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From:
Date: 22 Feb 2006
Time: 17:00:11 +0100
Remote Name: 213.55.89.8
The day started with a 20k convoy ride out of Khartoum – not as many wailing sirens as the ride in, but impressive nevertheless. The landscape change over the following few days became very noticeable: at last out of the bleak, arid, sandy desert that represented most of northern Sudan and into the grasslands, the savannah area – prairie-like expanses with nothing but dry grass waving in the wind, dotted with the occasional tree and bushes. This was particularly advantageous for the ladies in the group as it meant no longer having to cycle for limitless kilometres in search of a suitable rock behind which to go on the potty – we now had a selection of bushes to choose from. As well as the landscape, there was also a change in the small villages we were cycling through – for the first time we saw small villages of round mud huts with thatched circular roofs spread across the grasslands. It reinforced the feeling that we had crossed over from Arabian Africa and were now well and truly into Africa proper. More hot days, and from 11.30 onward I went into my usual “hunt-for-shade routine”. Stir-fried brains were no longer an issue as I had acclimatised to the heat, now it was pan-fried skin that became the all-consuming concern during every days ride. Factor 40 sun protection made no difference – the typical routine after 11.30 was: get in shade, venture out for max 15 to 20 mins and hammer out some ks, retire under a tree for 5 mins before repeating the whole process again, sometimes back in the shade every 10 minutes. Every minute in the sun was agony, like a blow-torch being run up and down my arms and right leg in the afternoon (always going south, remember). This was becoming a real issue, forcing me to bail out of the afternoons ride to stay out of the sun. I now know that the Doxycycline anti-malarial was the cause of all this suffering and have stopped taking it. The terrain soon changed again after El Haheisa, and towards the end of the day small outcrops of rocks and hills appeared, catching the golden light of the evening sun. Our campsite for the evening was next to a dry river bed in the lee of one of these hills (handy to break the headwind of the day). It was a beautiful campsite, peaceful and seren, and as we had out rider meeting in the early evening, we found out that this was the place where Alfons from Switzerland had passed away during the prior year 2005 TDA. Randy gave a very moving memorial for Alfons, who had died peacefully in his early 60s while resting on the truck. The eulogy was from the heart, a personal tribute to a man who had enjoyed cycling his whole life, and had passed on doing what he loved. It was a reflective evening for many of us, with a quiet and thoughtful dinner in the setting sun, remembering one of our own. Although a sad occasion, I was in a way quietly pleased to find that a fellow rider had experienced a full and active life on his bike and had enjoyed his final day in such beautiful surroundings. The following day was a reasonable distance and the three musketeers (myself, Huberte and Ayesha) decided to have a crack at the whole day’s ride – all offroad, but reasonable packed gravel. By lunchtime I was suffering in a big way from the effects of the sun scorching my skin, and put myself on shade-detection duty at the front. I am now an expert at finding maximum shade from minimum overhead coverage available within a 5k radius. All three of us needed frequent shade stops for different reasons, and it was difficult to choose which one of us was the worst physical wreck that day. It was a close contest. Many shade stops and girlie gossips under trees later we trundled into camp. Having spent the entire day broiling in the sun, I finally concluded that the unbearable burning of my skin was more than just standard sunburn, and was most probably an extreme reaction to the Doxycycline anti-malarial. Now switched to Malarone, I am no longer having any more problems, and the only reason I need to sit under a tree in the shade is because either me or my lungs are knackered; this occurs on a fairly regular basis. The final couple of days riding before the Sudanese Ethiopian border were mostly on gravel roads, which made for tough going with Gergo’s rigid forks on my bike. The day’s ride into the border town of Gallabat was a little hilly towards this end which meant a lot of braking on the loose stone and gravel downhills, as I didn’t want to trash Gergo’s rigid forks (or every bone in my arms and shoulders for that matter). But fortunately for me and unfortunately for Monty, his bike frame had developed a major crack and was now unrideable (he is temporarily riding medic John’s bike) and his shocks have been transferred over to my bike. This meant that from the Ethiopian border I would be back on the road with a much higher spec shock than my faulty ones, which was good news as there was a good chunk of offroading to be done, including the Blue Nile gorge.