Ethiopia, Everybody muss get stoned - Bob Dylan - I had to reflect a long moment to succeed in putting my emotions and experiments on paper because Ethiopia will remain for me a mixture between hatred and love, like one of these famous episodes of the Dallas series. To start, the first shock is at the border... Hardly passed the bridge which separates Sudan from Ethiopia, one can find beer everywhere! I've just traveled for 6 months in Moslem countries where alcohol is difficult, even impossible to find, as in Sudan, under the law Sharia. Here, there are bars, the majority full of prostitutes, every 20 meters. I'm back in the world of the Christians, the vice and alcoholism... I understand a little better the point of view of Ben Laden... But no worries, I did not become a Moslem extremist for as much, I am running in the first bar to drink a good fresh beer (but only one beer, yes, one beer only I swear it...)
The road until Gondar is catastrophic, as usual, and it is the beginning of the plates. A rise of more or less 1000 meters and here I am in the Ethiopian fresh heights! I breathe, at last, the temperature is below 40 degrees, even 30 degrees, what a incredible feeling!
Gondar, a town of churches and old castles. In fact Ethiopia has a very old culture and has never been colonized. A culture completely apart which differenciates itself from Africa.
From Gondar, it is another history which is starting. Everyone knows the song of Bob Dylan, "Everybody muss get stoned", well it is the case of all the cyclists who cross the country. Not because we are in the country of the rastafaris (whose Bob Marley is the most famous descendant) and because there many rastas "stoned" to have too much smoked illegal substances, but because the children have the dirty practice to launch stones if they do not receive money. In all the country, every 5 minutes, I hear YOU YOU YOU, GIVE ME MONEY or YOU YOU YOU, WHERE YOU GO (what is nicer than the first but every 5 minutes, over one day it's a bit too much... imagine at the end of the day what your nerves endured). If I do not stop and empty my purse, the stones fly.

Of course, it is not everywhere and in all the villages, but in general in the small villages and the countryside in general, the environment is more hostile towards the small white man who passes by bicycle. I will not complain bus Lorenzo, the Spanish guy I met in Khartoum and Stellan, the Swedish guy I met in Addis Ababa, both had gone to the hospital for stitchs on the head. A Japanese guy broke his shoulder blade by crashing into a peasant and an Irish girl got a stab in the arm. Here is the news of the other cyclists I met.... I was lucky and we will leave this unhappy topic on the side, because Ethiopia is a splendid  country to visit. But on no account, I would recommend anyone to travel here by bicycle.
I cannot speak about Ethiopia without speaking about a problem which, in my opinion, made more bad than good: humanitarian aid. The things changed fortunately and most of NGO choose other strategies, by investing money in more durable projects. Unfortunately, it is not the case of all of them and especially that was not the case in the past. I want to speak about all this humanitarian aid - which started in 1990, after the world discovered the large Ethiopian famines on its television screens - which has been flowing from the four corners of the world. A humanitarian aid blind, which distributed without really looking at and which made these people completely dependent on the delivery of food, drugs or clothes, instead of really helping it to get out of its crisis. Crisis which started during and especially after the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea which claimed its independence. People took the practice to tighten the hand instead of working. We always associate Ethiopia with a country prey to the famine, but at this moment, other countries like Niger or Sudan are passing time much harder. Why the NGO do not try to create new companies which would provide work, salary and a future to these populations. Food for work at the beginning then in the medium term, if intelligent projects are set up, to offer the chance to people to become independent and to hold their future in their own hands. to my opinion, Ethiopia was a great fiasco of the humanitarian aid, I hope that these errors will not be renewed any more and that things will change in Ethiopia.

It is also necessary for me to speak about the political crisis which shook the country during my stay. The elections took place in May before my arrival but government pushed back the final publication of the results. Everywhere people want a new government. In most of the villages, in the countryside, people told me they voted for the old government, under the threat of weapons. In Addis Ababa, the crisis took another dimension the day the armee shot at the demonstrators and also threw 2 grenades in the market, the largest one in Africa. The result : hundreds of arrests, forty died and complete chaos in the city. I would remember this environment of end of the world with the shots resounding in the city and people running in all the directions to shelter. It is perhaps the first of the problem which has to be solved in Africa, the corrupted governments. That was the negative things of Ethiopia, I can now speak about what is amazing me, because most of the moments are for me unforgettable. The landscapes are superb, mountains at last (after so many deserts), the canyons are impressive, it reminds me those in the USA, the valley of the Nile is magic, the lake Tana, source of the Nile, is the first lake I have met on my road from Italy... South is particularly splendid whereas North is more historically and culturally interessant. I am spending a long moment in Addis Ababa, the capital. When people are not going on strike because of the political crisis, we can find everything: everywhere Italian restaurants (remaining time of Mussolini who tried to colonize Ethiopia, but he didn't managed. Ethiopians have the reputation to be famous warriors, and, during centuries, to have had certainly the most advanced African civilization after the one of the Pharaons in Egypt), everywhere excellent fruit juices and also a lively night life. It was necessary for me to rest psychologically, more than physically after all the aggressions I underwent on the way with these children who threw stones and sometimes even insulted me in English. An over-populated where one can never stop and be alone 2 minutes. It is also what is surprising me in Ethiopia, I had never crossed so much people on my road so far. Every morning, a human flood passes with food from a village to another one. The evening, they go back home, covering 30, 40, 50 kilometers per day. The richest one have donkey to carry their burden. One day, a guy ran 30 kilometers, at the same speed as me and my bicycle. I paid him a fresch drink when we arrived, impressed by his endurance! The south is green, fruits grow everywhere, the birds which live by the lakes fish all the day, there are a lot of hippos and crocodiles in the lakes too. People are more quiet and I am meeting my first African tribes. Equipped with collars and pendentive, tattooed and in general naked or very slightly equipped, I do not know who between them and me is the most intrigued to see the other... On the road I am crossing nomads which transport their huts on the back of camels, they are watching their cattle and armed to the teeth, I will understand in Kenya why they are armed... I am plunging in another world, another time, it is the magic of traveling.