Al Qadarif (Gedarif) Sudan to Metema Ethiopia: Cycling to the Border
11 - 12 February 2020
11 Feb (109.0 km, 67.7 mi) - Al Qadarif (Gedarif) to Wild Camp
12 Feb (52.6 km, 32.7 mi) - Wild Camp to Metema, Ethiopia
With our Ethiopian visas in hand, we were ready to head to the border. In Africa, the borders between countries are sometimes difficult and dangerous. The official advisories for many Western countries often recommend avoiding travel in border areas, due to intermittent skirmishes between countries, illegal activities and civil unrest.
Is It Really That Dangerous?
As we approached the border between Sudan and Ethiopia, there were two occasions when things seemed like they might get a little sketchy. The first incident happened almost immediately, right after we had left Al Qadarif. On the southern edge of the city, a large number (200+) of young men were staging a protest. They had parked 100+ tuk-tuks along the side of the highway, and set up a road block with tuk-tuks, large stones and a couple of burning tires.
As we approached, we saw many vehicles parked on the side of the road that were unable to proceed. A few brave drivers had gone off the road and onto a sandy, make-shift road, to try and detour around the protest. We weren’t very enthusiastic about taking the off-road route because our bikes don't do well in deep sand. But we were also uncertain about what the protest was about, or if it would be safe trying to make our way through it.
We were getting ready to turn off the road, when several of the guys at the blockade waved to us, shouted welcomes, and encouraged us to ride through on the pavement. Not completely sure this was a good idea… but glad not to have to ride on the sand, we decided to push ahead. As we cycled past the large stones blocking the road, the guys manning the blockade shouted greetings, gave us the thumbs-up, and smiled as we rode by. That gave us some confidence to proceed. But when PedalingGuy started to reach for his phone as we rode past the burning tires, that’s when people started to get tense. The protestors started yelling and we quickly got the point that they didn’t want photos. We were fine with that - no sense agitating the angry mob. And so we headed off down the road without any pictures.
The other episode that reminded us that things can get twitchy near borders came in the morning, after we had spent the night in a wild camp about 100 m from the main road in Dinder National Park. All along the road we had seen the stumps of trees that had probably been cut illegally. In both Sudan and Ethiopia, wood provides most of the fuel used in rural homes for both cooking and heating. And with growing populations, there is tremendous pressure on the forests from wood-cutting by local communities.
The road to Ethiopia passes through grasslands and acacia forests on the edge of Dinder National Park. Sudan. Copyright © 2019-2020 Pedals and Puffins.
We had camped in what appeared to be a commercial acacia grove operating within the National Park. But during the night we could hear chopping sounds, as people used the cover of darkness to cut and remove wood.
The next morning, while we were having breakfast near our tent, a guy came by to check us out. He looked like he was on patrol, and was carrying a walkie-talkie that emitted a constant stream of chatter in Arabic. He also had a large knife/machete strapped to his belt that looked more like a weapon than a working tool. He was probably on the lookout for illegal activities like wood-cutting. Seeing us in the forest, he decided to come over and investigate. At first, we weren’t quite sure whether he was friendly or not, so we braced ourselves in case he gave us a hard time about camping in the park. He talked to us for a while in Arabic, most of which we did not understand. But he obviously realized that we were not cutting any trees, or causing any harm. As he prepared to leave, he offered a warm farewell and wished us a safe trip.
The main difficulty we encountered on our way to the border was poor road maintenance. For the first 20 km out of Al Qadarif the road surface was pretty good. But after that, it deteriorated into a crater-covered mess. The road was riddled with one big hole after another, with a few feet between ditches that could be as much as 1-3 feet deep. Fortunately, the traffic wasn’t too heavy, because for long stretches of road we had to weave back and forth from one side of the road to the other to avoid being swallowed up by the gigantic potholes. And any cars or trucks that did pass us were also criss-crossing from one side of the road to the other, using whichever lane of the two-lane road had the least damage. We had to be mindful of the potential for vehicles to suddenly swerve towards us to avoid a pothole as they lumbered by. Fortunately, the poor condition of the road encouraged drivers to move slowly, giving everyone time to avoid each other when a car, minibus or truck needed to pass.
Wildlands on the Border
ThIs section of the road runs through Dinder National Park’s “buffer zone,” where human activities that are deemed compatible with the park’s biodiversity mission are allowed to proceed. There are active villages within the park’s boundaries including herds of cattle, cultivated fields of cotton and planted groves of acacia trees. As a result, the chances of actually running into any big animals (i.e., lions), were pretty slim - even though there are a anywhere from 30-80 lions inhabiting the core area of the park.
Cows and goats continued to be a common sight along the road, even within the boundaries of Dinder National Park. Sudan. These cows were appropriately surrounded by cattle egrets. Copyright © 2019-2020 Pedals and Puffins.
A giant cotton-ball, in the middle of a cultivated field, was another reminder that people from surrounding villages rely on the resources within the buffer zone of Dinder National Park. Sudan. Copyright © 2019-2020 Pedals and Puffins.
In fact, when we camped in Dinder National Park, it was the third time we’d camped in a grove of acacia trees since leaving Khartoum.
Camping among the acacia trees. Dinder National Park, Sudan. Copyright © 2019-2020 Pedals and Puffins.
In Sudan, acacia trees are grown to produce “gum arabic,” a water-soluble resin that has a wide variety of uses. In the food industry, gum arabic serves as an emulsifier in soft candies (like gumdrops and marshmallows) and icings, as well as a binding agent in soft drinks. It’s also used to provide texture and viscosity to inks, paints, and cosmetics. Because it is a “natural” ingredient, demand for gum arabic is on the rise. Sixty-five percent of the world’s gum arabic is currently produced in Sudan, so it’s likely that the acacia groves where we camped were planted to produce the valuable gum.
Some of the most interesting birds we encountered came to visit the acacia trees near our campsite, including Fork-tailed Drongos and White Helmetshrikes.
Fork-tailed Drongos. Dinder National Park, Sudan. Copyright © 2019-2020 Pedals and Puffins.
White Helmetshrike. Dinder National Park, Sudan. Copyright © 2019-2020 Pedals and Puffins.
But not all of the wildlife were birds. We were thrilled when a troupe of Blue Nile Patas Monkeys dashed across the road in front of us. Initially we had thought these guys were Grivet Monkeys. But we later learned that they’re actually a “new” species (identified in 2017) that is found only in the Blue Nile basin of eastern Sudan and Ethiopia. Very cool.
Look both ways before crossing the road! Blue Nile Patas Monkeys in Dinder National Park, Sudan. Copyright © 2019-2020 Pedals and Puffins.
Jumping Through Hoops
We arrived at the border fairly early in the day, but it took hours to jump through all the bureaucratic hoops and finally enter Ethiopia.
The final approach to the border is jammed with cafes, small shops, and trading posts housed within rickety structures made of wood scraps and tin. Crowds of people were milling around and shop-owners were hawking their products. That made it challenging to locate the correct buildings for immigration and customs checks. It was particularly difficult because there weren’t any signs in English (just Arabic and Amharic).
We had actually passed the Sudanese customs office, when a guy on the side of the road waved us down, and pointed us towards a blue building on the right. We headed back to the office, a little bit unsure of what exactly was going on. But once we got close, we could see a small sign that indicated we had arrived at the Sudanese customs checkpoint. I waited outside with the bikes while PedaligGuy went inside to sort things out. An officer came out to the bikes and asked us to open a couple of the panniers, but the search was fairly cursory, and we were allowed to head down the road to immigration.
By this point, we had been spotted by the money changers who lurk in the shade of the trees that line the road. A guy with a pocket full of cash changed all of our Sudanese pounds to Ethiopian birr. He also offered a pretty good rate for U.S. dollars, so we changed a bit of additional money as well. It was a little disconcerting changing money on the street, since any activity with foreigners quickly becomes a circus. We expressed our concern to the money changer, who then instructed some assistants try to shoo away the crowd that was rapidly forming. They had very little success getting rid of the bystanders, but we were able to quickly complete our transaction and move on.
A short distance down the road, we came to the Sudanese immigration office. To exit Sudan, we had to fill out a form with a few, brief details about our stay in the country. Then we got the exit stamps in our passports, and headed for the border.
At this location, a small stream constitutes the border between Sudan and Ethiopia. To get to Ethiopia, you cross a footbridge a couple feet wide over the stream, and enter a different world.
Both Egypt and Sudan, being Islamic/Arabic-speaking countries, can feel more Middle Eastern than African at times. But Ethiopia is solidly African. They have their own, unique language (Amharic), alphabet, use a different daily time and calendar than most of the world, and have a particular brand of Orthodox Christianity that permeates the culture. They even bump shoulders instead of shake hands, which caught PedalingGuy by surprise the first time.
We had been in Arabic-speaking countries since our arrival in Turkey, back in November. So, we’d become fairly comfortable with the key phrases needed by travelers. Now we were going to have to learn a whole new language, and adapt to the Ethiopian way of interacting with foreigners.
Our stop at the Ethiopian immigration office was relatively painless. Similar to our arrival in Sudan, a “doctor” used an infrared camera to check us for a fever. We passed the test, and got our passports stamped for entry into the country.
But getting through Ethiopian customs was not as simple. The customs “office” was an open-air set of tables, with a dirt floor on a steep muddy slope, covered by a thatched roof that looked like it wouldn’t keep the rain out. Really, it looked liked something that was thrown together in a few minutes in a particularly bad location. We rolled our bicycles over to the muddy area next to the tables, where we were met by a young guy who looked like he was just old enough to have graduated from high school. He claimed to be with customs - but was not wearing a uniform or identification of any kind - and insisted on searching through all of our bags. We had to open each of our panniers, and remove most of the belongings as he asked us what was inside each of the bags. We wondered if he was just curious, or if he had a special interest in finding something on a real or imagined “prohibited” list that he could confiscate, and that could then be resold at a later date.
During the process, some of my things fell into the mud as a result of being rushed by the customs guy, and he didn’t care or help me pick them up. That was really annoying. In Sudan they would have quickly apologized, and three guys would have simultaneously tried to help me pick things up and clean them off. It was a stark contrast in cultures.
The customs official then asked how much money we were carrying and a couple of other personal questions, within earshot of more than a few “spectators” who were lingering nearby. It was not a particularly good experience, and we were glad to finally get permission to pack up our stuff and move on.
By that time we had used up 2-3 hours with the border crossing and we were pretty tired. It was late enough in the day that we wouldn’t have time to cycle to the next town that had a hotel. So we checked into a modest hotel room in Metema, which is adjacent to the border. The hotel had outside, shared, cold-water showers, and squat toilets which were not very pleasant to use. But the room was clean and reasonably comfortable.
Our final task was to secure a couple of SIM cards so we could use our mobile phones in Ethiopia. The guy who changed our money hooked us up with another guy who sold us the SIM cards. Mine worked right away, but PedalingGuy could not get his phone to recognize the new SIM.
In Ethiopia, the nano SIM cards used in most modern phones still have to be hand cut to fit into the smaller slot. It turned out that the guy had cut PedalingGuy’s card too small, and damaged some of the circuitry for the SIM. In the process, he had basically made the SIM unusable, but he did not want to admit it. As a result, it took over a hour of fiddling with the SIM before the guy acknowledged his mistake, and went to get us a new SIM card. Fortunately, the second one worked fine, and we were able to load up our phones with plenty of data that we can use in Ethiopia. It’s too bad the Ethiopian wireless service is so excruciatingly slow. Up until very recently, EthioTelecom has had a government-owned monopoly on wireless service in the country, which may have something to do with why the service is so bad.
Rough-and-Tumble Border Town
In the evening we went for a walk around Metema, hoping to buy some water and snacks for our ride into the Ethiopian highlands. But there were surprisingly few shops, and they were all tiny. Regular commerce was totally overwhelmed by the preponderance of bars and nightclubs surrounding the main road in town. These establishments were just one or two room shacks, haphazardly built, often decorated with strobe or colored lights that tried to give the place a party atmosphere. We went into one small bar early in the evening and had a lively conversation with some locals. They gave us a demonstration of Ethiopian dancing. As with so much about Ethiopia, their dancing seems to have its own unique style. It was all about flexing the shoulders back and forth in a jerking motion, to the beat of the music. We can honestly say we’ve never seen anything like it before.
The reason there are so many bars in Metema is probably because alcohol is legal, and beer is widely consumed in Ethiopia. That’s in complete contrast to dry Sudan, where alcohol is forbidden. It seemed like Metema’s main purpose was to provide a drinking zone on the border, where people could get sloshed after leaving or before going to Sudan. We managed to find some water and bananas for sale, but that was it. Hopefully there will be more shops in towns further from the border that sell the kinds of foods we can use.
We were glad to now be in Ethiopia after having crossed Sudan, Africa’s 3rd largest country, with one of the largest and more inhospitable deserts on earth.
