Gentle pressure, relentlessly applied

Sitting in my room at the Plaza Hotel in Khartoum trying to recover from this nasty cold.  I didn't want to get a hotel room at all, but Jorg, a German rider said to me: how often are you in Khartoum?  Our camp site is really far from the city, it made sense to come inside the city.  Sudan is really a nice place.  Under US sanction and Sharia Law (technically), the society seems to be fairly liberal here.  Although, there is no alcohol allowed at all.  Unlike Egypt where women were seldom seen with another man, you can see young couples walking around freely.  At a rest stop on the way to Khartoum, an older Sudanese woman actually talked to us in English, asking about what we were doing.  She wondered if we are going to Khartoum on our bikes, we said yes, but going to Cape Town as our destination.  She laughed and was amazed at the same time.  Last night we went to a shopping area called AFRA in Khartoum.  It's like most malls in the US.  There is a huge "Wal-Mart" type of store that sells everything.  I picked up some supplies. There are also some small stores selling fashion, jewelries, electronics, etc. There is even a food court!  What's amazing is that there are so many young kids hanging out at the mall!  The American culture spreads worldwide.  On this trip so far, the internet was very accessible in towns.  What even more common is the availability of Coca Cola products (and Pepsi).  Coke Zero is available here.

So the riding last section was tough.  Four days that consisted of three consecutive days of 90+ miles.  We camped in the desert every night.  Our tents all had problems keeping the sand out.  The internal mesh actually acted as a filter and filtered out all the big sand grains.  So the inside of our tents had the finest and yellowest grains of sand.  Once the sand got into our tent, it was hard to get it out.  I tried to leave the camp early and get most of the riding done before the heat sets in. Most of the times I got to camp around 1~1:30pm.  Some of the riders that came in later said the temperature reached 45C (~120F).  That's hot!  The wind pattern was actually quite predictable: no wind in the morning, windy around lunch time, very windy in the afternoon, and no wind after sunset.  Every bit of the shade helps.

We have our toughest riding week ahead tomorrow.  8 consecutive days of riding, 6 in Sudan and 2 in Ethiopia.  The paved road will end after the first day.  Sandy and corrugated roads will be the norm.  We all are going to change our tires, I'm going with 700X35 Schwalbe Marathon Extreme.  We'll have two days off in Gondor Ethiopia.  So the next update will be about 10 days away.


Stage 12 - Ahh Dongola rest day was bliss.  I had my hair cut by a local barber.  It was easy to gesture, since I can't speak Arabic and the barber didn't speak English.  I gestured 3 for the top of my head and 1 for the sides and back.  He knew to use the right guard for each part.  I had a shave too, although I'm trying to grow a mustache.  All of that for 11 Sudanese Pounds, or less than 3 USD.  For dinner most of the riders ended up at this grilled chicken place with falafels.  The falafels were wonderful, fresh from the deep fryer.  They were making it on the street.  The grilled chicken was simply the best.  They roast it in a oven, then put it over fire to BBQ.  I had a full chicken to load up on protein.    I also bought some local medicine for the cold.  It's like Nyquil.  Pharmacist didn't speak English as well, by the sound of my voice and my gestures of sneezing and coughing, he figured it out.  The medcine worked pretty well.

We have back to back to back 90 milers and one more day of 60 miles, this week.  So I decided to pace myself today to recover from the cold and save some energy for the rest of the week.  Today's ride is called Dongola to Dead Camel Camp.  There are quite a few dead camels along the way.  Since everything decomposes very slowly in the desert, you can see the carcases littered along the road.  I rode with the "senior" riders in the morning.  These are "seasoned" riders in our group, they have a stead pace and leave early in the morning.  We were actually going at the pretty good clip.  Another reason I left early in the morning is that the heat in the Nubian desert can be unbearable.  A rider checked in the temperature at 120F two days ago.  I wanted to get into the camp as soon as possible.  After lunch, around 10:30am, the heat started to rise.  You can see the heat on the road.  It's so dry.  I've consumed more than 6 liters of water already in the morning.  Dry heat is hot.  I rolled into camp at 1pm and just sat in the shade.  It was 99F in the shade.  Every breath took some effort.  I didn't want to do anything else.  The tent was hot as well, it's like a dry sauna.  I went in the tent to change and came out drenched in sweat.  Strange thing is that within minutes, I was completely dry.  You can wash your hand and it will be dry with in a minute.

One of our Sudanese security team member, Abdulla, asked me where I'm from.  I told him North Carolina.  Expecting him not to know where it is, I started to explain the geographic location.  Abdulla excited said, ahhhh North Carolina!  I know that place!  He then took out an evelope with a Greensboro address.  I was shocked!  His friend drives a bus there.

Getting ready for another hot day tomorrow.  We also start taking the Maleria pills tomorrow.

Stage 13 - This was a really tough day.  In the morning we had a 30+ rider peloton.  It broke up after 35km.  The ride today was away from the Nile River, in the Nubian Desert.  It was golden sand for miles and miles.  My cold was getting worse and worse.  I started a course of antibiotics to dry up the lungs.  The day was so hot.  We had some good tailwind in the last 20kms.  I was going 40kmph without pedaling, that's about 25mph.  Imagine if that was a headwind.  I was so happy to see camp at 148km mark.  The wind was blowing so hard, it took me about a hour to setup the tent.  By the time the tent went up, the inside of the tent was filled with sand.  I'm seriously contemplating to ride in the truck tomorrow.  Which means that I'll lose my EFI status.  Rodney (Isreali Australian, 2nd oldest rider in our group) and Terry (Australian) said they will pull me along tomorrow.  I hope I won't let them down.  I'm worn out physically.

Stage 14 - Last night I saw two shooting stars!  I made two wishes and hope they will come true.  The antibiotics kicked in last night as well as the cold medicine.  I felt OK this morning and decided to ride.  I was actually in decent shape.  The landscape changed a little bit, there are more greens in the desert, relatively speaking.  I stuck to one group today and it worked out well.  When the group went too fast, Rodney in his Australian accent would shout out, "we are on a holiday!"

At the rider meeting tonight, some of the sectional riders will be riding with us for the last time tomorrow.  Randy from Canada was an awesome bike mechanic, he helped out everyone at some point.  His son Steven will ride all the way to Cape Town with us.  Adrian is a Brit, married with three young kids.  I never figured out how he got time away from his family.  Vitali is from Australia but born in Russia.  His law firm is running a relay team.  Christina from San Francisco is leaving us but will rejoin later.  Her plan was to go to Cairo then Sharm el Sheik.  The situation is unstable in Egypt, so she's not sure what to do.  We also had an auction at the rider meeting.  Basically whatever item was left or lost in the camp are up for auction.  A couple people had some really nice items but couldn't fit into their lockers, so they went up for auction.  Dennis from Germany brought a lot of stuff, but he had to get rid a bunch of things.  Peter the Plumber from Australia always loses things.  He had some key items that went up for auction.  People bid him up.  Imagine you had to buy your own stuff back!  Bastian from the Netherlands took "souvenirs" from different places, but he couldn't fit it all in his locker as well.  So up for auction were some nice china plates and cups.  One more day to Khartoum!

Stage 15 - We had a time trial today.  10K warm-up.  Then 20K of time trial to see who can cycle the fastest by themselves.  I didn't enter, because of the cold.  All the riders gathered at 65km mark to eat lunch.  We then all got into a convoy to ride into Khartoum.  This was really cool that the tourism police blocked roads for us and cleared traffic.  I saw a couple of nice shiny new skyscrapers along the Nile as we crossed a bridge.  Most buildings in Khartoum were not very tall, a lot of shops lined the streets.  It's Chinese New Year!  Most of the Chinese people have left Khartoum for home, I was told by the hotel manager.  He was the only person left to manage the place.  I spoke Chinese with him and negotiated a good deal on the hotel cost.  I'm staying at the Khartoum Plaza Hotel, built and managed by the Chinese.  Since there is no "p" sound in Arabic, we had to say "blaza" hotel.  Scott, Len, Paul and I went into a local restaurant to eat.  There were different food available, including fresh orange juice, grilled chicken, pizza, fool, sharwarma, etc.  However, it looked like we had to order and pay to get a ticket first, then order the food.  But a man working in the restaurant walked up to us and helped us to order.  People really go out of their way in Sudan to help strangers.  The fresh orange and grapefruit juice was out of this world!