7500 Miles

This was the first morning there were no mosques nearby to help me wake up. Our truck that had faithfully played wake-up music for us every day so far also failed to play music this morning. I can no longer set my alarm either, since it is a feature of my broken iPhone. Considering how tired I tend to be at the end of each day, I’m not surprised that I overslept this morning and frantically struggled to down a bowl of breakfast mush and get my stuff jammed into my locker before the trucks left.

I was pleasantly surprised to see our injured rider back in camp this morning. (I am intentionally leaving out names of injured riders so their friends and family back home can be notified properly.) He wasn’t riding, of course. One more strong rider out of EFI.

Today was our first day of dirt riding. After 49k of pavement, we turned off the paved road and covered the remaining 81k in mostly-corrugated dirt. As people’s abilities in different types of terrain varies, more riders lost EFI today and the trucks were filled to capacity. We were told that all roads should lead to our camp in Azaza that evening, but it turned out not to be the case, as more than 6 riders got lost and rode much further than 81k on dirt. Gizzy arrived at dark, and Eric came in at 7:30PM. Wayne and Patrick ended up taking a completely different (but much longer) route altogether, but still made it back to camp.

The first village I rode through was very cool, with tall grass fences along the road, and happy children and adults cheering us on. After that, attitudes varied by village. In some places locals would clap or sing. In others, people would should incomprehensible syllables, give strange hand signals, or throw sticks and stones. Villages are small with round huts made of mud or grass. Each village has a small water tower with a black & white checkerboard pattern on it.

There was one village offering cold Pepsi in the afternoon. I stopped and the children swarmed around my bike. A man that was referred to as “the police” guarded it while I stood inside the small shop and drank my beverage in front of a hundred sets of curious eyes. A man who seemed to be the chief of the village came in and said hello. Then he insisted that I give him a cigarette. I didn’t have any of course, so I told him no. Then he demanded I give him money. Again, I declined. Then he wanted my bike. I left quickly and finished the day.

South of Khartoum, the roads were not what they had been the rest of the way through Sudan. They were as narrow as they had been throughout the country, but in much worse condition. They also featured something the rest of the country’s roads didn’t: traffic. The traffic wasn’t very forgiving either. I had to jump off the road several times. With my narrow road tires, I wasn’t able to stay in control at one point and fell hard into the dirt. I landed on my arm, so my shoulder was hurt. Aside from that I mostly just had road rash. The driver of the vehicle that ran me off the road stopped and helped me up. After making sure I was OK, I think he gave me a lecture on how to ride on the road. At the time, I just assumed he was telling me to wait for a ride, so I thanked him and rode on with one arm.
Back at camp, I rigged myself a sling with a strap from my duffel bag. I had joked that I could set up my tent with one hand tied behind my back. It turns out that I can. Everybody had similar problems with traffic, and told stories of having to jump off the road to avoid being run over.
One rider had flown over her handlebars and suffered a concussion when an enthusiastic local jumped out in front of her. She had to be taken to a hospital and checked out. Needless to say, she lost her EFI status. Another rider had fallen and cracked her helmet and sported some serious road rash. Out of curiosity, I took a look at my helmet. Sure enough: split all the way across. The decorative plastic covering was all that was holding it together. Once the nurse was available, I had her check me out. Nothing broken. I had a rotator cuff injury, which is muscular. It will be painful for a number of weeks, but should heal. I got an injection of anti-inflammatory medication that seemed to help almost immediately.
The next morning, my shoulder was OK to ride, as long as I was gentle with it. It ached throughout the day, but it wasn’t intolerable. Today I started noticing problems with sun sensitivity as well. It’s a well-known side-effect of doxycycline. I hope it doesn’t get much worse. My skin stings when it comes into contact with something, and tingles everywhere else that has been exposed to the sun.
After lunch, I noticed that I could easily be riding on rural roads back home. Everything about them was identical, from the quality of the surface, to the consistency of the shoulders, to the number and type of defects, to the weeds growing along the roads. A little later we had a turn-off and rode through some small towns filled to the brim with children. Most of them were enthusiastically happy to say hello. Many also wanted to high-five, and would hit our arms or our bikes if we didn’t do it. I nearly ran over a kid that grabbed my handlebars. One group of crafty little brats built a speed bump and then crowded in from both sides of the road and started hitting me and throwing things. One boy threw a glass bottle that broke right next to my front tire.
Back at camp, I learned that one of the female riders had been severely harassed by a group of teenage boys. This led to a passionate discussion at the rider meeting of what can be done when we encounter these sorts of things. I also learned that my iPhone will no longer charge, even with the SIM card removed (an obviously less-important topic).
During dinner, a bus arrived and people started piling out and running around our camp. Then we were treated to a karate and gymnastics demonstration by a couple of local groups. We took pictures of them performing, and then they took pictures with their mobile phones of us eating our dinner. Nothing breaks up a monotonous stretch of desert landscape like a random karate demonstration.
After dinner, one of the riders wasn’t acting quite right. He said he was fine, but just had empty answers to anyone’s questions. Closer inspection revealed that his helmet had a large crack and had had a lot of scrapes around his neck. It appeared as though he had been hit by a car, but had no recollection of the event. His condition deteriorated quickly after that. He obviously had a serious concussion and was driven back to a hospital. This was scary for all of us to watch.

Our fourth day of the stretch into Khartoum started with our first time trial. Everyone had the option of racing the first 20k, followed by an easy 40k ride to lunch. After lunch, we began a long convoy into (or more accurately around) Khartoum. With sirens blaring, we were paraded through the outskirts of Khartoum to the National Camping Grounds south of the city. The locals didn’t know what to make of us. Instead of the waves and hellos that we were used to from the countryside, we were mostly met with blank stares of confusion.

Some of the train crossings and potholes were a bit hard on the bikes. Somehow, my tire pump fell apart during our slow-moving convoy. When we arrived at the campground, I made an impromptu decision to ride into town for a hotel. I wasn’t feeling well, and thought a room with a bed and a shower might help me recover. It turned out to be a good choice, as I became good friends with the porcelain throne as well. In addition, I got a chance to do my laundry in the bathroom (it took three washes to get some of it clean), and could use the Internet from my room.

While on the Internet, I learned a trick with the iPhone: by ejecting the SIM card, you can sometimes get it to accept a charge. It worked! I have a phone again!

The hotel I’m in was part of a western chain but had been taken over by the Chinese. Since it was run by a mostly-Chinese staff, it had a lot of features that reminded me of my stay last year in Asian hotels–very clean bathrooms, shrink-wrapped combs and single-use toothbrushes each day, a Chinese food buffet each morning, and a system where you have to return your deposit receipts in order to check out. The only real downside of the hotel: it cost much more than I really wanted to spend.

The first night, I joined a group for a dinner that cost much more than I wanted to spend as well. We enjoyed a fantastic meal in the international restaurant on the top floor of the Birj Hotel that should have provided an excellent view of the city. It failed to do so, however, due to the shape of the hotel–the slanted windows only reflected images of the restaurant itself. The menu was great, however, and I had a whole page of vegetarian options to choose from on their international menu. The Birj hotel is probably the most expensive hotel in town, which is why we were surprised to find a fellow rider, Annalise, staying there when we showed up. We thought she didn’t stay at the Park Hotel with the rest of us because it was too expensive. I guess she had other reasons.

It’s hard to understand the infrastructure of Khartoum. Modern, sparkling office buildings punch through the dirty, decaying buildings that surround them. There are huge, gaping holes in the street and sidewalks, and many of the manhole covers are missing. To avoid the insane city traffic and avoid a catastrophic fall, you really have to be on your toes. If you were to go drinking, you would really be taking your life into your hands. Fortunately, Sudan is a completely dry country and no alcohol is for sale anywhere.

A group of riders learned that there might be a legal way to obtain beer. There is a Pick-Nick club inside the British Embassy that was open on Thursdays by invitation only. I came along just for fun and we tried to get on the invitation list. We eventually got to talk to someone on the inside (the ambassador, probably), who diplomatically told us that we couldn’t get in. A man at the WHO gave us a lead to try the French Embassy. We heard rumors of a few other embassies as well, but decided to just wander around town instead. We found the Blue Nile Sailing Club that sponsored our entry into Sudan. It’s a nice camping spot on the river. There were a couple of large Swedish tour buses there, as well as the German couple with the Unimog we shared the ferry from Egypt with.

I was due to restock some supplies, so I headed out for the Afga Mall. Considering the state of the city, or all of Sudan for that matter, I wasn’t expecting much. What I found there amazed me. It was a sparkling clean, air-conditioned mall. There was a big food court upstairs, a computer store, lots of foreign exchange stores, and a complete supermarket of Walmart proportions. The mall also sported a bowling alley, pool hall, and movie theater. I focused my attention on the supermarket–toilet paper, snacks, hand cleanser, baby wipes, …

We awoke in Dongola to the biggest Muslim wake-up call yet, and so were primed to jump out of our tents and prep for the day at break-neck speed. This was our first day of the new racing rules, where we can leave as early as we want to instead of waiting until 8:00. Because of this, all of the slower riders (like me) are trying to leave as early as possible so we can finish before dark.

This strategy worked pretty well for me, and I managed to push hard and keep up with groups in pace lines until lunch. We had very favorable tail winds for the first three days that definitely helped. The heat of the afternoons sapped my energy, however, and my speed dropped accordingly each day. We are on a four-day accelerated course to Khartoum to allow for our excursion through Dinder National Park next week. Every rider has different limits, and one decided to ride 65k in the dirt “just for fun.”

The days were long, and the infrequent coke stops very welcome. At one coke stop, however, I ended up with a broken spoke, probably after a boy decided he wanted to ride my bike. At the same stop, I dropped my toothbrush, and the strong-tempered shopkeeper seemed to want to sell it back to me. Unfortunately, I didn’t recognize it until that evening when I went to brush my teeth. That same man started yelling at Anke and pointing to her legs. My best guess is that he wasn’t pleased that there was some skin showing–even though she is probably the most conservatively-dressed female in our group, and is always wearing a long skirt over her bike shorts. It’s hard to explain the need for cycling shorts to the locals sometimes.

We saw a fair bit of camel herding in the mornings, when it was still cool. In the afternoons, we would ride past lone piles of camel bones in the desert. The first night after Dongola, we nicknamed our camp “Dead Camel Camp,” as we settled in between three rotting carcasses. We have outlasted these hardy creatures of the desert. For now.

This is our rest day in Dongola. First, a little more about the zoo we are staying in: It’s called the zoo, but really it’s more of a park. The only animals (aside from us) are concrete decorations on the benches. The lawn is well-manicured, and an excellent foundation for our tents. In the back, another gated-off area houses an amusement park with small but colorful carnival rides. There’s a hose that’s the perfect temperature for a shower after a hot day. It’s also good for washing clothes, which many of the riders chose to do. The place still has a zoo-like feel to it though, if we look at the bars to the outside and see all the eyes peering curiously in at us.

On one side there is a refreshment area where we can buy sodas and recharge our electronics in the shade. Opposite is a row of squat toilets that can be flushed by filling buckets with the aforementioned hoses.

I did the typical rest day stuff today: cleaned my bike, got my laundry back, stocked up on snacks, and tried to get caught up on Internet stuff. I managed to get a 2GB SIM to tether my iPhone to my computer and have Internet access between rest days. I was excited to get back to camp to try it, but my battery was low. Each time I plugged it in, however, caused the battery to drain faster. The charging symbol would be displayed, but the battery status indicator would drop. I wasted a large percentage of the day trying to get it working, to no avail. Cleaning the contacts didn’t help. Different chargers didn’t help. Nothing. If I can’t get it working again, that means that I won’t have a telephone, music player, currency converter, calculator, translator, GPS, or remote Internet access for the rest of the trip.

A little more about Dongola: It’s a smallish town with just a couple of main roads and one small market. We’ve found our favorite food court, next to a mosque. They have large chickens that most of the riders feast on. I stick to the fuul and falafel. The pita bread is better in Sudan than in Egypt, but the falafel is a bit plain. It doesn’t come with any other vegetables, just nuggets in a pita. When the call to prayers happen, all the men dressed in robes close their food stalls while they cross the parking lot to pray. Food service resumes 10-15 minutes later.

We have another surprise at camp: our trip to Khartoum will now take 4 days instead of 5. Sounds like we have a few hard days ahead of us.

Today was the day of the big crash. At least I hope it’s the biggest crash we’ll experience during the tour. Something tells me it’s not.

I finally managed to find a group I can keep up with if I really push myself. Riding in a group has a few advantages: wind resistance reduces effort by up to 30%, it’s easier to maintain a constant level of effort, and socializing helps the day go by faster. Here’s what happened: About 10 of us were riding in two lines. One rider bumped wheels with another, lost his balance, and fell into the middle of the group. One by one, four others fell behind him down the line. The domino effect seemed to happen in slow motion, but I was so taken by surprise I couldn’t warn anybody that it was about to happen. I was in the back of the group and managed to swerve and stop in time. I was also in the perfect position to observe it all, but had just turned off my helmet camera a couple of minutes before.

What you’re probably dying to hear is: was everyone alright? Yes. There was quite a bit of road rash and some bikes that needed adjusting. We collectively went through most of our first aid supplies before moving on.

By riding with a group, the day definitely went faster. I finished the 120km day and was in the zoo by 1PM. That’s right: the zoo. We’re inside; the locals are outside, looking through the bars. As you’ve probably figured out, we’re quite the spectacle when we roll into town in our spandex.

It’s a Friday, so most businesses in Sudan are closed until 5PM. I went out with a few riders and found some snacks and phone refill cards (the SIM cards we bought on the ferry had very little money on them). After that, we found a hotel and negotiated a rate for them to do our laundry. It was rather expensive, but one less thing to deal with. There was an Internet cafe around the corner with very poor connectivity, so I got some blog entries started, but again have no pictures ready.

Once on the road in the morning, the first thing to notice about the roads in Sudan is that they’re even better than the ones in Egypt. Thanks to intensive Chinese investment in Sudan, the road surfaces are brand new, perfectly flat, and free of debris. There isn’t a shoulder, but there is almost no traffic. Drivers are courteous and give us wide berth.

The second thing to notice is that the distances between towns are very long, and sights are few and far between. I can’t keep up with most of the riders on the tour for very long, so I end up riding on my own most of the time. I experimented with listening to music on my iPhone. It does help pass the time, but the battery isn’t cut out for our long days.

The locals we meet along the way are enthusiastically friendly, but not intrusive. Most everyone we pass smiles, waves, and shouts “Hello!” When we get to lunch or camp, a few will wander in to find out more about this strange group of brightly-colored cyclists is doing in Sudan.

Our first camp was along the Nile. It was a great camp. Some kids and their parents rolled in to our camp with their donkeys and carts. We had the opportunity to bathe in the river and cool down a bit, too. We had to watch out for crocodiles, though. One had been shot there earlier that day. A couple locals came up while I was swimming and warned me again about the crocs. One of them took Andra for a ride down the river in his small sail boat.

The next day was the same distance as the previous one: 150km, but much harder. It got very hot in the afternoon and my energy levels dropped accordingly. I was the very last one to roll into camp. I got a round of applause for finishing. About 8 people ended up in the truck that day. I was very glad to find it since I forgot to record the directions the night before. Fortunately they were typical: “Turn right out of camp. Pedal 150k. Stop.” I left my gloves at the lunch stop, which I had to buy back from the staff for two cokes. (Since Sudan is a dry country, payments are in fizzy beverages instead of beer.)

Since we are traveling along the Nile again, Nubian settlements have started to appear sporadically. I say “settlements” and not “villages” because they seem to be lacking an infrastructure. There are no shops or businesses of any sort, only a handful of homes surrounded by walled yards with a few donkeys roaming around.

Earlier in the day I had spotted a coke stop, and a man jumped up and waved to me: “Stop. I want to drink tea with you.” I stopped. He had no tea. No cokes either. It turns out that he was starting a roadside beverage stand but wasn’t opened for business yet. So over imaginary tea, this proud Nubian named “In-bed-ja” (or something similar), told me about his life and suggested I marry a Nubian wife. When Andra pulled up, he tried to convince her to marry a Nubian husband. After I left he evidently tried to steal a kiss from her.

Paul (the tour/race director) promised that the next night’s camp wouldn’t be nearly as nice, but it turned out to be quite good. Armed with firewood collected the previous night, we created a big bonfire in the evening. At the fire, I sat next to the Sudanese Tourism Minister. I find it somewhat amusing that the minister of tourism for all of Sudan is camping with us each night. He was perplexed about the fire. He was expecting a big celebration about something, not a relaxing wind-down after a long day. He told me a bit about his life. He seems quite proud of his government position and the power that it carries. He is unmarried, but wants at least two wives. Sudanese men are allowed up to four. He also hinted (unprovoked) that I shouldn’t believe the western media about Darfur and the southern region of Sudan. The northeast part of Sudan is very safe and friendly, of course, and we’ve had nothing but good experiences here. I think I’m starting to figure out why he’s traveling with us.

We arrived at the soccer field in mid-afternoon to find that a game was going on inside. It seemed like we could have just as easily camped in the open lot across the street, but we were just told to wait. Then the machine guns started firing. We hoped that we were actually waiting for a soccer game to finish and not a public execution. Eventually, some of us decided to wander in and see what was going on. What we found was quite a spectacle.

Police in blue SWAT gear were marching around the field performing various exercises, along with other military people in green fatigues. The crowd was glued to the action. When the police “fired” their weapons, military people in the corners of the field fired real machine guns into mounds of dirt to simulate the sounds. After a short while, the field broke out into celebration and both groups came together in congratulatory hugs. If one group won, it was definitely the guys in blue. They were hoisted up on the shoulders of the guys in green, holding their guns even higher up in the air and smiles of exhilaration that would make you think they just won the World Cup. The crowd went wild and ran down from the stands to congratulate them. Younger boys ran to the corners of the stadium to collect the bullet casings. We set up our tents behind the goal posts.

Ted and I were ready quickly, so we headed grabbed a tuk tuk into town in search of some food and a quality toilet. We had heard that there were only two restaurants in the town to service all 60 of us, so we wanted to beat the crowd. We got to the town to find out that there were a few food stalls with a big communal eating area. I had an impressive selection of vegetables, potatoes, fuul, rice, and pita bread. After dinner, lots of us had delicious tea next door, where all the local men were smoking their hookah pipes. Things are much more relaxed here than in Egypt. Their are virtually no tourists in Sudan, so nobody trying to sell us anything or cheat us out of any money. There were no souvenirs to buy even if we wanted to.

Back at camp, the white board had some surprises for us. First, we had gone through a time change so we would be leaving an hour later in the mornings (8:00 instead of 7:00). We actually leave when we do because we are waiting for the Sun to rise. Biologically, we will still be leaving at the same time. Our second surprise is that we will be riding to Dongola in three days instead of four. That means that we have to ride farther each day. That will allow us to try a new dirt route through a national park later in Sudan.

The last two days we have been on the infamous ferry from Aswan, Egypt to Wadi Halfa, Sudan. We had a bit of extra sleep in our camp before heading out across the old and new dams at Aswan in a convoy with a police escort. This was a special allowance made for our group; nobody is generally allowed to ride across the dams. The only restriction for us was that we couldn’t photograph it. After crossing the dams, we arrived at the ferry port on Lake Nasser. Hoards of people were already there, with all their goods to be transported to Sudan. We were let through the gates early to wait in a separate area with the few other foreigners destined for the ferry. There was a German couple driving a very burly Unimog-looking vehicle. Then there was a German/Mexican couple on touring bikes. Both couples were roughly following our route to Kenya.

After about two hours, we said our goodbyes to the Egyptian riders and Emeco (our Egyptian fixers) and were allowed to walk our bikes through the metal detectors (why?) and run our bags through the X-ray machines to wait near the ferry. On the docks sat two lovely cruise ships and a third utilitarian ferry. That was ours. Another half hour or so of logistics and we carried our bikes onto this legendary beast, through the mess hall, and up the stairs to the top deck, where the loading process continued until around 6PM.
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The last two days to Aswan have been fairly light. Both days were 115km, with an overnight on a football pitch (soccer field) in Edfu.

Edfu is one of the stops made by the Nile cruise ships. A group of us wandered onto one of them. It wasn’t departing for 45 minutes, so we decided to stay for some drinks. No surprise, the lounge was already occupied by Gerard, who has a pension for luxury. He also is known for having a lot of gadgets–even more than me. We moved to the top deck, which was complete with an infinity pool and full service bar. Hungry as usual, we took full advantage of the free chips and peanuts with our overpriced pina coladas.

I also managed to source the seven beers needed to pay the staff for the privilege of buying back my headlamp and tent bag at auction. The shop keeper gave them to me in a plain brown box. “You didn’t buy from me. Trouble from police.” Hmm. I didn’t realize beer trade was such an underground activity here. Alcohol is illegal in Sudan, though, so I’m glad to be finished with this task.

Now in Aswan, we’re all running around sourcing food for the ferry and things that will be harder to find in Sudan. I stocked up on sunblock and toilet paper. In the late afternoon, I went to a botanical garden on an island with Andra, Sherrif, and the two Muhammads. The aroma of the flora and all the greenery was a pleasant change from the pollution of the city.

Our trucks left us yesterday in Edfu to catch the ferry to Sudan. They travel on a separate ferry from the one we take tomorrow. That means we had to break from our regular messy packing routine and come up with a different system for these couple days to keep our valuables and necessities with us while the bulk of our stuff crosses with the trucks. This is all necessary because there are no open roads between Egypt and Sudan yet, and only one set of ferries per week.

As we’ll be in Sudan starting tomorrow, I have no idea when I’ll have Internet access again. Sorry again for the lack of pictures. Check out Gerald’s blog for a great collection in the meantime. The official TDA blog is also regularly updated (they have a satellite Internet connection).