'm hopeful
we should have moved up a couple of places. Hopefully they
will have results available tonight.
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After the 250km of rough gravel we started 500km of transport to Awassa via Addis Abba. North of AA is the Blue Nile river valley.
It really
is very spectacular. We didn't really have time for any
stops, so I'll see how my pictures taken on the fly went
(see left).
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There
is virtually no traffic on the road other than busses and
trucks north of AA. There seems to be a bit more to the
south. I'm writing this as we follow the other two Aussie
crews, the Robertsons and the Newtons. I'll trust their
navigation!! The Stevensons will find today hard in the 1923
Vauxhall. All Australian crews except us are father-son
combinations.
An
English-speaking local gave us directions to what he said
would be a good place to get our tyres mended. Finding
something in Addis Ababa is a bit of an adventure too. They
don't really have addresses, he told me. Anyway we found it
and they were delighted to be involved. Mended both tyres
and we put them on the car for the drive to Awassa to see if
they would stay up. Cost zero!!
left: a shot from the rally's official photographer - a tribesman watches us go by
Hotel (at
Awassa) is again good but we have been warned tomorrow in
Moyale won't be the same standard.
Results
are available and we have come up 2 places to 9th.
The repaired tyres vibrate badly so we will keep them just
as spares. Changed all filters tonight. |
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