Saturday, September 25, 2010

Biking in Ethiopia


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My wife and I are planning an international adoption through Ethiopia. The process requires two visits to Ethiopia within six weeks of each other. We are talking about touring Ethiopia during the intervening six weeks instead of making two trips. I have come up withe idea of doing our in country travel by bike.

It seems like a doable plan except for serious logistical planning that would go into it might interfere with serious logistical planning that goes into the adoption process.  So while this pie-in-the-sky idea lingers in my mind, I wonder how realistic an idea it is. I do have one advantage of being a former Peace Corps volunteer, meaning we may be able to contact the Ethiopian Peace Corps community for help finding places to spend the night, eat meals and get reliable translation of local languages whether it be Amharic or otherwise.

The other issue with touring by bike is making sure both Kyra and I are in the best physical condition to complete the trip.  Ethiopia is a mountainous country with many a dirt road. Additionally, the season we are in Ethiopia is dictated entirely by the adoption process. I have not looked into the climate of Ethiopia, but I would guess like much of sub-saharan Africa it has a rainy season, which would be a difficult time to bike around the country.

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