Ethiopia Bale Mountains Road (362 km)
Shashamane to Harenna Forest · one way, about 362 km back to the start
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Why this ride
A one-way ride of 362 km, Shashemenē to the finish - roughly 4 h 59 in the saddle. On the way it passes Dodola, Dinsho and Sanetti Plateau. The highest point is about 4,000 m. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Roadbook
- Shashamane
start
Shashamane sits on the main highway south from Addis Ababa, in the great Rift Valley, and it is exactly the sort of crossroads town that keeps a country moving. Trucks, minibuses, horse-drawn carts and motorbikes jostle in the streets, and the market sells everything from maize to mobile phones. About eighty-five thousand people live here, and the town has fuel stations, mechanics, cheap hotels and plenty of places to eat, making it a very practical place to begin a ride into the mountains. Hawassa, a larger lakeside city, is about twenty kilometres to the west.
What makes Shashamane special is a community that lives in one corner of it. In 1948, Emperor Haile Selassie granted land here to the Ethiopian World Federation, a Black American organisation, as a gift for people of African descent who wanted to return, and from the 1960s many Rastafarians from Jamaica and elsewhere settled in the area. Haile Selassie is revered in the Rastafari faith, and the community has kept its culture alive for generations, with music, colours of green, gold and red, and a strong sense of faith. Visitors are welcome in the community, if they come with respect.
The Rift Valley around the town is a land of lakes: Langano, a warm, brown lake popular for swimming, and the neighbouring Abijatta and Shalla, which lie in a national park full of flamingos and pelicans. Acacia trees, red earth and wide skies fill the landscape, and the air is warm. From Shashamane, a road branches east toward the Bale Mountains, climbing from the valley floor up to a cool, forested highland, a change that you notice in your lungs.
For the rider, this is a stop for supplies. Top up the tank, check the tyres, buy water and a snack, and ask about the state of the road ahead. Traffic is chaotic, with livestock, pedestrians and tuk-tuks all competing for space, and heavy trucks can be a real hazard. Avoid riding at night, when unlit vehicles and animals appear without warning. The dry season, from October to February, is the best time, while heavy rains from June to September can turn rough roads to mud.
- Dodola
scenic
Dodola is one of those towns that most people drive through on the way to somewhere else, but on the northern edge of the Bale Mountains it deserves a longer look. It sits at roughly twenty-four hundred metres in Oromia, in a green, cool, farming landscape of wheat and barley fields, eucalyptus plantations and grazing meadows, and above it the high country of the Bale massif climbs toward the clouds. The town has about twenty thousand people and the busy, unglamorous energy of a regional market centre.
The road here, coming up from the Rift Valley towards the Bale uplands, rises in long gradients through patches of forest and open farmland, and the temperature falls with every few hundred metres. Corners are open, surfaces vary between good and patched, and animals and pedestrians are always possible around the next bend. Dry months from November to February are the easiest for riding; the rainy seasons turn tracks off the main road into mud and bring low cloud over the peaks. Mornings are cool and clear, and the best light is early.
Dodola is known locally for its horse trekking. A community-run association here organises multi-day rides up into the mountains, using the sturdy local horses to reach high meadows and forest camps that roads never touch. The idea is to bring income to farming families who might otherwise clear the forest for fields, and it has become one of the best-known community projects of its kind in the country. Even if you do not ride a horse, it tells you something about the way the region is changing.
For a motorcyclist the town is a practical stop. Fuel is available in a settlement of this size, although supplies in rural Ethiopia are not guaranteed, so fill up when you can, and cafés and small restaurants serve injera, stews and strong coffee, often with a great deal of ceremony. Basic hotels are easy to find. The road continues east towards Adaba, Dinsho and Goba, with the Bale peaks growing larger in the windscreen, and it is worth stopping at the market on the way to see how a highland town lives.
- Dinsho
scenic
Dinsho is the front door of Bale Mountains National Park, a small highland settlement at around three thousand metres where the park headquarters and visitor centre sit among juniper trees and open meadow. If you want to see the animals that the Bale Mountains are famous for without a long hike, this is the easiest place to start. Within a short distance of the headquarters you can often spot mountain nyala, a large spiral-horned antelope found only in Ethiopia, grazing in the clearings, and Menelik's bushbuck, warthogs and troops of colobus monkeys in the woods.
The ride in from Goba or Dodola is a pleasant highland run, with the road passing through farmland, grassy plains and patches of Hagenia and juniper woodland. Surfaces are generally acceptable but traffic, including livestock, is unpredictable. The altitude brings cold mornings, frost on the grass in the dry season, and the sort of clear, sharp light that makes the mountains look closer than they are. Bring warm gloves.
This is the Afroalpine world, and the Bale Mountains are among the most important pieces of it. The park protects the largest area of Afroalpine habitat on the continent, home to a startling number of species found nowhere else, including the Ethiopian wolf, the rarest canid in Africa. The wolves are mostly seen on the high plateau, above Dinsho, so you will have to keep going to find them, but the headquarters area is a good start for birdwatching, with Rouget's rail, wattled ibis and many endemic species. The park staff and local guides know where animals have been seen recently.
Practical needs are modest. Dinsho is small, with a few simple cafés and guesthouses, and fuel is better sourced in Goba, about twenty-three kilometres away, which is the nearest larger town with services. The park charges entry fees, usually payable at the gate, and walking tours with scouts can be arranged here. Fill up in Goba before heading to higher ground.
- Sanetti Plateau
scenic · 4000 m
Sanetti is where Africa lifts its head above the clouds. The plateau, at around four thousand metres, is the largest area of Afroalpine terrain on the continent, a bare, cold, windswept tableland of grass and heather dotted with small lakes, black basalt boulders and the huge, strange shapes of giant lobelia. Tullu Deemtu, the second-highest mountain in Ethiopia, rises at the plateau's southern edge, at around 4,380 metres. It feels like the roof of something.
The road across it, running from Goba toward the south and the Harenna Forest, is among the highest through routes in Africa. You climb from Goba in a series of long, steady bends, leaving the farmland behind and entering a landscape of low heath and rock. The surface has changed over the years, and conditions vary, so ask locally before you commit. Weather matters enormously. Cloud, mist, hail and freezing wind can sweep across the plateau within minutes, even in the dry season, and the thin air will rob a carburettor bike of power. Cold hands and a cold core are the main dangers, so pack serious layers. The best time is the dry season from about October to February.
The plateau's biggest draw is its wildlife. This is the best place in the world to see the Ethiopian wolf, a slender, russet-coated predator that hunts giant mole-rats across the open grassland in broad daylight. Only a few hundred are left, so each sighting is precious. Keep your distance, and do not leave food. Look as well for the Starck's hare, rock hyraxes, and raptors, including the lammergeier, riding the wind. Beyond the plateau's southern edge, the road drops into the damp Harenna Forest, one of the last big tracts of tropical cloud forest in Ethiopia, which is a sharp, dramatic change of world.
Goba, about thirty kilometres back, is the nearest real town, and a full tank before you climb is essential. Bring water, snacks and a spare layer, and tell someone where you are going. The silence, when the wind drops, is complete.
- Harenna Forest
finish
Harenna is the green southern face of the Bale Mountains, and getting there involves one of the most spectacular drops in Africa. The road crosses the Sanetti Plateau, a high, cold, open tableland at over 4,000 metres, studded with giant lobelias and small lakes, where Ethiopian wolves, among the rarest canids in the world, hunt for rodents in the grass. Then, at the edge of the plateau, the road plunges south through a series of bends into a forest, losing about a thousand five hundred metres in a few kilometres, and the air thickens, warms and fills with the smell of damp earth.
The Harenna Forest is among the largest remaining tracts of moist tropical forest in Ethiopia, a dense, mossy realm of ancient trees, tree ferns, bamboo and strangler figs, shrouded in mist. It is part of Bale Mountains National Park and a hotspot for biodiversity, with species found nowhere else, such as the Bale monkey, and it shelters leopards, giant forest hogs and black-maned lions, rarely seen. Wild Arabica coffee grows in the understory here, and Ethiopia is considered the original home of the plant.
The riding is hard. Much of the road is gravel, rough in places and slippery when it rains, which is often in the forest, and the descent from the plateau is steep and has sharp bends. The altitude and cold at the top can be a shock, with frost possible in the morning, and the contrast with the humid forest below is startling. Fog can obscure the road, so go slowly. This is a ride for someone with experience on rough tracks and a bike that can take them.
Services are almost non-existent, so carry fuel, water, food and a repair kit, and remember that mobile coverage is unreliable. The nearest reliable fuel is at Goba or Robe on the northern side, and it is worth filling every container you have before crossing. The park charges a fee at the gate, and rangers are helpful. Birdlife is exceptional, with Abyssinian catbirds and woodpeckers, and early morning is the time for the chorus. Visit between November and February, when the dry season gives the best chance of a passable road.