Post sent from the laptop of a policeman from the middle of the desert
No I did not consider the blinds …
Last night I was so tired that I did not realize the there were the window blinds, so this morning after dismissing the alarm clock set at 6 for the great stage, I slept until ten! Not too bad because during the night there was a huge storm, the officers from the Immigration Office arrived late, and my documents came ready around midday and myself … a couple of hours later …
Exiting Khartoum was much easier than entering, in twenty minutes the puddles and the mud have made vain the fantastic shower of the Acropole Hotel, intense traffic, a lot of people asking me where I go and where I come from, kind policemen, a bit less precise in the kilometers directions of the undefeatable Ethiopians, and a proactive petrol station attendant who helped me lustrate the change and chain took me out of Khartoum without me realizing it.
The road to Dongola is beautiful, recent, or not used much, the kilometers are marked one by one, there are some police check points, where other than showing the passport, I have to leave a copy of the travel permit to the North and the photographs permit, I have only three copies if they continue with this rhythm tomorrow they will already be finished, and to think that the first policeman nearly took my hotel receipt … at another police check point, close to the 35km/h, I pretended not to hear the policeman calling me … they did not chase me …
It is the first time I pedal in the desert, the favorable wind helped me enjoy its unusual charm for who has always lived in very green regions, the red sand, the dunes broken by some shrub follow one another, interrupted by some feed factories for chickens and eggs. There are also some green fenced areas, I think they are part of reforestation projects or something similar. Until now the villages, or the groups of houses are quite frequent, the absolute nothing reported by others who have passed through here by bicycle is not there, surely there are no hotels nor supermarkets, I found a camping bed on the open sky at a family of sheppards, there are goats and camels, curiosity, very little possibility of communication, and a dark sweet polenta in a sweet milk, which since it is not of goat I assume it is of camel, or better dromedary …
I have been welcomed only by the men the women kept their distance in another house, we managed to exchange the names, after twenty minutes, Mohammed, the elderly head of the family, Abbas and Ali, who could be both his grandsons and sons … I think the sons will sleep here next to me … they play a small guitar, which looks like an miniature harp, always the same beautiful song …
Since I had some doubts it may rain, I asked to my hosts the weather forecast for the night, and because we could not understand each other, I took a small water bottle and I mimicked the water falling, … they told me it will not rain …
In the meanwhile the wind goes on blowing towards the North, the moon is covered by the clouds, it seems to me to understand that my hosts are tired, because they started playing at a faster pace, and the yawns are more frequent, they enjoyed looking at my videos taken in Zambia, mainly the vegetation which here it is not there, and terribly bored as I was writing … next time I have to learn some rudiments of Arabic …
I did not manage to understand the place, like for analphabets, it remains just the X represented by the coordinates of my GPS at N 16°15.994’ E 031°50.671’ (11 kilometers before Buhat, a village with four houses and a nice sign post).
With this wind tomorrow may come out a science fiction stage …
Khartoum 15° 55,010’ E 32° 53,224’ – Sheppards’ house along the road to Al Dabbah N 16°15.994’ E 031°50.671’
119 km