The places your bicycle takes you is everywhere in between

To look at these two photos and think that they were taken just one week apart, gives perspective to the gaps which the cyclists eyes and ears take in as we traverse one landscape to another.  To cover this same distance at the breakneck speed of a bus or a car simply doesn’t compare.   The subtle shifts and changes of landscape are lost to the lull of the engine, the tired eyes of passengers drifting off to sleep to nothing but blurred vision of the distance covered. The change began early on the day to the Ethiopian border with a few more trees and shrubs until eventually the idea of shade became a possibility again.  As the elevation began to climb in the following days as did the presence of flowering trees.  The smells had change dramatically.  With the flowers came the birds, the crickets and the lush soundscape of the mountains.  Our camp spots have become increasingly more eventful as the population density rides, as does the livestock.  If you haven’t had a donkey nibbling on your tent by now, you’re just missing out.

Up in the cool of the mountains now, the tour relaxes in Bahir Dar, a town where the air is cool, the people are friendly, and just to make us feel right at home, there seem to be equal numbers of cyclists on the road as cars. The tour now charges ahead to the infamous Blue Nile Gorge, stay tuned for more tales of epic TDA adventure.