7500 Miles

Everything that we do has consequences, and today was filled with consequences. It’s important to understand just how hectic our mornings tend to be, taking down our tents, eating breakfast, loading the trucks (a very trying process), filling our water bottles, applying sunscreen, etc. The slower riders (like me) try to leave as early as possible to have the highest chance of completely finishing the day.
When everybody arrives in camp after dark, the nightly rider meeting gets pushed forward to the morning, taking up precious minutes we just don’t have. This morning, I also had to track down my bike again, as it had been removed from the truck. Next, I had to repair a flat tire that was fine when I last saw it. The bikes were treated horribly on the back of the police vehicles. My bike computer was also broken, and I tried fixing it to no avail. The lockout valve on the forks was damaged as well, but still functional. In the frenzy getting out of camp, I forgot to scan out, so 20 minutes down the road I had to turn around and come back to camp to sign out. An extra 40 minutes of riding I didn’t need today.
I eventually caught up with some other riders in the morning so I was no longer the last one of the day. At a town, I made a coke stop, but forgot to top off my water. The TDA truck passed me. I tried to ask for water, but the staff was too busy trying to tell me the truck was too full to take on any other riders. They had just told another that was too sick to go on that he had to find his own ride to camp (that cost 150 pounds). All our support vehicles were filled to capacity today, another repercussion of the Dinder experiment.
Along the road, I was getting hot and kept asking locals for water. A couple riders were able to give me some. Along the way the road turned to worse-than-Dinder conditions and I caught up with Andra who was also low on water. We got some from a couple of guys from Darfur. I was thankful, but didn’t fully trust the quality, as it was poured from a motor oil jug and tasted a bit like camel hair, cigarette ashes, dirt, and oil all at once.
We got some more water down the road from another group of huts. While it was also poured from a motor oil jug, it was clear and tasted fine. A little further down the road, we found more huts with friendly locals that gave us sweet tea and shade. We chatted with them for a while. I had been suffering from mild heat exhaustion. Several times I thought I was too hot to continue, but it was becoming clear that no support vehicles were coming. In fact, there were no vehicles at all on this road—not even the one the sick rider had taken. At least the road conditions had improved greatly.
We arrived at the lunch stop at 3:45PM, the latest lunch arrival so far. The sweep was already there. She had taken a short cut through another village, the same route that the sick rider must have taken. Several riders at the stop were tired of waiting, and expressed their frustration of being there so long. I felt a bit bad about riding so slowly, but the support vehicles are usually there for those sorts of situations when riders can’t continue.
Other riders were experiencing repercussions of their own from the Dinder Experiment. Three male riders were peeing blood. Another was passing it in his stool. Another rider had heat stroke, and many riders were too sick or tired to continue throughout the day. Out of nearly 60 riders, only about 15 are still EFI, and we are still in the 2nd country of the tour.

The Dinder National Fabulous Park (DNFP) experience has been described by some as the “Biggest EFI massacre in TDA history”. Warning bells had already gone off in my head when I learned that we would be riding 140k in dirt today. Even on the best of roads, this was going to be a very hard day. We definitely didn’t have the best of roads. What we encountered was 140k of brutal, pounding, corrugated roads, with just enough loose sand to prevent proper traction from occurring. Lots of people spent the day falling over, but more importantly, less than half the riders were able to finish at all. That’s even when the total distance was reduced from 140k to 118k.
There were two reasons for experimenting with this new route this year: one was to keep us off the dangerous paved roads south of Khartoum; the other was to experience the supposed abundant wildlife in the park. No group has ever been allowed to cycle through the park before.
I consider myself to be quite lucky with the wildlife. We were supposed to be riding in groups through the park, but I found myself on my own for long periods. It was while I was on my own that I came across maybe 50 baboons hanging around the road. They scattered when I stopped to take pictures, of course. At another point, when I thought I missed the lunch stop, I headed for the dry river bank to look for other riders. Instead, I found a group of wildebeest that ran into the tall grass when they saw me.
I had strained a muscle in my calf in the morning, and almost stopped riding at lunch. Most of the people at the lunch stop were actually waiting for a support truck to carry them the rest of the way. I decided to scarf down some lunch and try to get through the park. Back on the road, some quick math told me that it wasn’t going to be possible to get to camp before 8PM. By then I would have been swept off the course anyway. 6km past lunch, I decided to stop punishing my body with the road and get on the sweep truck. That’s literally on the truck, since there was no room in the truck.
Past the lunch stop, we were all riding with armed guards since the park officials were worried about possible attacks from lions. The truck I was on was riding behind the last few riders at 8km/h, so when we had the chance to switch trucks, a few of us jumped into the back of another pickup truck. Not too far down the road, we stopped to help another truck and waited there until the sweep vehicle eventually passed us. Eventually, Paul showed up in a newly-rented dump truck. It had become clear that there weren’t enough vehicles in the park to carry all the riders and bicycles that had to be carried to the finish, so this random utility vehicle had come to our rescue. Even that vehicle broke down twice on the way to the end of the park. We worked our way over the rough roads at high speed with sharp thorn branches scraping our arms and faces to the end of the park in the dark. Each rider we passed was required to get on the truck. Most were disappointed. Some were understandably upset at losing their hard-earned EFI status. Once we reached the impassible river bank at the edge of the park, we all unloaded and walked to our trucks waiting for us on the other side (they had gone around the park).
We arrived at camp after 9PM (well past my usual bedtime) and I had no idea where my bike was. None of the staff did either. Eventually, I found another rider who had stayed on the sweep truck with it and pointed me to my bike bag. (My bike was carrying things I needed for the evening: dishes, medications, toilet paper, etc.) My bike was actually loaded on top of our lunch truck, and is inaccessible until morning

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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