The Best Worst Idea

Packing for Africa 2011.I’m in Africa, again. And on this trip, Africa x 3. My bags are loaded with what I need to find the course for a trail race in Ethiopia’s high sandstone escarpments, to lead a trip where I and fourteen others will rock climb, mountain bike, and do yoga from Lake Langano’s western shore to Tigray’s northern fields, and to journey to a new mountain in Mozambique for something still very unknown. In five weeks, I will live out a year’s preparation in three phases.  I have enough things—six ropes, two sets of full raingear, nine different types of antibiotics, high heels and sticky rubber approach shoes, yoga tops and bug shirts, gaiters and flip flops, down shirts and shorts, a GPS, camera, back-up camera, audio recorder, two external hard drives, tent, cook sets, titanium pots—to stay here for longer. And I might. After all, I’ve already done the hardest part: I’ve gotten ready. The moment I manipulated that last zipper closed on my last bag I breathed a sigh of relief and submitted to the journey.

Almost six years ago I saw a photo of a cluster of sandstone towers in the north of Ethiopia. Those towers started a trip, a book, and a life where now I have come back for this, my fifth time, to this land to which I never thought I’d return. But here is a confession....

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Going Big

Majka Burhardt on a bit of decent rock in Ethiopia, 2007. Photo by Gabe RogelIn Conjunction with Pemba Serves

Five days ago I drove out of Eldorado Canyon after seven pitches of climbing with two professional women who live in Boulder. We’d spent the day climbing sandstone cracks freshly crisped by the proceeding evening storms. The river roared beneath us for the full day making communication difficult and creating isolation of judgment and choices for each of us while climbing. It was a day where climbing was climbing – the complete pairing of mental and physical connection dialed together by focus. As we drove away from the perfect day Tracy and Amy planned future objectives and talk circled to fall climbing plans. Tracy and Amy talked about Colorado; I brought up Ethiopia.

This fall I’m co-leading the second annual Imagine Ethiopia expedition. During the trip we will rock climb, mountain bike, do yoga, and further the path and possibility of Ethiopia’s education. And is if that was not enough we will also explore Ethiopia’s coffee heritage and help celebrate one of its greatest economic drivers. I’d like to say it will just be a standard 14 days in Ethiopia, but I’d be lying....

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Robbery Friendships, An Additive Adventure Entry

Haile, Photo By Peter DoucetteIn Conjunction With OutsideTV.com and Osprey Packs

...I’d like to say I went straight for the direct question: Hello, you look familiar; did I put you in jail a few years ago? But really, I stalled. We were hiking up to the base of the rock wall over hand-built terraces cradling the lush remnants of the recent rain. This year was the rainiest in three decades in Northern Ethiopia. That’s a big deal anywhere—it’s a huge deal when you are in the exact land where one million people were killed in a famine in 1984. This year, new trees were sprouting in muddy soil, yellow flowers covered desert thorns on tree branches, and wheat, barley and teff fields undulated in the wind....

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The End of the Beginning, An Additive Adventure Entry

Mango Tree Planting at Laelay Wukro School GroundsIn Conjunction With OutsideTV.com and Osprey Packs

The bowels of the Addis Ababa airport are laced with sweet, thick exhaust. Five minutes ago--forty-five minutes before my departure back to the United States--a man in a sharp-creased navy uniform summoned me away from the fluorescent passenger holding tank with a gun holstered at each hip. He didn’t give me his name, just confirmed mine. Now I’m trying to keep up as he strides quickly over the oil stained concrete floor in the dim light of the airport underbelly.

I know what this is about, but I’m not about to tell the man. The gun. It keeps coming up in my travels in Ethiopia. The gun; and the forty pounds of metal with it.

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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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