Wake up at 4,59 in the morning …
I do not want to get trapped in the grip of the heat and wind even today, I snooze the alarm clock just once, everybody around me is sleeping, some on beds like mine, others on carpets and one in front of me on a heap of grey sand which seems very comfortable judging from how he sleeps …
While I fold the sleeping bag, which I used up to knees, and I do the panniers I force myself to eat about ten digestive biscuits and some dry figs which I bought in Dongola, I take on credit some pockets of very sweet milk from the freezer of the cafeteria and take some pictures.
I want to start off in a hurry also because I have seen that the wind increases proportionally with the increasing of the heat, but I find time for some pictures to the sun rising and to myself, I am happy that the self-timer has started working again, and the camera has recovered and is no longer giving those ‘system error’ which it gave me in the last two days because of some abundant shower from the water containers … the Blackberry has not recovered yet … and I do not know if it will recover … now it has the screen which looks like a naïf painting … but at least I can read it …
Coke, tea, and go! The sun is on the East on my right, my stretched out shadow on the left, I know that until the shadow will stay on my left hand pedaling will be easier, I start off with an exaggerated determination, I want to be in Wadi Halfa before one, I find myself many times standing on the pedals on the uphill and flat on the handlebar on downhill, I do not have to think to do it, it comes natural, I enjoy some shaded parts which the mountains project on the road, the temperature is acceptable. A part from a sleepy cafeteria, a few kilometers after the one I slept at, there is nothing, and there will not be anything else until Wadi Halfa.
Towards eight I am reached by two Land Rovers, one with a Swedish couple heading home, and the other with a Australian couple heading to London, who stop because they are impresses to see a cyclist on the desert, they offer me some fresh water, which I match to the last cereal bar from the supply of Serena in Nairobi. They tell the temperature is for now only 31°, yesterday at the same time it was already at 40°, we would speak much more if I were not scared of the heat and them not to find a place on the ferry.
There are two or three boards of towns, but they are not on the road and cannot be seen even from a distance, there is not a soul, the only people I see are resting under a truck, the heat increases, the adverse and favorable wind alternate one another, depending if the road turns left or right, the IPod discharges, the only music is the one of the wind, dunes, black rocks, alternate themselves to thoughts and solutions, which only time will tell if they were good.
At about thirty kilometers from Wadi Halfa I am reached by a Land Cruiser, which has mounted behind a kind of small trailer, driving a couple of about thirty year old going back home after a tour of ten months started in Namibia. The girl represents the proactive German efficiency, first she offers to put the bicycle on the trailer and go with them … Are we joking? I arrived up to here to do the last kilometers by car? … so convinced by my reaction, she offers me some fresh water ‘filtered’ in the trailer … obviously I accept … she gets off the car … opens the door of the small trailer … pushes a button … and a small ladder comes down automatically! … the water is transparent not brownish like mine … she gains points when she offers me a apple … before bidding farewell she fills again the two liter bottle … and reminds me the ‘water is essential’ … thanks I knew it … I am at the last 30 kilometers of desert not the first three …
In the last thirty kilometers the wind and heat increase, I am also hit by a sand vortex which forces me to stop and turn on my back to protect myself from the flying sand which arrives on me.
The board Wadi Halfa arrives before expected, but it is only an illusion because the distance to reach the Bank of Khartoum, where there are my contact Magdi and the hotel, is so much to take the kilometers back to what expected.
The city is nice, sleepy from Ramadan, there is a bit of green safeguarded by tankers which patiently water the trees one by one, as soon as I arrive to the hotel, I fall asleep after the shower. The room has no windows, there is a door without glasses on a small balcony, the light enters from the imperfect frames of the doors, but it has air conditioning, a fan and a small fridge.
The afternoon I fight for a couple of hours with the connection of the only internet point in the market, seen the speed while I try to load a photo, I rush to a cafeteria bakery where I concede myself a couple of honey cakes with low fat yoghurt …
The manager of the internet point and two of his friends invite me for the post Ramadan supper, since it is early I can manage to watch half an hour of Olympics in the house of Khalid, who gifts me a beautiful cotton tunic, which I will take home with me together with all the beautiful memories of this beautiful country.
Melik el Nasir N 21° 25’ E 30° 75’ – Wadi Halfa N 21° 79.285’ E 31° 37.13’ 97 km