Thursday 28 January 2010

AMAZING SUDAN


Sudan is amazing! Today, our 150 km ride was one of the most beautiful and exotic ride, I have ever taken. Mind blowing! The desert is really scenic and the newly paved road (Thanks to the chinese) made our ride even more pleasant.




The people we met along the road were extremely friendly and even a bit shy. Unlike Egypt, nobody ever asked for money and people were genuinely interrested about us. They were so kind. At one stop, I was invited to share lunch with them, at another it was tea and so on. They speak very little english, but they all want to know what our name is and where we are going. If we answer "Cape Town", they just smile, because it is simply too far away and they have no idea where it is, but when we say we are going to Karthoum by bicycle, they are amazed!

Our camp is by the Nile and it is by far the best camp so far. At least it is clean here, again unlike Egypt where the road sides are used as waste bins. We all jumped into the Nile and washed ourselves. What a pleasure after a day of riding in the desert. It is now getting very hot as we progress south and even tonight, we feel that the heat is now here with us.

At camp many children came on their donkeys to observe this strange caravan of cyclist. We are definitely the attraction of the year for the locals. These kids are very respectful and they just watched our camp animation with their eyes open in little groups of 5 to 10 kids. Some of the more hasardous one came to chat, one girl on top of her donkey, proudly showed me her English lesson book. Cute!

6 comments:

Jack Humphreville said...

Are you going to shave? A beard for Cape Town?

Anonymous said...

My niece, Dana F. from the USA, is on your tour and although she can't blog everyday because of her technology, we are enjoying your photos and blog. Please tell her that her family loves her and we are all with you , her and the TDA in spirit.
Aunt Margie

Anonymous said...

My niece, Dana F. from the USA, is one of the riders on the TDa and although she's not able to blog or communicate as frequently, we (her family) has discovered your site and are enjoying your daily blogs and photos. They are truly awesome and we've even seen Dana in your photos. We are all with you, her and the TDA in spirit and hoping you are all well. Please tell Dana, we love her.
Aunt Margie

Anonymous said...

I prepared a quick and dirty site to follow your path in Africa using Google map. The link is:
http://track-map.appspot.com/
If you can post in your blog the locations I can add more precision to you track:)
Allez Gerald!,
Tibor

Anonymous said...

Boy, This looks Great!

when I see these pictures I wonder what I'm doing here... I should be with you that looks so cool. Well then again I forgot about the bike thing. Hmmm do you think they would have accepted me on a moped?

Matthieu

Anonymous said...

Hi there

Your blog is amazing and everyday I have a look to see whats new. Your photos are fantastic and make it all very real for me as an armchair traveller!
Please say Hi to Ted Remillard - I trust he is enjoying the ride and of course Koos as well!
Bye for now

Charmaine in Cape Town