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.