| Ethiopia:
Abyssinia Adventure - Hwy 3 Nile Gorge Bicycle Africa / Ibike Tours |
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Ethiopia's Nile Gorge averages about 1000m (3300 feet) deep and is 400km (250 miles) long In places it is 1500m (5000 feet) deep. Ethiopians, say the Nile Gorge is second only to the U.S. Grand Canyon, which averages almost a mile in depth. There are other river valleys in Ethiopia that are more than a 1000m deep, and some approach 1500m, but they are not as long as the Blue Nile's. | ||
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 There are countless spectacular views descending into the Nile Gorge. Enough so that it significantly impedes the descent processes because of the frequent stops for photographs and to awe at the magnificence landscape. |
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| For the gorge of the Blue Nile, this elevation graph accurately tells part of the story: You descend for 23km (13 miles), cross a river, climb for 22km, and then all of a sudden the road turns a corner and flattens out onto a new plateau. | |||
 [Graphs are built with incomplete data and are only general representations of the topography.] |
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But the graph doesn't give any clues to the expansive views, colors and textures
of the landscape. While we thought the earlier plateau was eye candy, this was
even better. On the descent we stopped so many times to take in the view
that it probably added an hour to what could have been a 30-minute
trip. Even so our travel time to the bottom was faster than some of the heavy
trucks that inched their way down the precipice. Even without visual distractions the
theoretical 30-minute trip is somewhat
dubious. The steepness of the grade, hairpin turns and increasingly
deformed road surface forced us to keep a tight grip on the brakes for long periods
of time -- to the point that our hands ached. So it was nothing close to
an easy 20km roll at 40km per hour, especially the last 5km
before the bridge. |
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The cause of the deformed
road is a point of conjecture; it was worse on steeper sections and closer to
the bottom. The destruction took the form of deep lateral ruts, high ridges at
the edges and between the ruts, and corrected surface in between the
waves. Part of my explanation was the air temperature was about 20oC
(36oF) warmer at the bottom of the gorge than on the plateau.
Where the road was in direct sunlight, in a tight ravine, the difference on the
road surface might have been even more extreme. The high temperatures softened the
road and little-by-little, the heavy trucks, trying to slow themselves, pressed
into and tore at the surface. Thousands of trucks later it was ripped to
shreds in places. I was too busy trying to control the bucking bicycle
through the worst sections, but here are a couple pictures of some of the
deformation. Dozens of the heavy truck traversing the gorge daily are bulk cement trucks carrying materials for construction of the Great Renaissance Dam and other building projects on the west side. The Japanese, who originally built the road, are now (2014) back on site to help rebuild it. |
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Though the White Nile is
considerably longer, and collects water from parts of Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and
Uganda, the Blue Nile, which is collects all of its water in Ethiopia and supplies 90 percent of the water of the combined Nile. The two tributaries converge near Khartoum,
Sudan.
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The baboons of the Nile Gorge are so habituated to passing traffic that they
station themselves within feet of the road waiting for handouts -- bananas are
particularly prized. Fortunately, the baboons don't have any aggressive intents
towards bicyclists. Pointing out what should be obvious (but drivers are known for their lack of common knowledge), there were several signs with versions of "Drive cautiously! You are in hilly, winding, sliding and rock fall area." |
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   The
ascent is about as long and takes two-to-three times as long to complete with a
loaded tour bike. At a speed of three miles and hour the road surface is not a
factor and there is plenty of time to deliberate on the scenery and so many
other things. The subjects that made it to the photo record are Vervet Monkeys,
Abyssinian Ground Hornbill, Oxpeckers (tick birds) with their bovine hosts and
traditional beehives up a tree.. Another unique bird that didn’t pose was a pair
of Red-billed Hornbills that flew past.Fortunately, the temperature declines as you climb -- but slowly. |
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The hillsides of the gorge are impressive with there hundreds of miles of
terracing for agriculture.
Near the top of the gorge is a small gypsum mining operation. This and a cement factory north of Dejen, at the rim, are the only two large industrial operations in the area.
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 Just
as the road reaches the rip of the Nile Gorge there is a large new Orthodox
Church on the north side of the road and a similarly large and new mosque facing
the church from the south side of the road. It gives the appearance of a static
cultural-religious stand-off, It is hard to many conclusions from a snap view of
the buildings, but on Friday afternoon the mosque was empty and small groups
were about the church. |
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(South: Sulutan to Gohatsion)
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