Ethiopia World's Most Dangerous Roads

This programme contains some strong language.

Five billion kilometres of roads network the planet.

-Everywhere new routes are being forged through increasingly difficult terrain.

-Whoa!

-Across Arctic wilderness...

-That was a game of chicken, right there.

..over high mountain passes...

That is as big a drop as we've seen so far.

..and through dense jungles...

Good work, very good work.

These roads may be a testament to man's ingenuity

but driving on them requires skill...

I'm going to get out the car, I can't bear it.

..stamina...

Whoa. Andy!

-..and a steady nerve.

-HORNS BLARE

Comedians Hugh Dennis and David Baddiel are driving across Ethiopia,

one of the poorest, most mountainous countries in Africa.

Whoa, look at that road!

Friends since university,

together they'll cross death-defying mountain passes

and bone-shaking landscapes.

-This isn't a road, it's not a road!

-We're driving across the moon.

Their journey will take them on an ancient route to the holiest city in Africa...

All we've got to do is find the Ark of the Covenant...

Look at it and not have our eyes burnt out.

..2,000km on one of the world's most dangerous roads.

A-A-Argh! Oh, God!

Hugh and David are starting their journey in the capital, Addis Ababa.

The car they're collecting is up to the challenge

but what about David and Hugh?

Here rental cars usually come with an experienced driver.

Hello.

-Have you got a driver?

-No, we're driving.

-From here to Aksum?!

-Yes.

-Sort of...

-Have you done it before?

-No.

-But people do this road, don't they?

-They do. Locals do it, I do it.

But I'll totally and honestly tell you - the road is very dangerous,

-so you have to be really, really, REALLY careful.

-OK.

When I told my partner I was doing this, she just said, "Don't."

She said, "Don't do it, don't be ridiculous,"

because people think that I create disaster wherever I go,

and there is some truth in that,

and then when I said I was going with Hugh,

there was a sense of, "OK, that will be all right, then,

"cos he's sensible and can deal with a situation,"

which is good, cos I'm none of those things.

-What if we hit an animal?

-You pay for it.

You pay for the animal or...?

-And the price goes up three, four times when it dies.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-How much does a goat cost?

-A goat could cost you £50-60.

-If we kill one, can we eat it?

-Of course.

-That's all right, then.

'I think the main danger is possibly David.'

It's got a very comfortable driving position.

That's what I'm slightly nervous about,

cos the last time I drove with him in England, he drove into a gate.

I've chosen you to do the first bit of driving, so...

Look, we're away. That was beautifully done. That junction was beautiful.

I did that magnificently.

The thing to do, I think, is to use the other cars as a sort of shield.

Whoa! Hey!

Early doors accident.

-You're going to have to drive in a minute.

-I know.

For the next week, Hugh and David will drive from Addis

to the ancient city of Aksum.

They'll follow primitive pilgrimage routes,

lethal roads left by invading armies,

and perilous communist-built highways.

Their goal is to reach the holiest place in the land - Aksum,

known as the home of the Ark of the Covenant.

-Shall we change drivers?

-Would you forgive me

if I said this is the bit I've not been looking forward to?

It's only cos you hit that post!

Before getting into comedy, these two met at university

and have been mates ever since.

So you had to get in - you're on the wrong side of the road!

-What side of the road am I meant to be on?!

-THEY LAUGH

-God!

-Oh, no.

-I'm all right.

-You know what would be a good thing to do now?

-What?

-Would be to switch off the indicator.

-OK.

Nearly 30 years on

and they find themselves on the trail of a religious relic

that has acquired mythical status

and is believed to contain the Ten Commandments.

-What is the Ark? What is the Ark?

-It says...

The Old Testament says the Ark was constructed on Mount Sinai by Moses

-and it houses two stone tablets. Oh, so they're in there.

-Bollocks!

-Are you doubting the guide book?

-The Ten Commandments are in Aksum?

The Ten Commandments are, yeah.

So today, every other Ethiopian church has a replica of the Ark.

Isn't that the plot of Raiders Of The Lost Ark?

Raiders Of The Lost Ark is all about getting the Ark of the Covenant

but I feel we're in it now. This is our little version.

I'm not planning to steal the Ark of the Covenant on the last day.

-That would be brilliant though.

-And bring it back to Addis Ababa airport!

100km out of Addis,

they get their first taste of the grandeur of Ethiopia's highlands.

They have reached the rim of the gigantic Jema Gorge.

-Look at that. Look at that view!

-Oh, my... Jesus! Good Lord!

Whoa, I'm quite frightened.

Amazing, amazing view, isn't it? Isn't it incredible?

It's fantastic, isn't it?

-That looks really American, doesn't it?

-It does look very like the Grand Canyon.

What would have created this enormous hole?

-Water.

-Water? When?

Over millions and millions of years, cutting down from...here.

I can't get that near to the edge.

I get this feeling in my groin. That near to...I don't like.

And, if you look closely, the sun is vanishing past that mountain.

I don't want to put the tent up in darkness, so let's go.

-Can I tell you a bit more about sedimentary rocks?

-No.

-Not the layering?

-No.

-What about the down-cutting of the river?

-No!

In this remote area, there's nowhere to stay,

so tonight Hugh and David are going to have to rough it by the roadside.

Whoa, look at that road.

-OK, I'm going to go a tiny bit slower.

-That's fine with me.

-Yeah!

That is a cliff face and a half.

-How much daylight have we got left?

-I don't know. What time does it get dark? Six o'clock?

-Half six.

The problem is that this close to the equator,

night comes really quickly

so they'll have to make camp in the dark.

I am going very slowly.

-You've got about another four feet.

-Oh, have I?

Keep going, keep going, stop.

I'm going to get the tent out.

Right, here we are.

-OK.

-You do realise, David, that the point of a head torch

is that it's pointing in the direction you're walking.

-Where was it pointing?

-It was, like, there!

-DAVID LAUGHS How is that of any use?

-That looks kind of jaunty!

-Is that a ground sheet?

-No, that's a tent, isn't it(?)

Hold that.

This is the most intrepid I've ever been.

-Are you going to cook on this fire later? That's what I'm expecting.

-I might be cooking YOU on this fire.

I think you'd make really nice crackling.

Yeah, I do, actually.

-I love a bit of crackling.

-Yeah, what I meant...

Agh! Argh!

What the ... was that?

THEY LAUGH

-Oh, there it is.

-It's like a butterfly.

No, it's a moth.

It's the kind of thing that, in daylight, you'd go,

"Oh, how beautiful," but at night, you go...

HUGH SCREAMS

Oh, dear.

Just for a second there, with the fire and the tent and the outback,

I thought I'd come across as a real man

and then I screamed because a moth touched me.

You see the stars?

Stars are always amazing in places like this. In Africa.

I slept quite badly last night.

I took quite a truckload of various different tranquilisers

and still slept quite badly.

Also, it's been difficult because of the toilet arrangements here.

It has involved disappearing with a toilet roll

to try and find a private space.

And one of the things I've noticed about Ethiopians,

who are a very, very lovely bunch of people,

is they have a habit of sneaking up on you.

Like, you don't expect it and suddenly you look round

and there are six or seven children staring at you, quizzically.

So, each time I've gone off for that private moment,

I've been very worried that's about to happen.

Hugh and David's goal today is to do 150km to the town of Dese.

This land is high, arid

and still bears the scars of countless battles.

-Oh, my God there's a tank!

-I want to go and look.

-There is a tank.

-Can I...?

-We have to stop and look at the tank.

By the roadside, there's a reminder of the country's bloody civil war.

The war started in 1974,

when Haile Selassie, the last Emperor of Ethiopia,

was overthrown by the Derg, a Marxist regime.

For over a decade there was bitter fighting

as local militia fought the communists.

Ethiopia's had lots of wars.

They had a civil war, didn't they, in the early '80s.

Surely where there are tanks, there might be landmines?

Well, it's unlikely, actually.

Someone has nicked its wheels.

That will happen if you park somewhere for a long time!

-A massive round has gone through the side of this.

-OK.

So, this is a communist tank?

Well, it was a communist government, wasn't it?

So, it would have had Russian military aid.

-So, the Russian's were giving arms to the communist government?

-I imagine so.

That's kind of what they did round the world, isn't it?

We should go, I think.

It's one of the busiest days of the week - market day -

and a chance for David and Hugh to learn the rules of the road

Ethiopia style.

With just three cars for every 1,000 people, livestock take priority.

Oh, my God, that donkey swerved in front of us!

Look out, cows.

Goodness me! Come on, guys.

HORN BEEPS

They're not the fastest-moving animals in the world.

-What's the advantage to them getting out our way?

-Well, I could kill them.

This is the hardest I've ever been, by the way.

The road they're on was built after the terrible famine in the 1980s

to create access for vital aid to Dese and the surrounding area.

The threat of drought still haunts Ethiopia

and this road is a lifeline.

Are we going to stop at a house?

-It would be good.

-No, no, it would.

We've so many of these small villages.

Small thatched settlements.

I'd like to stop.

This is the sort of village that we've seen before

but not actually been inside.

Hello. What are your names?

-Devrie.

-Devrie, I'm David.

David. What's your name?

-Sesay.

-Sesay?

-Hugh.

Devrie, Sesay...?

-Larege.

-Larege?

-Larege.

-Larege.

Does everything happen in this one room? Are they for sleeping in?

TRANSLATION:

And do you use that?

-That's brilliant!

-It's an LED and the battery is a little 9 volt.

What work do you do?

Has this new road changed the village?

-Beautiful.

-Yes, it's beautiful, isn't it?

We have a long journey ahead.

-Thank you very much.

-We've seen inside a lovely house.

Thank you, bye-bye.

Isn't it amazing that they'd welcome you into their house?

I mean, if someone came to your house in London and went,

"Excuse me, can I come in?

"Can we ask you some questions about what you do, how do you earn money,

"how far is it to the nearest shop?"

DAVID LAUGHS

"Since the road's been built, have you noticed a change in your life?"

Yeah.

The boys are desperate to get to their hotel in Dese

but they still have a narrow mountain pass to cross.

When it gets dark, it's going to be properly horrible

cos you're not going to be able to see where the road goes at all.

That barrier is not going to stop anyone if we did crash through.

No, not really.

In the dark, on the top of a cliff.

I don't like the cliff edge at all.

You can see, there's some people on the right-hand side.

Yeah, I've got them but I don't want to take them too.

Car approaching.

-Yeah, is that moving or...?

-It's moving, yeah.

We can't get through that, can we?

No, there's a cliff edge there, and he's asking us to go through there.

I'm not doing it.

-OK, well, what are we going to do? He wants us to do it.

-That is mad.

OK, hold on.

-You going to do it?

-Yeah.

-OK, go very close to him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going to, don't worry.

-As close as...

-Yeah, you're fine.

-OK.

I wonder if we should pull over.

If you're going to pull over, let's pull over now.

-Oi, OK.

-OK.

I'm going to get out the car.

I'm going to get out the car. I can't bear it.

-There's nothing much else I can do.

-OK.

I'm finding it traumatic, genuinely.

-This is bonkers.

-This is totally bonkers.

Next morning, Hugh and David begin heading north, towards Lalibela.

They're taking a road built by foreign military powers.

In the 1930s, the Italian fascist leader Mussolini

colonised neighbouring Somalia and Eritrea.

In 1936, he invaded Ethiopia.

In just five years, 60,000 Italian labourers

built roads all over the country.

How does it benefit Mussolini, Italy,

to be building roads in Ethiopia?

Is it to say to the local population,

"Look, if you let us rule you, you can have things like roads?"

No, it's to say, "Here's a road we're going to send some tanks down

"and we can get stuff in and out and our troops can move round quickly."

So it's purely just so that they can rape and pillage off the road.

It makes it much easier to rule a country if you've got a good road system.

But as Hugh and David are about to discover,

it's not as safe as it might look.

The road cuts through and area where khat, a legal natural amphetamine,

is grown and sold by the roadside.

Look, here's a massive khat stall.

When are WE going to get some khat?

Particularly, I want to give YOU some khat.

-Why, do you want to see what happens?

-So you go crazy.

Don't get me wrong, but I imagine you're a very drug-free type of fellow?

I should think, probably, in my life, I've had about ten paracetamols.

-I've had less paracetamol than you've had in the last two days.

-That's true.

With my terrible, drug-addled palate.

There's a lot of khat there.

That's a HUGE bunch of khat being sold.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Hi. Is this khat?

Can we buy some khat?

We'll have that, OK. How much is that?

There you go, sir. There's 100 birr for you.

Thank you. Can I ask you a question?

You sell here every day? You sell this stuff every day?

Every day you come here?

And do the truck drivers stop?

Minibus drivers?

How does it make you feel? Will he go crazy?

-Will I go crazy?

-Will he go crazy?

Sometimes I'll go crazy.

Keep up my brain?

I think I'll probably just keep down my brain by eating that.

OK, well, thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

You're never, ever going to sleep again.

How are you feeling?

-Well...I'm still eating it.

-I've noticed that.

Now that I'm starting to eat what is basically a bit of tree...

You know what it is actually like?

It is like sitting next to a panda.

DAVID CHUCKLES

That's what pandas look like.

Yeah. What? What do you mean, that's what pandas look like?

I haven't got big black eyes and fur?

You've got white patches, though, here.

DAVID CHUCKLES

Are you feeling happy or depressed?

I tell you, it's given me a bit of a heady feeling.

-Oh. Ai, ai...

-Ai-ai-ai-ai-oi!

God!

You see, that's where I think, if I was driving

and I was khatted out my head, I would have crashed.

Khat leaves are the biggest killer on this road.

More than three-quarters of all crashes

are caused by truck drivers using khat to stay awake

during their long journeys.

I quite fancy going in one of those trucks.

-Don't you think that would be interesting?

-Yeah, I quite fancy it, too.

I think it might be quite scary...

cos they drive about four times faster than we do.

Look, here's a truck.

Shall we ask him? They look all right. They look not so frightening.

-Cheerio.

-Have a lovely time on your own.

-I'm going to come and see you're all right.

-All right.

Ten minutes? Ten minutes ride in the truck?

Can I come with you?

Drivers are paid by the job, so they use khat as a stimulant,

and David's up for a bit of stimulation.

Goodbye. May God be with you!

My name is Sowalu.

-Sowalu. David.

-Massai.

No seat belts?

-Yeah.

-No seat belts, yeah.

-OK. He's got one but we're OK!

-No, no.

HUGH: Seems a bit unfair, really.

I really want to go in that lorry!

I want to be in the lorry!

-I support Manchester United.

-You support Manchester United?

-Yeah.

-I support Chelsea.

-Chelsea?

-Manchester United is the bigger.

-It's always Manchester United.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-Chelsea...

-Yeah. Well, yes!

-But Chelsea sometimes bigger.

-No, no, no.

Yes, they have been.

-Chelsea won the Premier League twice, a few seasons ago.

-Yeah.

I think actually what's happening on this trip...

..is I'm becoming a bit of a father figure.

I told him how he can clean his shoes.

I'm effectively picking him up from a party.

-OK, thank you.

-OK?

You know, in for a penny, in for a pound.

-I don't want to eat all his khat.

-Yeah.

He's got to have some.

Although it might be safer if I eat it all!

I hand him the sun cream, make sure he doesn't get burnt...

..and then paracetamol when he's got a bit of a headache.

And when he says I'm the one going into the Isuzu truck,

I go, "Yes, that's fine."

Before he drives back, does he rest?

-30 minutes.

-30 minutes?

-Yeah.

-And then you come straight back again?

Do you not worry about falling asleep?

Do you not worry about...

-You sleep...

-No.

Yeah.

No rest.

Six hours, you stop.

OK. And you sleep in the car, in the truck, you sleep here? OK.

Aah, look at that!

Oh...

So that's a minibus upside down in the middle of the road.

Have you ever had any accidents?

-Ship? Oh, sheep.

-Yeah.

-You hit a sheep?

Two sheep.

You hit two sheep.

Did have to pay for that?

-600 birr for the sheep.

-Yes.

-That's quite a lot.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, thank you, it was really good.

I'll just have a last... No, I won't!

OK.

How have you been without me?

-How have I been what...?

-I've had about 25lb of khat.

-Oh, have you?

I'm just going to climb in here, cos I will never climb in the front of a lorry.

-OK, this is my mate. What's his name, again?

-Sowalu.

Sowalu. This is my mate, Sowalu.

And he's a really cool guy.

-How much khat have you had?

-Quite a lot, yeah. I don't know how they do it.

He has it every day, so he's not quite as smiley as me about it.

-Hang on, handbrake's on, and I'm the one who's not been having khat.

-Yes.

Now, I know that you will have been complaining about that fact that I was in that cab and you weren't...

-Yeah, the most tedious half hour of my life.

-..but here's what you forget.

-Yeah?

-I was immediately offered an enormous amount of khat.

-Yeah.

-You would have had to say no.

-No, I might have...

That would have created a certain amount of resentment,

-because it's clearly part and parcel of the experience, and, also...

-I wouldn't have minded that.

I wouldn't have necessarily had as much as I imagine you had.

I might get carsick.

Passing through a village, there's a sobering reminder for David and Hugh

of the dangers on these roads.

OK, so this is an accident.

Is it an accident?

Yeah. Looks quite bad.

There's a bus here with a broken windscreen.

Was there an accident?

-Yes, went round and round. Spun round.

-Yeah.

Did the car hit someone standing?

A 19-year-old-boy died in the accident.

Yeah.

The drivers are having khat.

-Do you think...

-Yeah.

-..that's what causes the accidents?

Yeah.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

The really scary thing about that, for me,

was the fact that it was just every day.

That guy said he'd lost two mates, didn't he?

Yeah. There is a casualness with which people talk about death.

Erm...

-Which only happens when lots of people die.

-Yeah.

WIND CHIMES

Most Ethiopians are Orthodox Christians.

Even the smallest villages have churches.

The people's religious devotion

and the death on the road

have made the guys rather philosophical.

I think there's a link, isn't there, really,

between what we're hearing about life around this road

and how fragile life is,

with that kind of proper, intense devotion to religion.

Why, because you have to believe in a life after this one?

Yeah, and you have to also, I think,

find a way of making your life count.

It's a kind of fairly obvious truism, isn't it,

the Church had more power in Europe

when life was more like it is on this road,

i.e., when people died very casually and very easily.

Hugh and David are still an exhausting 100km drive

from Lalibela, a religious World Heritage Site.

But it should be worth it.

So, I'm quite excited by Lalibela.

Lalibela used to take four days to get to,

and there wasn't really a road there at all...

until relatively recently. This is the quickest way to Lalibela.

But that must be crucial for the economy,

because Lalibela is probably the tourist centre of Ethiopia.

In the 12th century, King Lalibela had a big vision -

to build a new Jerusalem.

So he commissioned a series of churches so extraordinary

that some people consider their construction a miracle.

Some scholars have estimated

it would have taken a workforce of 40,000 to construct the churches.

-Yeah.

-Locals claim that toiling all the hours of daylight,

the earthly workforce was then replaced with a celestial one,

who toiled all the hours of darkness.

How many builders would that take?

COCKNEY ACCENT: "Well, that's going to take, what, 40,000?"

"Well, if we can, what we'll do is,

-"at the night-time, we'll put on a celestial one."

-Yeah.

"They're quite hard to get, the angels. You know what they're like.

-"They've got all sorts of other stuff they're doing."

-Yeah. "How long's it going to take?"

"Well, probably to the end of the 13th century."

"I know you wanted it done by Christmas... DAVID LAUGHS

"..but you changed the spec.

-"Originally, you wanted the new Basingstoke..."

-Yeah.

-"Originally, you said MDF was fine."

-Yeah.

-"Now you want rock hewn out of the ground."

-Yeah, exactly.

Before 1955, the isolated mountain town of Lalibela

was accessible only on foot.

It would take worshippers days to reach the churches

along rough mule tracks.

With a long day ahead, Hugh and David decide to get there early.

Is that it?

There it is.

The question is, why you would carve a church out of rock

rather than just use rock to build the church?

-Erm...

-Do you think it's thought to be more magnificent,

-and a greater offering, or...?

-Yeah.

-If King Lalibela...

-Yeah.

-..had a vision, which he did,

and in that vision, he was told to build the new Jerusalem...

-I think the new Jerusalem doesn't mean he comes home and copies Jerusalem.

-Yeah.

-I think it means, go back and do something incredible.

-How deep is it?

Well, it's actually deep enough for me to be a bit frightened on the edge.

-How do you get in?

-I don't think that's the way in.

-You don't just jump?

-Yeah, you have to parachute in.

-That was the one mistake they made.

-THEY LAUGH

Of the 11 churches King Lalibela built,

this one, St George's, was the last and most ambitious.

Do you think the whole thing could just cave in on itself

and we'd be buried alive?

-I hope they had some kind of subsidence check.

-I tell you -

-no surveyor is going to sign this off.

-No, definitely not!

You'll never get a mortgage.

-Wow.

-I wonder if the original plan for this has survived.

-You've got to assume that they would have drawn it on something.

-Yeah.

There must have been planning meetings,

people drawing stuff out on parchment.

-And people getting cross with the contractors.

-Yeah.

-All that.

And this is the 11th church, of the 11.

-Yeah.

-So by the time King Lalibela had built the other 10,

he knew what he was doing, so this is the culmination, isn't it?

-This is sort of the pinnacle of his achievement.

-Look at this.

Are they bones?

I think they are, those look like feet.

Yeah, those are mummified corpses.

And it looks to me, because there's no statue element to them,

I guessing these weren't important priests or whatever,

that these were just people who came to pray here and died.

-If they've walked miles and miles to come here...

-So, the route that we've been travelling

-has been travelled for thousands of years...

-It has.

-..by pilgrims.

Do you think they have their replica of the Ark of the Covenant in here as well?

I can imagine so, cos all churches do here, don't they?

Wow.

-Hello. I'm David.

-Hello.

-What we doing...

-THEY LAUGH

I don't know what this bit is.

Are you the priest of the church?

-Yes.

-How long have you been the priest?

Do you remember when you first saw the church?

What did it feel like?

I've obviously spent a lot of time in churches,

because my dad was a vicar and a bishop,

so I've kind of grown up with churches,

but this is very different to anything, erm, British, really.

What it reminds me of more than anything else,

it feels like you're sort of backstage at a theatre.

You know, these are all great devotional objects, people are coming in and kissing the door,

and kissing the picture of St George,

and, you know, kneeling and kissing the floor and stuff,

but it really feels almost like these are sort of props,

left lying around.

It also feels like that curtain ought to open

and there ought to be an audience.

What is behind the curtain?

And no-one can see that?

Ethiopia is... I think it's the most religious country,

overtly religious country, I've ever been to, really.

And I like it, it's sort of, erm...

I don't know how it makes me feel, really.

I don't know, it's like stepping back in time, almost,

the level of devotion here.

HUGH CHUCKLES

Thank you very much.

To send the boys on their way,

it's time for a traditional but rather unexpected blessing.

Hopefully, it'll ensure a safe trip.

Are you going to be blessed first?

I am, yeah.

Oh!

HUGH CHUCKLES

Sorry...

Thank you.

Me?

DAVID STIFLES GIGGLES

THEY LAUGH

Thank you!

Please... No, please don't do it again!

THEY LAUGH

Thank you, sir.

Why am I saying thank you?!

That water's probably contaminated!

The first one was so...whoosh!

It was just unexpected, wasn't it?

I thought he was going to just dribble water on my head!

Not chuck it!

At first I thought he was just doing this to the Jew, but he did it to you too.

THEY LAUGH

-DAVID LAUGHS

-Do you know what?

I'm not sure he wants us to reach the end of our journey safely!

It's a very odd form of blessing.

The hardest part of their journey is still to come,

and they will need all the luck they can get.

-Well...

-That was good!

-I certainly feel thrice blessed.

-Possibly more than thrice.

-Yeah.

-Oi, oi, oi, oi, oi...

-Oi, oi!

-I'm becoming you. "Oi, oi, oi."

-Oi, oi, oi, oi.

-A fit of hysterical giggling.

-Yeah!

Yeah. By the way, I'm terrified of this bit of the road.

I'm talking, but I'm terrified of this bit of the road,

because that is as big a drop as we've seen so far.

It is, but you'd roll down that.

-You'd roll down it?

-You'd be fine.

-Yeah, erm... Like this.

-Yeah, like that.

-That's how you'd roll down it.

The reason you'll survive is, of course, that you're a bit like the Terminator.

-Do you think? I can't regenerate.

-Go on, put these on briefly.

I am taking my glasses off on a dangerous road,

but it's worth it, to show how much you look like the Terminator.

AS THE TERMINATOR: "I'll be back."

-There we go.

-I'm a T-1000 cybernetic organism sent from the future to protect you.

Yeah, well, I think if we crashed, I'll be dead, the goats'll be dead,

and then you would come out the car...

-I'd just look at my arm and go...

-..saying that. Yeah, you would.

-And I'd go...

-Yeah.

"No."

He says that a lot. "No."

-I should have my glasses back now, probably.

-"No."

DAVID LAUGHS

I can sort of see about... 10 feet ahead without my glasses.

"I can see over a kilometre."

I suspect this, by the way, is the Chinese Road.

This is the Chinese Road, here we are.

In the 1960s and '70s,

communism took hold of many parts of Africa, including Ethiopia.

This road was built by the Chinese in the late 1970s,

when Ethiopia was firmly under communist control.

It's the main artery linking the east and west of Northern Ethiopia.

-The Derg.

-The Derg, yeah.

-They're communists.

-And they turned to China for help.

-It's Maoist Chinese money.

-It's a political road.

-It's a road that's been built to help the spread of communism...

-Yeah.

-..into Africa.

-Which is probably why it's so well-built.

-Yeah.

-Ooh, this is going to be a fantastic bridge.

-Look at this.

-It's kind of Chinese, isn't it?

-Ooh.

-Which isn't...

-Whoa, whoa, whoa! Look at this!

It's incredible countryside.

I wonder what this road will do for our fuel consumption, David?

-Well, actually, we're on our reserve tank, as it is.

-Are we?

Although it's tarmacked,

Hugh and David are in fact on one of the deadliest roads in the country.

Carved into the mountain,

it's used largely by haulage trucks and overcrowded buses.

-This is a very, erm...

-Dangerous road.

-..dangerous bit of road.

It's also quite tempting to go quite fast on this road,

-cos it's really good.

-Yeah.

-It is yeah, but... You have to swing...

-Rock-hewn church!

-Where?

-Up there.

-What the fuck?

-What?

-Look at that!

Fuck me!

OK, I think we should stop.

That is ridiculous.

What is that? Is that... That's like a digger, or something.

Excuse me. Erm, do you know what happened here?

OK, so the digger was already falling off?

Yeah? And to save himself, he had to swing that way...

Was the driver OK?

When did this happen?

It's just been like this for three days.

No police have come?

What happens when it gets dark?

-Thank you, sir.

-Thank you.

The light's fading, but there's still 80km to go.

Hugh and David are longing for the comfort of their hotel,

when suddenly, there's trouble. Big trouble.

Right, here's a problem.

Have we run out of petrol?

ENGINE SPLUTTERS

OK, I think that's because it thinks it's being nicked.

Why don't you lock it and unlock it?

-Lock it and unlock...

-No, no, it's not...

-OK.

-OK, yeah.

-It's to do with that, it's got... The immobiliser's gone.

-DOOR SLAMS

-You might have to...

Erm... We've got a strange problem here, which is... I, I think, forgot to lock the car,

and then if you don't lock this car for over about five minutes,

the immobiliser goes off and no-one seems to know how to re-mobilise it.

The immobiliser went off and we tried to start the car,

which means that we're definitely stealing it.

I don't want to play the blame game, but it's your fault.

-You started it!

-Well, frankly, I think we've got a bit of a problem.

Some of the locals are trying to sort the problem

by literally taking the car to pieces.

-We've got a torch.

-Do you want a hand?

This isn't a small job they're doing here.

They've taken apart the entire dashboard

and we don't know if any of them are qualified engineers.

Running low on luck, they begin to consider their options.

-We could get the tent out.

-That looks like a good place to camp.

Honestly, with all this diesel on the road,

I don't think starting a fire is going to be problem!

ENGINE STARTS

Oh! That's good. Good sound! That's a very good sound!

Can we turn it off?

Only if they can. If they can't turn it off...

Fantastically, they've got it started so we're not stuck here for the night

but I don't know whether we dare turn it off again.

-Are we allowed to turn it off?

-I don't know.

We've got about 50km of petrol left and it's 80km to the hotel.

-We'll find a petrol station.

-But then we have to stop the car.

We can only worry about one thing at a time.

-We have to stop the car at the petrol station. We haven't thought about that.

-No!

-No!

-A round of applause for the guys!

-Thank you, guys. Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

-Am I driving now?

-Yeah, you're driving.

-How do you turn these off?

-And if you stall, I'll kill you.

-The hazard lights won't turn off.

-I know.

They must have changed the wiring, or something.

-Yes, OK.

-Right.

-Careful about the road, it's very slippery here.

There's a lorry going very slowly up ahead.

-I'm not going to overtake it, am I?

-Don't overtake it.

-Oh!

-What?

The indicators are going absolutely mental.

It is good to know that anywhere in the world,

if your car breaks down, men will appear from nowhere.

And they can hot-wire it. They can just hot-wire the car.

He's going off, right? He wants us to overtake.

Oh, good. Thanks, mate.

-Yeah, but that's...

-Is that all right?

-Don't know.

-We do need petrol, though. Diesel.

-What have we got?

-We've got almost none.

-We'll scrape some off the road!

-It now actually reads empty.

-This is a weird part of the road. Look.

-There's also a pavement.

-There's also a town, which might mean a garage.

I hope so.

Oh, there is a petrol station. There's a closed petrol station.

Hello. Guys, sorry to interrupt, but we need some petrol.

This is as about as close to a terrorist cell as I've ever been.

I know it isn't, but it really looks like one.

Hello. Can you tell us what you're doing?

OK.

MEN CHATTER IN OWN LANGUAGE

Can we get petrol? Hello?

This doesn't meet British health and safety standards.

OK, what's happening is, there's a pump, obviously,

and there's a power... So the pump is not working,

and they're trying to fix the power to give us some petrol

and it's a bit dangerous because there's a lot of live wiring

and it's a petrol station.

I'm starting think we should try and make it with the petrol we've got.

-And we can't turn the car off.

-And we can't turn the car off.

So it's just using petrol the whole time.

MEN SHOUT

-Oh!

-Eh?

-Eh? Is it working?

-Is the pump working?

-Thank you.

-Thank you, thank you, thank you.

You saved our lives.

-How many things have gone wrong?

-Since when?

-Since we stopped.

I would say, the car stopped working,

then we were running out of petrol, then we got to a garage

but the garage had to be re-wired to give us petrol.

-I'm hoping that's the three.

-I need a beer.

I'd quite like a cup of tea. A cup of hot, sweet tea.

-I'm quite tired, David.

-Are you? I can take over if you want.

No, no, no. I'm fine. I'm sort of...

HUGH SCREAMS

Oh, God! That was a dog, wasn't it?

That was a dog and that was... Is it all right? Did we hit it?

-No, we didn't hit it at all.

-OK.

-It just ran off.

Gordon Bennett, I've got goose pimples on my arms.

You do genuinely like to say "Gordon Bennett".

Hugh and David eventually find refuge,

but it's not exactly what they had in mind.

We got to the hotel, it didn't have any rooms left,

double booked, so we've been moved to this hotel.

I'm not sure it actually is a hotel.

This is my window.

HE LAUGHS

Oh... I have to sleep here.

Anyway, good night. Sleep tight.

The following morning, David's got troubles of a rather different kind.

I spent quite a lot of the night in a sitting position...

-in the bathroom.

-What, just sitting with stuff pouring from your bottom?

I don't think I've necessarily ate anything particularly bad, but I have been eating solidly.

They're now heading north towards the Simien Mountains.

It's the start of the Aksum Road and the pilgrimage route

that will take them to the home of the Ark of the Covenant.

-Oh, there's a kid on the back.

-Oh, no, no. Really?

I am frightened about running over one of these kids at some point.

Now, just an update on my arse.

-Yeah, OK.

-The weird thing, I feel better,

still a bit queasy, but there doesn't seem to be a let-up

in the need to go to the lavatory,

and indeed the consistency of the stool.

Can I just say, there hasn't been any let-up

-in the consumption of food, has there?

-That's true!

It is only 11 hours since your spate of diarrhoea began.

-You have had scrambled egg, cheese...

-Liver sausage.

Liver sausage, two cups of coffee, spaghetti with tomato sauce.

Did you have any bread?

I had some bread as well. I thought that might clag me up a bit.

I'm of the opinion that my body would tell me if it didn't want to eat.

Well, do you not think it's giving you a slight clue, isn't it(?)

-OK, now I'm getting a sense of being in the mountains.

-Yeah.

Hugh and David have reached one of the most dramatic landscapes in Africa -

the Simien Mountains,

formed by intense volcanic activity 40 million years ago.

Simien, of course, means "like a monkey".

-Yes, we should almost definitely see gelada baboon.

-Gelada baboon.

Does that sound to you like an ice cream made of baboon?

DAVID LAUGHS

David's spot-on. They've got company.

These gelada baboons, native only to Ethiopia,

are the last surviving species of grass-grazing monkey.

-Is that the male?

-I don't know. Where?

-There.

-Oh, yeah.

-Shall we go say hello to him?

-Yeah, OK.

How close can you get to a baboon, safely?

I don't know. They look all right.

-Well, so do lions.

-You not coming down here?

-I'll come, but I think we should generally keep our distance from the big male baboon.

-Yeah.

-They might have lured me in and they'll suddenly all turn on me now. I've got nowhere to go.

-Just run.

It's all gone off!

Oh, the little one. It looked to me like this one kidnapped the child.

They've got slightly evil eyes, haven't they?

They do look a bit evil.

Now just one very long, very dusty

and very precipitous road separates them from their final destination.

They'll leave the Simien Mountains behind

and follow the only road north to the once-mighty kingdom of Aksum.

This road does seem slightly endless doesn't it? Sort of endless dust.

Yeah. We're on a pilgrimage, though.

It's part and parcel of pilgrimage.

There's about 1,000 people on this truck careering round this bend.

-Where's the road?

-Where is the road?

The best bet with the dust is just to assume the road is still there.

-It doesn't disappear because there's a load of dust.

-I find it a bit unsettling.

-It's getting very narrow up here.

-It's great, though, isn't it?

It's brilliant, but it's slightly frightening.

-Do you want to go back to sleep?

-No.

-I'll tell you when it's over?

No, it's fine. But the barriers are very...

there and not there.

You kind of think the reason they're not there...

-Someone's gone through them.

-Yeah. They're now at the bottom.

-Another car's not going to be very good news, is it?

-Not really.

Oh, God, there's a very dead donkey there.

Ohh, that's a hideous thing!

God! I hope you don't have to go forward over the donkey,

-cos there'll be a horrible squelching noise.

-I don't think I do.

Watch out, you're going quite near the side.

-No, I'm not. I'm fine.

-You really are.

The road winds its way down 2,000 metres to the valley bottom.

It's a bit punishing today, isn't it?

Shall we listen to music? It pays to chat but I don't think we'll make it.

MUSIC BEGINS

# That's where you're at

# Going down a bumpy hillside... #

Perfect!

# ..In your hippy hat... #

Wey-ey!

# ..Saying everything is groovy

# When your tyres are flat... #

THEY SING ALONG # ..And it's hi-ho, silver lining

# Everywhere you go now, baby

# I see your sun is shining... #

Don't know the next bit. Something, something, something!

For the next 200 kilometres, the road is under construction.

The guys are going to need their 4x4.

It'll be an arduous, bone-shaking ride.

-We've rattled to death on this road.

-Yeah, that's the problem.

-Whoa-oa-oa!

-Hey-ey-ey!

-That needs a bit of levelling.

It's a bit tight, there.

Don't worry, we went over it quickly.

Ohh...I'm starting to feel a bit...stiff.

I'm sure we're going to hit a point where we can go no further.

This doesn't look good.

The digger's coming through.

Where do we go? Where's the road?

New roads are changing the face of the country,

as rapidly expanding nations like India and China look to Africa

for its natural resources.

China alone has invested hundreds of millions of pounds

in Ethiopia's infrastructure over four decades.

This isn't a road. It's not a road.

We're driving across the moon.

We're driving across the moon, exactly!

A mammoth undertaking, this road is being carved across two valleys,

opening up trade and access for rural villages.

THEY GROAN

It's like spending nine hours inside a maraca.

DAVID LAUGHS

This bit's nuts! This bit is...mental.

-He didn't entirely see you coming, I don't think.

-No.

I tell you what - you drive for a bit.

-I'm feeling a little bit faint.

-OK.

DAVID GROANS

OK, I've suddenly got a terrible need to relieve my bowels again.

Do we have...toilet paper?

-You had the toilet paper.

-I don't know where it's gone.

-Right, OK. Well...

-Anything on your side?

-I can give you toilet paper.

Yes, that might be an idea.

-Something bad is going on.

-Is it?

Oh, dear, dear, dear. Oh, no.

You see trees up ahead?

Need trees...or anything, really.

I've got a little bit put away for you.

DAVID CHUCKLES

Here, just in my bag... I thought, "Just in case of emergencies."

Once again, Daddy Hugh has saved the day.

CHILDREN LAUGH AND CHATTER

I was very convinced they were going to come and stare at me.

Are they behind the car?

ENGINE STARTS

Dare I ask, what sort of consistency was it?

Pretty solid, yeah, fine.

With David feeling on more solid ground,

they're reaching Aksum's outskirts.

The city was once the centre of a great civilisation

that controlled the trading routes between the Roman Empire and India

in the early centuries of Christianity.

But modern-day Aksum?

Right, so this is Aksum.

It's so NOT ancient. It's not even new yet.

-That's nearly finished, that one.

-Is it?

-No.

This is practically the end of our journey, then.

So, all we've got to do is find the Ark of the Covenant...

Look at it, not have our eyes burned out.

Their gruelling 1,300-mile trip has led the guys here,

to the holiest place in all Ethiopia,

the Churches of St Mary of Zion.

Finally, they're just yards from the most sacred relic in the land -

the Ark of the Covenant - fabled to house the Ten Commandments.

-It's a fairly impressive thing.

-This looks fairly new to me, though.

-Welcome to Aksum, Zion church.

-Thank you.

-How are you?

-I'm good. I'm David.

-I'm Hugh. Are you a guide?

-Yes, I'm deacon also.

-Oh, you're a deacon. That sounds good.

-This is the...

-New church, King Haile Selassie.

-Oh.

-Haile Selassie built this?

-The Ark of the Covenant is behind the new church.

-Behind this church.

In a small chapel.

Shall we get there?

-So that... I can tell you that.

-That is the home of the Ark.

That is the home of the Ark.

The monk is inside every day. That is the chapel of the Ark.

Oh, there? Oh, the monks come out.

-He lives in the chapel.

-He lives inside.

-He never comes out of the compound.

-What do you think is in the Ark of the Covenant?

The Ten Commandments inside. Ten Commandments. As received from God.

Why are they not in Israel? Cos that's where they were given to Moses.

The miracle of the Ark is the Ark coming to Ethiopia.

-So it's part of a miracle.

-It's a miracle.

-Yes.

What would happen if someone did accidentally see the Ark?

-Blind. A lot of miracles.

-Bad miracles?

-Yeah.

-You'd be...

-Very high power. Strong power, strong power.

'I am a fundamental atheist.

'I'm so comfortable with the fact that God doesn't exist'

that I really quite like religion, and here,

for someone who likes religion, likes it culturally

and what it says about people and about where you are, this is a brilliant place.

People really believe it, they really believe in religion as a proper magical thing.

They particularly like the idea of ascribing magic and power

to some extent to whatever they can find, which is what Ethiopia is.

It's a place where they make use of whatever they can find

and they've done that on a big scale with the Ark of the Covenant.

-Can we get any closer?

-This is the border.

-And we're not allowed any closer than this?

-Never.

-This grave is the border?

-Yes.

So we've travelled, what is it, 2,000 kilometres to see this,

and you're saying this is as far as we can go?

Yes. Never to inside here.

This is a border for the Ark of the Covenant.

-This is the end.

-This is a line never to come out.

We don't cross this.

I'm not disappointed by not seeing the Ark of the Covenant.

I didn't think we'd get to see it or even get that close to it.

In a way, I think you get more power from seeing how much you're not allowed to see them.

You get more of a sense of what it means to the Ethiopians

and the reality of the magic of those stones by the refusal to see them.

I just think it is a great country.

Really interesting mix of myth and magic

and religion and modernity, and all the rest of it.

You can joke about it, and we have,

but I think it just gives Ethiopia a sense that it is special.

I think they think of themselves, genuinely, as a kind of special people.

We can say we won the World Cup in 1966.

They can say, "We've got the Ark of the Covenant!

"Yes, that's us. Ethiopia!"

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