The Biggest Job I've Ever Had

A boy in the Ethiopian Flag in Northern Ethiopia, Photo By Travis Horn Five years ago a taxi driver in Addis Ababa told me that the book I was about to write chronicling climbing in Ethiopia would save Ethiopia. I’d just explained to him what rock climbing was the minute before. Nevertheless he was convinced and I nodded and smiled as if I were as well.

When that taxi driver told me my book would save Ethiopia I took his statement at face value: write book =  save Ethiopia. Who knows what he really meant. I’ve never seen him since and don’t know his name. What I do know is that Vertical Ethiopia came out a year later and I spent that year and the two years following learning that I was indeed trying to save Ethiopia. But not just Ethiopia -- Ethiopia, myself, the United States, and the world....  

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Osito And A Frog Named Turtle, An Additive Adventure Entry

In Conjunction With OutsideTV.com and Osprey Packs

Baby Turtle, Phase 2. Photo By Peter DoucetteI grasped the hours-old turtle with her white underbelly between my thumb and forefinger. She put up with it. She tried out the cool air and wind-milled her flippers in opposite and unsynchronized directions. She bobbled her head in an effort to see through still unopened eye slits covered in sand. I was in charge of her until I slid her back into the two-foot-deep hole with her dozens of brothers and sisters. She was covered in sand, and left to grow up—hopefully strong enough to leave the hole and join the ocean.

Right about now, I could talk about ocean health and green turtles and all the amazing things they do. But this is not a story about a turtle; this is a story about a poodle. A poodle that I tried to convince to be like a turtle, via a frog....

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Running With Haile, An Additive Adventure Entry

Haile Gebreselassie

In Conjunction With OutsideTV.com

This is how it happens. One person has the idea to run 13,286 kilometers—the distance from Vancouver B.C. to Mekelle, Ethiopia—to raise money to build a school in rural Ethiopia. It’s hard for one person to run that far himself or herself. So they ask for others to join them. One of the people who signs up is Haile Gebrselassie, the international running icon who’s broken 27 world records, and the current world marathon record holder. And just like that, I’m running with Haile.

Wake up early in Addis Ababa and go outside. Early, early. 5:00 am early, when mountain air swirls cool around your uncovered ankles and wrists and nose. 5:00 am early, when the only illumination in the darkness is the flash of white teeth and eyes of the hundreds of runners who got up even earlier. Join them. 

Running in Ethiopia is a way of life. Running in Ethiopia as a visitor, is a rite of passage. In Addis, Ethiopia’s capitol, runners swarm paved streets and dirt roads. If you sleep in until 7:00 you will miss them. You will not know the passion of the pounding of feet. You will not be swept up in your own desire to do the same—even if you only jog, even if you only walk, even if you only watch.

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Purple Flying Skies. Namibia 5

 

People here call Namibia “Easy Africa.” The roads, when they’re tarred, are great. You can get a fully kitted out 4X4 with bed linens and a lantern. You can car camp at the base of that mound of granite pictured there: Spitzkoppe. It was what brought me here in the first place. Kate and I have spent the past week climbing exfoliating faces, huecos, and cracks. The winter nights start at 6pm and we bring back swollen fingers and toes to nurse them at camp. This is our version of “Easy Africa.” We have three days left of it.

Spitzkoppe is a great granite plug visited by tourists, climbers, and people like our friend Piet Steenkamp, with his purple flying machine. It’s a common destination. We stumbled into another campsite on Saturday to be greeted by cold beers. We went back to ours to read up on Elephant attack behavior. We’re lucky, Piet came (without the flying machine) and is telling us stories. He’s fifth-generation Namibian and has the equivalent number of tales. It’s bad when the elephants flap their ears. Don’t leave a leg sticking out of your tent at night. The scorpions with the big pinchers are the least of your worries.

Next up is the north. As far up as we can go—vertically, geographically, mentally—you pick it. The rest of the team arrives today and we are whisking them through the city and into the bush. I haven’t told them about the thorns and pricker bushes, or the grasses lush from four years of heavy rain. I’ve barely told them about the climbing. For Peter and Gabe and Chris, Namibia is still a destination. For Kate and I, it has become a home. Maybe that’s what it means to be a traveler.

Read More About Namibia HERE

Rick Dees' Top 40, All The Way To The Granite. Namibia 4.

Antananarivo, Noola, Luanda...or Windhoek?I've been in Windhoek, Namibia's capital, for 48 hours—just now longer than it took to get here.  Departing Johannesburg, I had the chance to go to Gaborone, Antananarivo, Noola, Luanda. Bulawayo, Lusaka, Doha... I came here—at least here I know there’s granite. I arrived and got my rental car, and immediately got inside, on the wrong side (my right side) and sat down. I looked at the attendant. I had not been horizontal in 46 hours. I gave him a wave, got out of the car, and went to the other side.

Rick Dees' Top 40 blended in with the African wind as I rolled on the B6 to the city. It’s all here. Everything I brought (save the bag that was late), everything I need, everything I’m trying to get to—for the next month. Kate showed up yesterday and I am a day ahead of her jet lag. By the time Gabe, Peter, and Chris arrive, we will have a week on them.

I left Boulder in the mist. Everything was lily pad green. Spring rains and snow came to Colorado just as I headed for the start of winter desert in Namibia. It’s blue here. Everywhere. Chances are we will not see one rain drop. Now it’s time to do errands. Farm stores, food, machetes, candles, 4X4’s, spices. As many vegetables as balance out the metal climbing gear seem to be the right amount. Tomorrow we head west and leave the city. By tomorrow night, I’ll either be getting my first Namibian hand jams, or my 100^th Namibian friction smear. Either way, I’ll take it.