Friday, 26th Jan, 2007

From Desert Camping to Nile Camping (on shores of Nile)

I LOVE SUDAN! Sudan is the greatest! Sudanese people the most wonderful EVER! Great day, spectacular! In the morning hours, when it was still cool, I came across the first real village. Came over a hill, expecting more of currogated sand as the past 2 days, and what to my surprise - a village! Turns out the name of the village is Abri-mu-farka. Rolled into town and a little boy was peeping out the door of his compound. I smiled and called him over. Wanted his picture. He posed nicely for it and I showed it to him (on my digital camera). He started calling excitedly, telling me to "wait, wait." His father came outside and said "hello", then the father started calling excitedly as well. Finally, I realized why they were calling excitedly. The mother came out and guess what? She was the English school teacher of Abri-mu-farka. Spoke very nice English, talked to me a lot, asked what I was doing. Then her other son came out and she asked me to take his picture as well. In the end, she asked me to please mail the pictures to her when I can. I will try to do this, but the only address I have is:

English School Teacher
Abri-mu-farka
Sudan

Think it'll get there? I'll try. There can't be more than one English school teacher in that village.

Then, the whole day (morning) went on and on, with one great encounter after another. Passed many, many villages. The afternoon was blazing hot! Got lost after lunch. Ended up wandering through the desert for 45 minutes, looking for a road. When I was riding alongside somebody's vegetable patch, they tried to tell me I was far from the road. I tried to walk up a sand hill with my bike, but was struggling, so a young man came and helped me - pushed the bike right up that thing, nary a problem!

Then, rode and rode some more. Stopped often in, whenever, I could find shade. It was HOT. And then, the best part of the day happened! A ride on a donkey cart! Bike and all! Super neat! I saw these 2 ladies going my way, with a donkey cart. I was hot, tired, and dirty. I motioned to them, "Can I get up on that cart?" They smiled, laughed, giggled, and patted the cart. So up I hoisted myself, bike and all. We rode along for about 2 km, not very far, but enough for an adventure and break from cycling. The ladies were so friendly and so beautifully dressed. The women in Sudan do not wear the black outfits that they do in Egypt. They didn't speak a word of English, not a single word, not even "how are you" or "what is your name", but all smiles, smiles, smiles. And they taught me how to say donkey in Arabic - "hamar".

At the end of a long day, we camped by the Nile. Bath time in the river - aahhh! Feels good.

----------------- TODAY ---------------- TOTAL
Cycled ----------- 99 km (61.5 mi) ------- 1,041 km (641 mi)
Sagged ----------- 0 ---------------------- 202.5 km (137.5 mi)
Total ------------- 99 km (61.5 mi) ------- 1,243.5 km (778.5 mi)
In saddle --------- 7 hrs 58 min ----------- 64 hrs 22 min
Ascended --------- 980 feet --------------- 11,150 feet