Cycling Sudan

The wind is once again reaping it's payment for the first few weeks of aid it provided. Can't be frustrated with it when it made life so much easier initially. We have had three long days. The last two have been with a strong cross or headwind. Yesterday we cycled from Rufaa to Desert Camp - a distance of 139km. Jenna had stopped 5km before camp because she was struggling with the heat. It later prevailed that she actually had upset guts. Alistair and I had also been a bit churney for the day. Must have been the dirty chicken shawermas we enjoyed so much at the market the previous evening. Jenna had pulled over because she was nauseous and light headed, we took the last 5k pretty steadily. She actually got worse over the evening, her colour went very grey. She was unable to eat dinner, and disappeared off feeling very queasy. By the morning she looked so much better, her colour had returned, as had a third of her appetite. It was a big relief. I had a fitful night sleep, dreaming about diarrhoea! I was actually ok, maybe I can blame the malarone, but in reality I think it was just that I was concerned about getting sick and not being able to ride! Fortunately I just had 36hours of churning abdomen without any other symptoms. :) The temperature has risen as we have moved south. I have been able to sleep in my liner and on top of my sleeping bag. We are told the temperature will drop again as we increase in altitude in Ethiopia. It is nice in the morning when it isn't so cold. Makes getting up easier. The morning routine (for me at least) is: 5am Alarm goes off 5-5.30 Quick wash with wet wipes while still in sleeping bag. Put contact lenses in. Get dressed, but not bike shorts yet! Sort stuff to put back in bag. Put sleeping bag and liner in compression sack. 5.30 Toilet run (before it gets light! That was you don't have to walk too far to get privacy) 5.30-5.50 Bike shorts, chamois cream (not convinced this stuff makes any difference!) and pack away tent 5.50-6 Pack everything in to bag. I have progressively emptied my 'day bag' at each rest stop. My 'permanent bag' has become more and more full. It does mean that the whole experience is less stressful, packing the day bag everyday was a circadian challenge. 6-6.30 Breakfast/coffee. Wash hands before touching dishes, wash your clean dishes (hygiene again!). Breakfast is usually a choice of porridge/boiled eggs/local bread/banana and a selection of spreads. Usually I make myself a sandwich wth jam in, to take on the road. And have a half a bit of bread with jam, and a tablespoon of peanut butter and Nutella in my bowl too! Yum. We are on a malaria area now so have to remember to take the malarone tablets. 6.20-6.45 Clean teeth, put bag on truck, refill water bottles and get on the road! I am often one of the last to put my bag on the truck as I clean my teeth after breakfast and hold on to my down jacket until right before I leave. It's pretty flexible. Fresh coffee is served from 5.45 and breakfast at 6. As long as the bag is on the truck by about 6.45, you can manage your own morning really. So the cycle. Lots of goat herds. We have taken a new route for the last bit of Sudan. Previously they went cross country for a few days, but apparently it was pretty difficult. It 'made grown men cry', so we are on the tarseal, heading East. The downside of heading East is that the prevailing wind is from the North. The morning was largely by myself, I had a stretch of about 20km with Tom. Tom is a very strong cyclist and I'm not sure he realises how much other people are working while he isn't even out of breath! He is pretty observant on the bike too, probably because he is able to cruise along pretty quickly and look around while maintaining pace. We passed through fertile paddocks, the land is brown/dirt and flat. It looks like it has been ploughed and harvested recently, within the last year. The majority of the area used to be the Nile flood plains, I'm not sure how they maintain the fertility now that they have built the dams. I have tried to look up rainfall in that area of Sudan but the internet isn't quick enough.

It wasn't until about 40km when we turned left at a busy t junction that the wind hit. The road was the busiest in terms of traffic density for a while. I tried to eat some of my jam sandwich but it was quite a precarious exercise. Luckily the road turned right again after a few kms and the wind was favourable once again. I stopped to take a photo of a goat herd - namely a goat eating from a tree. There were two dogs positioned at 10 and 2 which started barking as I got close. Within about 2minutes a man appeared on a donkey. He has trained two dogs to guard the goat herd! Very impressive. David had caught up to me at the goat herd. Just as well, the wind was against us again. We attacked in tandem, each of us took a 1km shift on the side against the wind for about 6km to lunch. After lunch David, Alistair and I continued this pattern but as a three for the last 70km. The wind was incredibly strong. We maintained about 23km/h until 105km when we came across a shack and the Sudanese equivalent of motorway service station. I was starting to lag so was pretty happy. T was the friendliest refreshment stop I have come across yet. There were four men who were interested in what we weee doing, and how my gears worked. Despite the language barrier I think they understood our journey, and we demonstrated the gear shifters. I really struggled with the last 38km. I knew I could do it, but felt I was holding David and Alistair back. I was stressing about it, and kept telling them to go and I would see them at camp. They were oh lovely and hugely supportive. I did my turn at the front, 1-2km shifts, albeit at a slower pace than them. I had a stop 15km or so out of camp and told them to go themselves once again- Alistair informed me he was a group rider and we would finish together. The buses had increased, meaning you were getting walloped in the face with a blast of air Every few minutes, the Tarmac Was rough (meaning you spent as much energy bouncing up and down and you did going forward) and there was a wind. Just as we approached camp some hills appeared, a nice change in scenery and we also passed through a settlement. There were girls and boys in school uniforms cheering is and waving. It was nice to have friendly faces. We even passed a lady selling mango juice - half full dirty bottles...not very sanitary and definitely not what I would be rushing to purchase!

I was tired today when I came in. I washed with my water bottle and a sponge in my tent, and spent the afternoon doing very little apart from reading.

Dylan wasn't feeling great, it still seems to be going round. He made it to camp though! Another Bush Camp. Slightly rocky. I was very tired and feel asleep at 7pm trying to read my book. I woke at 10.30 and had to make myself go to toilet so I didn't wake up in the real middle of the night! Today was another windy day. The Party Bus started off minus Alistair and he noticed another puncture just as he was leaving camp, so stayed to repair it. This time a piece of wire was the culprit. Luckily Jordan was there to give him a hand.

Jenna and I enjoyed an easyish 7km. We turned left around a hill and there was a crowd of people to the right of the road. 'This looks ominous', I said. Within seconds a gust of wind caught my bike and pushed the front wheel off the road beneath me. I managed to unclip myself but unfortunately for Mitch by aerobar went straight into the small of his back. So that's what the gathering was for! 8 people had been forced from their bikes and were wheeling them against the crosswind. After checking Mitch was functional (v sore though), I wheeled my bike for about 300m along the culvert. I realised I needed to get back on bike so returned to the Tarmac. I got back on, dropped the gears down, leant in to the wind, kept my feet Unclipped in case of a speedy exit and braced my handlebars against the gusts. The next 4km was pretty fun, about 17km/h. I caught up with Steph and Bob and we continued to the 40km coke stop. My bum was getting a bit sore. Having just done about 400km on the saddle in the last 2.5days, the rough roads weren't appreciated! There was quite a crowd at the little town.

I tracked down a lady seeking tea, very sweet black tea with cinnamon. It was lovely. All of 5sudaneae pounds. I went up to order some more but she really didn't understand, and I got the impression she had run out?! So ended up just paying the bill. She brought over some incense for us too. I could have stayed a lot longer than the 10minutes I allowed. Back on the road I chipped away at 20km/h until 69km when the lunchstop appeared. I had a near death experience with a bus which came from nowhere and passed within about a foot. The tyres were very close and very quick! No shortage of flies at lunch. The update was that Karen had been swept off her bike by the wind and so was on the bus, along with Dylan and Ash. I set off with the Party Bus plus Tom. We did 2km shifts at the front and managed to mission out to 100km in just over an hour. Jenna and I were ready for the break, I bought a Pepsi and drank half. Then saved the rest for camp. We had an easy 36km to camp. Easy in that we didn't push it to 24/h, we just cruised at 20. Camp is in a dried out field by road. Atmosphere is better tonight, people aren't as drained today. We even had a bucket shower available. It was great! Funny how standards change. You pay 10sudanese pounds for a bucket of water, the man fills it from a tank pulled by a donkey, then puts it on a shed. I managed to wash my hair in the bucket, and then used my sponge to wash the rest of me. I bought a second bucket and washed by clothes. Happiness is being able to wash. We even have internet connectivity tonight :)

And the moon is a full moon, blood moon, blue moon and super moon tonight. Need to look these things up when internet is quicker! One more day cycling in Sudan. For those interested we are going from Al Qadarif to Metema (googlemaps has the route). The direction is South East, so hopefully wind is more favourable, however there will be more climbing and pot holes and the distance is 147km too. We passed the 2000km mark about 3 days ago too. On the way to Cape Town!