4 February - Becoming a cyclist.. Khartoum!

We cycled 145km yesterday which left 120 km to get through today. 500 km across the desert is a tall ask, but we are rising to the challenge and the whole team is putting in an incredible effort. Everyone is so excited to get to Khartoum and to take an extended break from cycling, raising money and all things bicycling. It has taken its toll on my body too. My knees are still straining and legs have not much juice in them. This trip has picked up tempo physically. A five day stint of extremely tough cycling in the Nubian desert, followed by four days of cracking the whip to get to Khartoum. We are certainly getting fitter and are a far cry from the team that started in Cairo a little under a month ago.

That first day was scary and the thought of an arrival in Cape Town was incomprehensible. Now, the thought is not so difficult to imagine. I am a cyclist now! It is what I do. I have forgotten that this is a sport and requires stretching and preparation and cooling down… This is a way of life. I wake somewhere between 6:30 and 7, pack up my tent, put on cycling kit, get on my bike, spend about six hours in the saddle and a couple of hours over lunch to escape from the midday sun, and then stop cycling, set up the tent, make dinner, sleep. Repeat cycle. Put this way, life doesn’t sound too enthralling, but this routine is interspersed with moments surveying the brilliant night sky, chatting to Sudanese men, watching long eye-lashed children, discussing futures with good mates, singing songs to myself at top volume... It is a beautifully simple life.

Upon starting this trip I wore my “wedding ring” religiously, and identified a husband whenever asked. I have relaxed somewhat, with my silver ring relocated to my right hand. The guys have relaxed to. In fact, they now insist on telling the Sudanese men that I am single!

We stopped at a little shop this afternoon to get a cool drink and procrastinate before attacking the fairly boring road ahead. A fat man oozing charisma bustled out the single-roomed store with coke bottles and phone cards doing telephone impersonations for the video camera. He had the team in hysterics as everyone got involved, offering what ring tones they could! It was at this point that the guys indicated that I was for sale. There was more hysteria as I proceeded to enter a tug of war over my bike as the guys threw out the number of camels they would sell me for… very entertaining.

Gareth’s back tyre, suffering war wounds from the Northern stretch, had deteriorated significantly over the last 500km, and gave in entirely just outside Omdurman 20km short of Khartoum city centre. We were now on the side of the road, considering negotiating Africa’s traffic at its worst, in failing light and with little idea of where we were going.

Through a work colleague of mine, we had been in touch with Reverend Joanna Udal in Khartoum, and she had very kindly offered to host us. So with that as an end point, we loaded our lives and bikes onto an African kombi… and headed into the city.

I had no idea what Khartoum would be like. I had no concept of the sheer size of this city. Khartoum has approximately 8 million people, and sprawls over a massive area. In fact, Omdurman and Khartoum are actually two cities joined at the confluence of the Nile where White Nile meets Blue Nile. It is a city which also involves the meeting of Southern Sudan and Northern Sudan, the largely Christian world of the south and the Arabic world of the North. There is also a large international community comprising of the Chinese for the oil, and the UN which have a massive operation here made visible by the fleet of Landcruisers that roam the city.

It is an oasis to the team. It is a place where we can get western food and relax the aching bodies.