February 20th, 2015 - Lake Kola - 103 km

We had a 26 km convoy out of Addis Ababa and convoys are never fun... one minute they are too fast and the next minute too slow and always stressful because traffic is constantly trying to butt in and the last thing you want is to be responsible for the whole thing breaking apart. These convoys are lead by one of our trucks (or in some cases by the local police) and the riders follow two by two behind with the slower riders at the front and the faster riders at the back - sounds simple, right? Not so.

                                                                                           

The road was long, rough and dusty with wicked traffic but at our evening camp beside Lake Kola I finally felt like I reached Africa!  There were hundreds of large storks about a meter high walking around and roosting in large shady trees with trunks easily a meter in diameter.  A flat green pasture sloped down to Lake Kola provided the feeding grounds for about fifty cows and huge intimidating bulls with large moon-shaped horns and a few donkeys and goats. A steeply peaked mountain with a rippled erosional pattern making it look like it was overlain with a wrinkled carpet stood on the horizon.  The lake was large and calm, a couple of small fishing boats were pulled up on the shore where men worked, fished and bathed.  The sunset was incredible with an even more spectacular sunrise the next morning.  

Lake Kola - people, bulls, boats and cows.

Weary riders hanging out in the shade while onlookers gather at the rope that cordons off oru camping space.  A local with an AK-47 usually patrols the perimeter for us... it seems to work.

Ahh, sunrise!

A minute later, fishermen begin to gather and storks are looking for leftover fish.