Sand, corrugated roads and rocks….

A message from Dongola, a middle-large town on the Nile, half-way between the Egyptian border and Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. We’re camping on the grounds of a former zoo, which went out of business in 1998. Looking at all the children that are standing on the fences trying to catch a glimp of us, monkey watching has never stopped!
The past four days we traveled 430 km through the desert, 90% on off-the-road conditions: sometimes packed dirt, sometimes loose sand that smothers your bike, and almost always the road is corrugated. This of course slows you off enormously, and it wears you down. You constantly have to be on the alert to find the right track to minimize the vibrations. I’m very glad I bought a mountain bike with front suspension, it makes these corrugations a little bit less tiring. A lot of riders are having a hard time, starting at 8.00h and coming in around 16.30h, totally worn down. For me it is very hard as well, but luckily I manage to get to camp on a reasonable time. My body is still working ok, no need for any worries (yet!).
The scenery is absolutely breathtaking: very dry, spacious and empty, beautiful. The villages we pass are poor, but everybody has large clay houses, some of them decorated with all sorts of colors, and built to keep the heat out.
The people are very open and friendly, and willing to have a chat with you or to be put on photo. This also goes for the veiled women. Upon till now Sudan does not comply with the image that normally is presented in the media. But then of course this hardly ever is about the ordinary people.
Temperatures are gradually rising, yesterday we hit the 30 degrees mark, so no problem there yet. Probably it will get higher every day, I wonder how I will adjust to that.
Tomorrow we will be leaving for Khartoum, 600 km in 5 days. Luckily it will be a 100% tarmac road, that should be a nice ride.

Welcome to Sudan!!

(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.