Stones, urine and devilish powers

We're on our way to the Simien Mountains, one hundred kilometres north of Gonder and one of East-Africa's most beautiful trekking areas. Gonder's asphalt road makes way for the all too familiar duck-duck (corrugation), stones, sand, mud and especially dust.

The road climbs for a long time, with once in a while a short descent. The view gets more astounding the higher we climb, although they're constantly obstructed by begging children running alongside us. The begging is accompanied by shouting and laughing. We don't want to know what they're saying, it sounds very insulting. In the first village on the way we stop for a cup of tea. At a little shop Peter asks two men and a woman for 'waha', water. Imperturbed they look at him and smile at each other. The elderly woman, with teeth fit for a horse, talks to him while her finger disappears deeper and deeper into her nose, in our culture not the most polite way to address somebody. An English speaking boy saves the day by showing us the village taps. We drink our tea surrounded by over a hundred people, staring at us without any moral hesitation at all.

A man with a stick chases the crowd away a couple of times, but within thirty seconds all of them are back. When we cycle out of the village dozens of shouting and screaming children follow us: "You, you, ferengi, pen, pen, birr." It's useless and irritating, it becomes really nasty when the first stones whizz around our heads. One hour and three hundred screaming children later we find a spot where we can enjoy our bread in peace. Ten boys surround us in no time at all. They are very polite, speak English fluently and ask our advice concerning their future. Stay in Ethiopia and help to develop the country, we say.

At the next village we receive the same rude goodbye: hysterical screams and stones. When Peter gets hit on his head he stops and runs after the fleeing villains. Fifty metres away they stop and make fun of him. One of them opens his fly and challenges Peter by peeing in his direction. When Peter runs towards the pissboy he runs away screaming with wet pants. What an incredibly insolent and snotty-nosed people. Adults are mostly passive; they laugh or don't react at all, apart from one or two persons. It becomes harder and harder to enjoy the wonderful nature around us. In a small valley to our left we see monkeys for the third time, baboons now. We take some pictures of them, have to flee immediately afterwards to escape the boys and men who demand our clothes and shoes. They don't beg but demand, it is going from bad to worse.

When Peter takes a picture of the colourful hills a couple of kilometres further and puts his camera back in his handle-bar-bag, his heart almost stops beating. The Suunto watch isn't in it's usual place in the bag, seems to have disappeared without a trace. We search everywhere around the bicycles and where we walked. In vain. Peter takes the panniers off his bicycle and returns at walking pace to the place where he took the last picture. Over half an hour later he returns, empty-handed.
Peter could cry now, he is filled with grief. The watch is one of the only material things he feels attached to. We can't believe it; nobody has had the opportunity to steal it and it's impossible that it has fallen out of the bag, which closes with a lid. The devilish boy with the black piercing eyes a little way back must have bewitched us when we didn't give him money as he ordered us. Although he looked only twelve years young, he frightened us.
One hour and many stones at our backs later our indignation has skyrocketed, the people are ghastly. We cannot defend ourselves while cycling, and our pace is so slow that we can never escape them when they're running next to us. They are really everywhere: at every metre people see and follow us. The hysteria and rudeness are far worse than even our guidebook suggests, but then again that information is meant for backpackers traveling by public transport. Another problem is that there's no quiet place to have a rest and eat, so we keep on cycling and feel like we're on the run all of the time.

Completely desperate we stop a truck. The driver offers to take us to Dabat. During short stops in small villages stuff is unloaded, and hundreds of shouting and cajooling young villagers surround the truck. Many of them try to climb on the truck to grab some of our bags. We almost have to hit them to protect our gear. Our arrival in Dabat coincides with the setting sun. Some nice people help us finding a hotelroom. Peter pays the driver 20 birr, despite the fact that he suddenly demands five times as much. People's greed seems to quadruple when there are white people around. Some of the boys who helped to offload the bicycles demand money. Peter gave one of them 20 birr to distribute amongst all, but the boy disappeared without a trace. The others threaten to go to the police, which we strongly advise them to do. This hotelroom is the worst so far, without water, shower or washing facilities and a toilet too filthy to look at. Every day it becomes more obvious that many people in this country are very unhygienic: nothing gets cleaned, the human excretion is smeared on the walls and ceilings in the toilets, people relieve themselves anywhere, even in the middle of the street.

The next day differs little from the previous one: hysteria, screaming, begging, aggression, screeching and a lot of stones. Mentally exhausted we arrive in Debark, at the foot of the Simien Mountains. Together with the only other tourist present, Kelly from America, we arrange a trekking for the coming six days. In the village we do some shopping for the trekking, helped by two boys who, whether we want it or not, are appointed to us by some unknown God. Mammon, we think. We are going to undertake quite a hard hike from Debark to three mountain stations: Sankaber, Geech and Chenek. From Chenek we want to reach the summit of the Bwahit at 4430 metres altitude, before we return to Debark. The three of us will sleep in our tent.