(Composed on jan 22)
The trip from Aswan (Egypt) to Wadi Halfa (Sudan) was as expected: loading and unloading was pure chaos. The moment you think, we can sail, a bunch of trucks entered the docks and started unloading huge piles of boxes. A lot of screaming and yelling, every box was carried aboard by hand.
All the cabins aboard the ferry were reserved for the TdA-riders, there were not enough cabins, who would need to sleep on the deck was determined on the basis of age. So I spend a fine night in a bed, with a view of the Nasser-lake through the cabin-window.
The Sudanese and Egyptian people stayed in the third-class room, a steaming joint full of boxes, people, and food. In the morning I sat on the deck taking a sunbath, and viewing the beautiful temple of Abu Simbel on shore. It started to look like a holiday!
The arrival in Wadi Halfa was as chaotic as the departure from Aswan: again a lot of running around, and shoving luggage to and fro, putting stickers on, signing, etc. Finally everyone was at the right side of the fence and we could leave for our first camping site in Sudan: the local football-stadium of Wadi Halfa. Henri Gold, the owner and co-inventor of the Tour dÁfrique was there as well. He’ll be accompanying us through Sudan
The Sudanese people are very friendly, everybody is yelling “welcome” to you. A very nice contrast to Egypt, where the most popular English word is “money”.
Because the support trucks traveled on a different barge to Wadi Halfa, they arrived later at the camp-site. We could therefore not cycle on the wednesday, we had an extra unexpected rest day. On one hand: nice, on the other hand: bad news. We now have to cycle one of the hardest parts of the Tour (N-Sudan to Dongola) in 4 in stead of 5 days. “No problem” says Duncan, the Tour-director, there seems to be a lot of extra tarmac on the road compared to last year so we can easily make up for the lost time.
Tomorrow the first 120 km through the desert: I’m looking forward to it.