Beautiful Crane

Greetings from Dongola, Sudan! A lot happened since the last update. We just heard the news that there are some riots going on in Cairo. Yesterday at the shop, there was a TV showing what's going on in Cairo. The Sudanese people were laughing at what's going on in Egypt - that's the definition of Schadenfreude.

I'm fighting a cold. There are quite a few sick people in our group. It's really dry in the desert. There is a huge temperature contrast, at night time it can be as cold as 50F and as hot as high 90F during the late afternoon. We generally leave right after sun rise and get majority of the riding done around 11am. The late afternoon heat can be unbearable. Dry heat is still hot. We've following the Nile river from Luxor. One can easily see why civilizations revolve around rivers. Along the banks of the Nile, there are trees and farms, and everything is lush green. Just a few inches away, it's the desert. There is nothing in the desert. We past a lot of small villages in Sudan. They don't seem to have electricity at all. I can imagine the people here are quite tough to survive.

After this restday, we'll cycle on to Khartoum. Then after Khartoum the tough riding starts - dirt road, hot days (130F last year) and hill climbs. The food in Sudan has been fantastic. There is a local dish called Fool (sounds like Mr. T's I pitty the fool). The bread is amazing as well.

Luxor Rest Day - Luxor proved to be a great pit stop. We all needed a small rest after going hard the last few days. We each did our own things. Some people got a hotel room in town, while most stayed at the camp site hotel, and some hardcore people camped. The first day, I did some laundry and walking around the market with Andre, Jean, and Daniel. I also signed up to go to the air ballon ride, but due to weather problems, it was cancelled. Megan, Wendy, Christina and I went to a really local place to eat falafal. The ladies were much more adventures when it comes to eating fresh vegetables on the street. I'm just afraid to eat vegetables on the street. No one got sick as far as I know. Christina had to get her passport picture taken. They air brushed her face to look much younger. Apparently the Egyptians likes to use photoshop to enhance their pictures. She also posed with a stuffed tiger just for fun. It was hilarious. We had dinner with the Egyptian riders. It was really interesting to talk to them. Sharif speaks the best English. From our conversations, it seems that Egyptians value family above anything else. He said that Egyptians don't make friends that are not close to their parents. The thinking is that if they don't love their parents, then they will not love you. Sharif is married and has two kids. I wondered if his marriage was arranged. He said it was not an arranged marriage. The man usually tells his father that he plan to get married, and the father will "talk" to the girl's father. Sharif doesn't know what his father talked to his father in-law, but he will find out soon enough when his children are old enough to be married. He said his father in-law does not like him. His mother passed away a few years ago. It was during the first day of Ramadan. He seems to be in peace as he explained that the first ten days of Ramadan is forgiveness. His mother was fasting and cooked everyone breakfast, then all of sudden she passed. Religion plays an important role in everyone's lives around the world, organized or unorganized. It provides a source of comfort.

Stage 7 - We left Luxor in a chilly but beautiful morning. I quickly got into a peloton with Tory, Carrie, Adam, Francis, and Mike. We were going very fast, averaged 35kmph. We had a nice rotation, the course was flat, and we had a good rhythem. Lunch was at 70km mark. We had a nice falafal lunch and oranges. The oranges were so sweet. After lunch, I got into a group with Kendra, Adele (assistant tour leader), Martin (bike mechanic from Kenya), and Ashraf (Egyptian cycling coach). We were cycling the beautiful Nile river, passing screaming kids, and having a great time. Kendra shouted - there is a Crane over there. I turned my head to look. The, next sound I heard was bike crashing to the ground. Thump! My helmet hit the ground. I tucked into a fetal position to minimize scraping. Kendra, Martin and Adele stopped and they were OK. A few seconds later, I saw Ashraf ran off the road into a ditch , presumeably tried to avoid the crash scene. This is our first accident! We all scrambled to see if Ashraf was OK. The ditch was a cliff about a 10 foot drop from the road. He was motionless but making some sound. Kendra was trained in EMS, and she jumped down to help stablize Ashraf's neck. Ashraf was making sounds but could not move. Kendra asked him a series of questions - what's your name? What day is it? Where are you? What were you doing? No response. Martin and I rolled Ashraf on his back and checked for injuries. There were some minor scrapes. We then took off his jersey to check for blood. Thank God there were none. Then Ashraf opened his eyes as if he just woke up from a nap. Kendra asked those questions again. He mumbled something that we couldn't make out. Mean while, Adele was on the phone to get help. Our medical staff was not too far away. Kendra continued to ask questions. I said you are Ashraf. He noded. Then I said, your son is Omar. That sort of got him going a bit. Kendra asked those questions again, and he responded. Gradually Ashraf got more alert and became more aware. He seemed to be OK. We held him until the medical staff and the ambulance came to check him out. I climbed out of the ditch and Martin took my helmet and said: this saved your life. My helmet had cracked in the back. It did it's job as intended. I was a bit shaken. No major cuts or scrapes, although I had two deep flesh cuts above my ankle. While sitting on the road, I noticed Ashraf landed on a dead decomposed cow. There were rocks all around and a thorny tree, except where he landed - on the decomposed cow. The Ambulance took Ashraf to the hospital to get him checked out. Martin asked me if I wanted to ride the truck back. I refused. EFI. A big group of us rode together after the accident. We were stopped at a police check station for no apparent reason. Marelie got me a Sprite to cheer me up. As we went past villages, kids tried to through rocks or sticks at us. I was riding with Pierre-Luc and he was hit. It's really dangerous when you are going 20 mph and get hit by a rock. Unfortunately there is nothing we can do. Ethiopia supposed to be worse though. Once we arrived at the camp in Edfu, everyone came up and asked how I felt. After a quick clean up a few of us head out to town. We went out the the Edfu temple. It's the best preserved temple in Egypt. It's breathtaking to see this temple. We are camping on a school soccer field for the night. There were 5 Mosques around us. It will make a loud wake up call tomorrow morning. One more riding day to Aswan, then we will be on to the ferry to Sudan.

Stage 8 - The early morning prayer calls woke us up at 5am. Those mosques seemed to be in competition with each other. One is lauder than another. I rode with the expedition riders today to relax the legs. The 115kms went by very fast. The TDA warned us about a "crazy" village where kids might throw rocks and sticks at us. Fortunately that didn't happen to us. When I ride in the US in a group, the most you'll hear any person yell is "car back!" But in Egypt there are so many more obstacles to point out: bump in the road, donkey on the right, double donkey on the right, hole, and my favorite: camel on the right! After we arrived at the camp in Aswan and a quick clean up, we headed straight to town to grab some lunch. Afterwards, the Egyptian riders took us across the Nile to the Botanical Garden on an island. It was a nice time to relax and chill. Afterwards, Kendra and I walked around the market with the Egyptian riders. Kendra struck up a conversation with a young kid. She taught him to count to 10 in 5 different languages. We had some dinner afterwards. The Egyptians asked me what I want, and I told them whatever they ate. So to my surprise, we got cow liver, brain and intestines. It was delicious. During dinner, Sharif explained that 10 years ago, there were three "classes" of people in Egypt: wealthy, doing well, and doing OK. Now, Egyptians are either very wealthy or very poor, only two classes. I think people everywhere in the world have the same aspirations: a house to live in and may be even a car. The more I got to know the Egyptians the more I feel frustrated to see so many things divide us: religion, country, etc. I still recall a couple of kids in Ajmer, India told me that "your blood is red, my blood is red." People are all the same but due to circumstances, the lives we live are completely different.

Ferry Day across Lake Nasser - Most riders got up early, even though the rider meeting is at 8am. I guess we'll are getting into a rhythem. We rode in a convoy over the Aswan old dam (Lower Dam) and then the new dam (High Dam) to the port. The port is a crazy place with all the hustle and bustle going on. And it's only about 10am and the boat doesn't leave until 5pm. There is a lot of pushing and shoving. We had to carry our bags and bike to the boat. People carrying boxes of TV, cigaretts, dinner ware, etc. Looks like there is good trade between Egypt and Sudan. But this ferry only runs once per week. Once we were on the boat, people were fighting for a spot to lay down. Very quickly people staked out their own territory. One had to be very flexible to jump over the boxes, navigate around people, and not to trip over anything on the floor. The sunset was beautiful. But of course there is a prayer call on the boat as well. People had to find the directions to Mecca and layout their prayer mats. Some of the riders didn't want to give up their spot on the deck, but most accomondated. Not a cloud in the sky. The organge glow lit up the Nile and the mountains in the background. The night sky was spectacular. This is definately the top three times of seeing the stars. There is no pollution, so the stars and the galaxies light up. Randy showed us some of the costatellations. We also saw a sattelite wiz by. Other times that I saw the Milky Way: laying on the banks of the Olifant River in South Africa, in the Himalayas, on Easter Island, in Anarctica, and in Tibet.

I slept on the deck in my sleeping bag. It got pretty windy and around 2am, I decided to go to the cabin. Sarg (Suresh, a Trinidadian) and I spooned on the top bunk. The boat past Abu Sembel around 6am, but I wasn't awake for that one. They moved those statues when the y built the lake. We arrived in the port around 11am. We had to fill out more paper work for Sudan. It was mass confusion again, but we managed to get out of the port and to Wadi Haifa (a 3K ride). One can immediately sense the difference between Egypt and Sudan. People were very friendly, including women. People's skins are also darker, more nubian than Arab. Two long rides awaiting for us the next two days, back to back centries. Let's see how everything holds up! '

Stage 9 - The first day of the back to back centry started out very cold. I woke up with a very sore throat. The stomach was feeling bad, but nothing serious. The good news is that the road was flat with some minor climbs but very good descends. The wind was at our back as well. This is our first ride in Sudan. The road was very nice, paved by the Chinese government to facilitate trucking of oil and minerals. Sudan is the largest country in Africa, and 10th largest by land mass in the World. The Sudan in Arabic means the land of blacks. One can definately see the skin color change from Egypt. The country is very sparsely populated. Most people live in Khartoum. As we left camp this morning, the land scape was like Mars. It's almost errie. Vast desert with a few rocky mountains in the back ground. No sign of life what so ever. It was very silent as well. The only noise you hear is the tire hitting the pavement. There were very few cars on the road. Compared to Egypt, this is a huge change. People were very hospitable. In a country where very few tourists visit each year, the locals treat visitors as royalty. The 150K went by very fast. A couple on the tour mentioned that they get their news about Africa from XinHua (Chinese news agency) and al Jazeera English. They said that those organizations report not only the negative news but also the positive stories on Africa. CNN and BBC don't have any offices here. So whenever some bad thing happens, they will send people here to report the bad news. We, in North America, only get negative news about Africa. But there are a lot of good things going on here. I do see poverty, but I also see very happy and friendly people. There are over 50 countries on the continent. There must be some good news here.

Stage 10 - The stars at the last camp was amazing again. Since there is no light pollution, we can clearly see the milky way. There were so many stars in the sky. You can clearly make out a glaxy of stars across the sky. I was very sick in the morning. This is the second day of the double centry. The ride started very slow for me and didn't get better until 30km into the ride. I struggled to the lunch stop. After lunch ride was really hard. We had severe head wind in the first 40kms as well as up hill climbs. I had a drink called Stim at the Coke Stop. I'm not sure if it's a Coca Cola product, but it's similar to Sprite. It was good. The last 30km to camp was easy, with back wind and mostly downhill. I was really tired! Stage 11 and restday in Dongola - This proved to be a tougher ride since I was really sick. It's a cold with stuffed sinus, so breathing was an issue. 110km was easy compared to the last two days. We rode into the city of Dongola. It's a very small city. We will camp at the city zoo! Actually there are no animals here but there are grassy areas to camp. I felt worse as the day went on. After setting up the tent, I washed all my dirty laundry. Everything was brown. Because it's so hot and dry in the Nubian desert, all the laundy dried in a few minutes. We headed into town, but it's a Friday, so everything is closed. Friday is like our Sundays for muslims. We found this nice restaurant with falaffels and grilled chicken. It was delicious, so I heard. I couldn't taste anything. But the food make me feel much better. 2 Nyquils at 7pm and I'm off to bed. I didn't wake up until 8am. Today, I'm going to clean up my bike and get on the internet.

Screaming kids

I'm setting in front of a fire pit in Luxor and drinking a beer.  Luxor brand wheat beer, of course.  We all needed this rest day.  I never thought I'd miss a mirror.  But without it, there is no way I can check out the saddle sores on my butt.  And yes, they are sore.  My body is going through some strange transformation - my legs are getting stronger, but my upper body is getting fatter.  We've been eating a lot of food - usually oat meal for breakfast, sandwich for lunch and a hearty dinner.  Bananas and oranges are also available sometimes, but they are a luxury. All of us try to squeeze in 4~5 candy bars during the day as well.  Our riding day starts at 5am.  After packing up the tent and our bags, breakfast is served at 6am.  We'll fill up our water bottles and Camelpak,  since there is the mandatory 3 liters of water we have to pack.  At 7am, riders start to leave camp.  The racers generally leave later to start the peloton.  There are some serious racers in the group.  Paul raced professionally. At the half way point, lunch is served.  Depending on the rider's speed, we roll into camp.  First thing I do is to grab my bag and set up the tent.  With minimal privacy and space, I can take off the cycling jersey and shorts and start the wipe down.  It's amazing with only 2 baby wipes, I can clean myself pretty good.  Hot soup awaits all of us! The soup is always full of vegetables and very salty.  It does a good job of replacing electrolytes. Dinner was great this week.  A lot of carbs, vegetables, and some protein.  We are generally in bed by 7pm, unless a rider has dish cleaning duty that night.  EAT, SLEEP and RIDE!

Cairo stay was really hectic.  Between all the meetings and fighting jetlag, I didn't manage to get out to the market at all.  Except a couple of us went to a western style mall with Chili's, McDonalds and Starbucks etc.  to get some extra supplies for the trip.  I did go out to the neighborhood hear the hotel to find some food.  It was cheap, but the sanitation grade would be a 0!  No one got sick fortunately.  We also took a three wheeler Tak Tak, our dirver was no older tha 12 years old, like Short Round from Indiana Jones.

Stage1 - It was crazy - 5am wake up, breakfast, then we are off to the Pyrimids.  The police escort was superb.  Unfortunately I didn't train for the pollution.  The smog was terrible.  It was a cold morning (and day actually), never got above 55.  A few minutes into the ride, we had our first flat tire and injury, it was quickly resolved though.  Once we got out of Cairo, it was a breeze.  There were some long gentle hills.  The wind was to our side/back.  There are three Egyptian riders with us.  They will ride down to Aswan with the group.  They are professional riders.  According to an egyptian rider, 1 day of tail wind is followed by 8 days of headwind.  Hope that's not true!  After a very cold lunch, there seems to be more downhills than up.  I rode with Kim (Norweigan) for a long while at a decent pace, like 22mph.  At points, I had some doubts about what the heck i signed up for.  I had to invoke the "iron will" motto.  Might be too early for that.  Since most riders didn't really train for the last month, this ride allowed us to release some energy.  I think all of us burned out a little.  We were so elated to see our camp site.  Once we got to camp, the first order of business is to set up tent and get changed.  The soup and dinner was fanstatic.  I never ate so much food before.  Tomorrow is going to be a long day - 100 miles.  Also I changed the computer on the bike to KM instead of miles.  They all use the metric system.  I got screwed by the metric system!!

This is my first time setting up this tent.  Easy enough.  But getting the stuff out of the daily bag was another matter.  Lessons learned on how to pack everything in reverse order.  The night was cold.  Burrrrr.  Waking up in the middle of the night and wanted to go pee.  It was so cold.

Stage 2 - Beep Beep my alarm goes off at 5:30 am. Mandatory day for the racers, a 100 miler! After packing up and breakfast, the racers are off!  The first 70km was a breez, seemed like.  I rode with Kendra as we got to know each other.  After a good lunch stop, we are headed to the next refreshment stop at 134km.  The pace seemed to slow a bit, then a lot with a very strong headwind.  Every hill seemed longer and never ending.  My butt was hurting like never before.  At about the 133km mark, I just stopped.  Finished all the water and ate two candy bars, I was tapped out.  Finally Kendra and Christina came up and took a break in sympathy with me.  We maded to the to refreshment area.  After a couple of bananas, and topping off water.  We are off again for the last 32kms.  John from Zimbabwe, rode with us rest of the way.  We played Categories.  Whoever loses had to peddle on one leg for 20 seconds.  Finally the finish line was insight!!!  180+ miles in two days!  It felt good!  Paul from Arizona won the mando stage today!  Looking forward to tomorrow - 133kms ONLY!

Stage 3 - After a much improved camp setup and take down process, packing up was a breeze.  All the stuff that I needed to setup the tent are at top of the bag.  The day started slow.  The 100 miler took a lot out of me.  My knee joints are hurting and my butt is still in a lot of pain.  Imagine biking 133kms of slow up hills all head with a strong head wind.  That's the best way to describe the course for today.  I struggled the first 30kms.  As I forgot to top off the camelbak, water ran out quickly.  It was a chilly, cloudy, and windy day.  I never took off the windbreaker.  Finally lunch stop came and I ate a pita bread filled with peanut butter, honey, and "spam" like meat.  The pita bread was the size of a small pizza.  It was so delicious.  Getting back on the bike was hard after lunch, the knees just didn't want to move.  I was biking with Adrian, John, Steve and Randy in a pack.  We hit a pretty good pace.  After a quick coke stop, we ran into Ram on the side of the road and helped him to fix a flat.  We could see our camp site from far away, but the road just never seemed to end.  

Kendra started a yoga class after the rides to help us stretch.  I saw a lot of Egyptians waving to us when riding or they honk their horns.  It's a lot a like running a marathon and total strangers rooting for you.  It's an amazing experience. Tomorrow sets up very nicely - a "short" 100K ride to Safaga.  Then we'll be able to shower and get online!  I have not showered at all for the last three days, just baby wipes.  I can seriously get dreadlocks.  But I'm thinking of shaving it all off!  It's going to be very easy to maintain that way.  Safaga awaits!!!

Stage 4 - We had a major sandstorm last night.  In the middle of the night, the wind howled and it almost blew the tent away.  My tent has meshed vents and sand got into the tent.  It was everywhere - inside the tent, inside the sleeping bag, on the mattress, on my face.  It was not a great feeling in the sleeping bag, the sand felt like a billion ants.  It was cold and windy night.

The ride to Safaga started at 7am.  I rode the first 30kms with the Egyptian riders.  They are really fast, we were going about 40kmph on hills.  At some points we averaged over 60km per hour.  The pace was too fast for me.  I droped back for the next 20km til lunch.  After lunch, I missed the peloton group and rode by myself for the most of the morning.  At 11am, after 100kms, we arrive at Safaga!  It's a resort town by the Red Sea.  This is like paradise.  I parked my bike and headed straight to the ocean.  It was cold but very refreshing.  This is the first time my hair saw any type of water.  After the swim, I went directly to the shower!  ahhhhhh, bless!  The first shower in over 3 days to wash off the sweat, sun block, sand, etc.  The water was hot.  I did not want to get out.  I tagged along with three German riders, Horest, Hardy and Dennis, into town.  Safaga is a tourist town.  Most tourist are from Germany or Russia.  It suppose to be really inexpensive for them.

We had a very nice dinner and after there was a surprise birthday party for Lindsey, a rider from New Zealand.  People organized a huge cake with very fancy decoratings and even fireworks!  It was a good moment for the team.  The morning prayer calls blasting through the speakers at 5am.  My legs are still tired.  This suppose to be a climbing day, a very long and slow ascend.  It took a while for the legs to work out the sorness.  The scenary was beautiful in the morning.  The rising sun light hitting against the mountain gives it a very dramatic scene.  As we rode up the hill, it just keep on going and going.  Even after we make a turn, there are more hills waiting for us.  I looked at my watch's altimeter to keep track of the altitude.  We started at 60 feet below sea level and at the highest point, we were over 2300 feet above.  This climb was over 50kms long.  We finally hit the descend.  It was long and effortless.  After a quick lunch the road became very flat.  It was desolate and barren, it's riding on Mars.  For the next 70km, there was nothing.  I can see for miles and miles, but very little life.  We took a quick Coke stop and had a Fanta.  That gave me some energy to push for the final 35K.

At camp, Randy helped me to adjust the bike.  He and his son Steve are riding together.  Randy also coaches cycling.  We received the news that we'll be going through Sudan!  Between now and Luxor there are only 90kms!  Three more cycling stages and we'll be out of Egypt and straight on to Sudan.

Stage 5 - We camped at a police check point last night.  Everyone is excited to get to Luxor.  The morning ride was flat desert.  Then, all of the sudden, the scenery changed to green!  Fields, trees and a canal.  I started to ride with Carrie, James, Mike, Beate, and Christine.  We were moving at a good pace.  Children screaming and waving as we cycled past them.  It's an incredible feeling.  Total strangers cheering you on.  I will never forget a man on a donkey gesturing to me to pedal faster.  The 95km went by really fast.  The police escorted the peloton group.  Carrie and I latched on for 10km, but we couldn't keep up.  Nick, Christina, Ryan, and I finished that last few kms together.  

Luxor - Once we arrived in Luxor, I took a shower immediately and checked in the mirror on the condition of my saddle sores.   Andre, Jean, Daniel and I went to the market after.  I picked up a Yasser Arafat scarf.  We wanted to do some hot air balloon ride.  Our taxi driver gave us a great deal.  Pierre, Peter and I got into this cab and the driver started to tell us a great deal about hot air balloon ride.  It was actually a lot cheaper than what they offer at the camp.  Hope it's safe!  More update later!!! 

Pictures and GPS Map

TDA - Dongola

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Hello! What's your name?

Sorry everyone for the lack of updates.  We arrived in Safaga, a resort town on the Red Sea, today.  It's the first time I showered in three days.  After 500+km of cycling, this city is like paradise.  I will put up a more substantial update once we arrive in Luxor.  It's been very tough cycling - rolling hills, strong head winds, and tired legs.  I now know why Michael Phelps eats so much.  There are only three things I do all day: eat, ride and sleep.  It's a vicious cycle: I want to ride when I wake up, but I want to sleep after the ride.  It's been very cold here, about 50~70F during the day.  So, all is well so far.  We'll cross the mountains tomorrow and head to Luxor. 

Cairo

Arrived in Cairo last night!  The bike and all the luggage came too!  During the trip from the airport, I asked the driver how many people live in Cairo.  22 million, he said.  He asked me how many people live in the city where I'm from.  1 million, for three cities close by, I said.  The driver laughed and said, there are 1 million people in my house!

 This morning, we assembled the bikes.  No major issues there.  We had a riders meeting.  It's going to be an interesting social experiment for the next four months.  I was bave enough to eat on the street on the first day, no issues there.  Egyptian people are very friendly, everyone wanted to have their picture taken - I now know how foreigners feel in China :)

 One more day in Cairo before we head out.  It's going to take more than iron will, this might call for Titanium.  (Sorry for any spelling erros, still trying to get used to the islamic keyboard.)