The last 4 days we have been going south from Addis Abeba to Arbaminch, a town in the Rift-zone. The road we take is different from the planned one, but this one has less traffic, and therefore is safer, and the extra day it takes doesn't matter since we have extra time available because of the Kenya-situation.
From Addis on we first cycled on altitudes of +2000 m, but the last few days we went down to 1400m. The landscape has turned into a more African one: banana-trees are everywhere, the color of the soil is brownish-red, and the temperatures are going up.
The past days there have been some minor incidents: attempts to steal things, luckily without result, some near-collisions. This, combined with the never ending nuisance of the Ethiopian children, makes everybody very happy that we'll be leaving Ethiopia soon. It's a pity that a small minority of the children has such a negative influence on the general picture of this beautiful country.
Another 4 days, and then we'll be at the Ethiopan/Kenyan border at Moyale. From there we'll go back by bus to Addis Abeba after which everybody will go his own way (Kilimanjaro, Zanzibar, Uganda, Lalibella, …). On march 16, everybody will be in Arusha to get started on the first Tanzanian leg of the Tour.