Sudan, Tarseal and Roast Chicken!

Good afternoon everybody,
Hope this post finds you all very well. As for me I am in Dongola, Sudan and it is 5.21pm on Sunday January 27th and I have eaten and showered.Well..that's a small lie..I stood under a hose in the middle of an old zoo and washed myself under the gushing water from the said hose with an audience of Sudanese kids watching from the outside walls. They found it very entertaining...not too sure if it was the whole skin exposure thing or that I looked absolutely ridiculous trying to clean myself under the hose. Whatever I am clean.Re the comment eaten? I more or less inhaled a roast chicken meal, chai and a coke and it was good!!!Roast chicken is expensive in Sudan as it is hard to find but I didn't mind paying 20 Sudanese pounds (10US dollars)because it was so good and tasty and made a change from the evening stew meal and the post race sardines in olive oil..my supplementation!!

Before I grabbed a tuk-tuk into town I also set up my tent near a palm tree and made sure that the early 5.00am in the morning talkers were far away...(wake up call is at 6.30am with loud music of Wimpie's choice so the 5.00am talk thing is slightly annoying),also made sure the early morning repackers of the red box were far away...(some people can't sleep and so they try to be as quiet as possible rearranging their stuff to fit that much better in the red box however 4.30am just doesn't cut it and the noise of duct tape on plastic bags seem to magnify at that time of the morning especially in the desert).Once I finished marking out my tent site I got down to business and had time to do my washing and hang it up..how's that? My washing line is a piece of string strung up between two trains which in their former glory must have entertained masses of children when they visited the zoo.Today? Rusty and broken and set half on and half off the track which is still there.

The reason why I could do all the above this afternoon is because Duncan from New Zealand ...who is our tour leader....really is a legend! He truely excelled himself today by finding another route from our desert camp of last night to Dongola today including a new ferry crossing of the Nile which went every 20 minutes and so we didn't have to stay in a huge, slow convoy of 64 riders. What a difference from 2007.This year it only took me 5.5 hours to ride/cruise the 87km compared to a full 10 hour day which we had to endure in 2007. It also helps that they have paved alot of the roads.We had an 18km sandy crossing of the desert in convoy this morning (and 2007 TDA's who may be reading this, the reason why it was only 18km is because they have built a road from Dongola to that much of the desert..can you believe it?) Anyway, we had an 18km sandy ride,then 36km on hard packed roads which were being prepared for asphalt with a couple of sandy bits here and there and then at 63km we hit smooth as a babies bottom brand new tarseal!Although it was good to be on tarseal it was also unfortunately a bit boring as it sliced through all the small villages which you tend to mingle with the locals and say hi and stop for coke. The new road is straight down the middle of some poor farmers field and so on either side there are people busily tending their crops and so all you see is either a head in the crops or an ass popping up.No fun! At 83 km we turned right for 1km and there was the Nile with the ferry and all the three support trucks were already there waiting to load on to the ferry. We crossed the Nile and 2.8km up the road was the zoo.We entered Dongola from a completely direction than last year but it was so simple and with all the new tar Doris, Priscilla and The Bitch (that's the name of the lunch truck but I've heard that they are changing her name to Precious) were able to get through no problem and so we were able to get to our red boxes and set up camp.I was going to get a hotel room but decided my tent and red box were just fine.I'll splash out in Khartoum and go to the Arcopol Hotel again like Chris and I did last year.

As for the racing. We left Wadi Halfa one day late and so had to make up time in order to get back on track.We had heard that the roads were much improved and that there was now tarseal and so Duncan pushed the distances up from last year. Day one out of Wadi we rode 110km. The tarseal was outside our camp and continued for 50km off and on. It was amazing for me to see the new roads and I took lots of photos for the 2007 TDA'ers as last year day one out of Wadi was a shock not only to the body..lots of rocks and corrugations but also to the brain...what the hell had I got myself in for? 2008? Different scenario..old bag..I thought been there...done that.. got the t-shirt..I knew what to expect and so when it didn't happen it was more of a shock.I could not believe the amount of tarseal.

With the new tarseal also comes change to day to day activity which is both good and bad. Dongola and Wadi Halfa has new hotels, easy bus passage from Wadi Halfa in one direction and Khartoum in the other, more than one internet cafe, lots more traffic on the roads, lots more toyota trucks and unfortunately some of the Sudanese kids have figured out the rock throwing thing to get our attention.Last year I personally didn't see one Sudanese kid throwing anything or asking for money like they have this year. I guess with change it's not always positive.Hmmm..food for thought.

Back to the racing. Day one out of Wadi was a 110km day and I came in 4th rider behind the boys(Jos, Bernd and Bent) and 1st woman by 2hours. I lost ground to the boys on the off road parts but day two another 110km day was a great day for me and I rode strong and came in 3rd rider behind Jos and Bernd. There was alot of off road but also more sand and so I was able to get ahead of Bent, my closest male rival. After day two in Sudan I was leading the womans race by over 20 hours but more exciting for me was the fact that I was only 10 mins behind the 3rd male rider Bent. Day three from desert camp to desert was tough.The roads were pretty much the same as last year with lots of black rocky roads, huge sand pits that seemed to engulf the bike and yourself in a cloud of dust as we tried to ride through them and in many instances we had to walk because the sand was so deep.I also got my first flat tire and was wondering why I felt so bad up to that point.During the course of the morning with all the bumps and rocks I managed to misalign my left back brake and so the damn thing was sticking to my wheel. The road was so noisy from a combination of my thick tires, rocks richoting off the rim that I didn't realise the brake was sticking.Duh!When I got to the finish line I was pooped! I came in 5th behind Ed, Jos,Chris and Bernd and was feeling shitty until I realised that I had beaten Bent home and taken two minutes out of his ten minute lead.Bonus. So now I am only 8 minutes behind and sitting in 4th overall. It all counts as Ethiopia is looming and the boys are all billy goats..aka..climbers.

The racing is fun for me but I know that Jos wishes he had signed up in 2007 as he is a strong rider/athlete and in a different league from the other guys and he would have had fun racing with Chris, Adrie, Gunther and Eric.He makes me work by butt off and had me smiling to myself the other evening when they announced the race times to date.The time difference in the womans race is something like 45 hours for me,65 hours for the second woman and 72 hours for the third woman. He came up to me after the rider meeting and told me catergorically that I was racing against Bent who is the third place male asI was only 10 minutes behind him and so to ignore the womans time. Too funny! I have another Chris like thinking character here in Africa ....I can't even hide ....I can't even cruise....did you pay him to be on this tour Chris baby? It keeps me on my toes and it'sall good!

Ok...time to go and find more food.
I'll post another update tomorrow if I have time.
Happy belated birthday greetings to my dad and my girlfriend Wendy Sweet in New Zealand for Jan 25th.Hope you both had great days. Early birthday greetings for the 30th go to Miss Suzi Nevell who is also in New Zealand. I'll be on a bike somewhere between Dongola and Khartoum on that day. Congratulations to Dan and Phyllis with the arrival of Jacob, another grandson to carry on the Epstein lineage. Thanks for sending the photos..he looks very cute. It's call to pray which means that food service stops for 30 minutes and so I had better get out of here and buy food and water.

There's a beautiful sunset going on outside and I am determined that I will find a way to post some of my 2008 photos to this blog. Tomorrow I have to clean my bike, do a spot of bike maintenance and then sort out the photo/computer thing.They have a tendency to say NO to me those computers but we have enough IT guys on this trip that I'm sure one will be able to help me.
Love ya all
Janet in Dongola, Sudan.

Love ya all