Crocodiles in Khartoem

During one weekend the temperature drops to a comfortable 37 degrees Celsius, thanks to a dust-wind coming from the west. We decide to cycle a bit alongside the Nile. After an hour we find a nice spot at the bank of the river, under a huge acacia-tree. A few meters below the cool water flows and Peter can't control himself any longer: he takes of his clothes, wades through the mud and has a great swim. According to the townspeople and everything I have read (and told him) it's safe here: "Those croco-boys don't come here, so close to town."
Moments later we enjoy the rest. Once in a while a large lizard walks past us. There are beautiful birds here as well. A pair of them hops from branch to branch, only a few metres away. Green head, yellow back and breast and a nice long black beak. In the tree we see black birds with a long, narrow tail. The green-yellow-orange birds are active in catching prey: small fish from the Nile and insects from the air. They look like kingfishers, they have the same sharp way of flying. Then we see a non-existing crocodile, exactly at the same spot Peter was swimming minutes ago. For a few seconds it sticks half out of the water, then it submerges again and doesn't show itself anymore. With two metres not really a big one, but it had enough teeth to bite off some of Peters eleven fingers. Peter insists on talking about our relationship.

A week after the money has been transferred from the Netherlands we are at the bank again. We are determined not to leave before the money is in our hands. It starts with waiting, sending an urgent telex to the agent in Frankfurt (Germany) and wait for an answer on the telex. Two hours later we urgently request to speak to the bank-director, who receives us. We are allowed to call to the Netherlands to confirm the transaction. Then Peter suddenly speaks to John and his mother. They are on the verge of going to Peters grandmothers funeral, who passed away three days before. John faxes the bank statement and the director phones to Frankfurt. There they tell him they just received the money (yeah, we really believe that). One hour later it arrives in Khartoum. Our determination has helped and one hour later again we are sitting on our bicycles. It seems like the whole of Sudan tries to make up for the past weeks. Everybody waves, hoots, chats, calls and is friendly.
Once in a while we dive into an irrigation-canal, when the heat is too much for us. When we visit a market to do some shopping, just past Giad, we have a supporters-club of about thirty people; everybody wants to be on a picture with us. At seven o'clock it gets dark and via a sandy path we try to reach the Nile, to put up our tent there. We see a lot of activity on the banks and in the water: men washing themselves and mud houses being build. The seventy-year old Modowi Ali invites us into his home.

This is our first invitation in Sudan, so we gratefully accept. He lives in a big walled-in house with three court-yards and two guests-quarters. He introduces us to two of his six daughters and one of his two sons. They put up beds and chairs, pour ice-cold coke and show us bathroom and toilet. Then we sit down for a delicious meal of kizra, bread, salad, sherifa and fool. After the meal Peter enjoys the spicy Sudanese coffee that's being roasted, pounded and cooked on the spot. The ginger they add makes it the best coffee Peter ever tasted. On a courtyard two rope-beds with clean sheets are put up under the starry sky and a small table with fresh water. We are being treated as guests of honour. Half past nine we're in bed, watching the starry sky and talking about the day. With a magnificent comet on our retina we fall into a deep sleep.

Today our speed isn't very high, which is caused by our big enemy: headwind. The traffic really considers us, apart from a single fool that forces us off the road. We avoid the worst heat of the day by diving into the Nile and taking a shady break. At a sheltered place we see small crocodiles about one metre long dive in the water when they hear us. Here again a lot of those birds with yellow, green and orange feathers. Some young goat-herds that pass us drink water straight from the Nile, even though it doesn't look very clean. We get it out of the stone jars in the villages, although it's likely to be the same water.
While cycling we hear people calling "Khawaja" for the umpteenth time, which means something like mister, teacher or white person. At police-posts we have to drink Coke for free and tell stories. Looking for a quiet place for the night, at Hasaheisa we are picked up by two white men in a mini-bus. They are Tadek and Robert, two Poles who invite us to stay at their place. They work for EADS, a Polish-European company that sprays the fields in Sudan with fertiliser and poison. The bicycles are parked in one of the hangars at the airport, we accompany them to their house in Hasaheisa. In the house we meet Stefan, the boss, Kpzystof and Leszek. They install us in a room of our own, with airco. Great! After the cold dinner the illegal booze appears and it gets nicer all the time. The evening ends with loud Polish music, being the only woman I have to dance with all the men.

After lengthy debate the group decides we have to stay another day, although our visa are nearing their date of expiration. The next day they will bring us to Gedaref by car, so we don't have to be in the country illegally. The men offer us the use of washing machine, food, drink, the air-conditioned rooms, English television, not to forget the vodka, all of it in their company. After a second evening filled with stories, singing and laughter we are brought to the airport, where bicycles and luggage are transferred to a pick-up. Peter and I get a little lesson in flying a plane, then it's time to say goodbye. This is one of the rare occasions that we feel a special connection immediately with people we've never met before. Going through 270 kilometres of desert, steppe, hut villages of refugees and large herds of camels we arrive in Gedaref. From here it's a 170-kilometre gravel-road to Ethiopia.

Late in the afternoon we leave Gedaref. After five kilometre the tarmac ends and the gravel road starts. The road is so bad we can't go faster than walking pace. After a tyre-burst the next obstacle follows: the tourist-police. Lying in their undershirts they eat their 'dinner' in a reed hut that resembles a pig-sty very much. We don't have to show our travel-permits again, after they have written down our names and passport-numbers we can resume our way. Left and right we pass hut-villages, where people cry and cheer at us all the time. At night in the tent a spider as big as a mouse attacks me, with a well-aimed blow Peter removes it from my body and out of the tent. The next morning we see the assailer in the full daylight: ten centimetres long, brown, hairy and about six red and big jaws. He isn't very likely to become a friend of ours.
Some stretches of the gravel-road are quite level, we can make twenty kilometres per hour here. Most are bad though, we have to manoeuvre between the stones and have difficulty making ten kilometres per hour. Left and right are great plains of dry grass and reed. The ground is bone-dry and burst, the trees have no leaves. More and more we pass villages, where people react enthusiastically. Children have never seen a white person before and run away, screaming loudly. At Doka, we go into the village to have a cup of tea. Within a minute about sixty people have gathered around us. Judging by the look on their faces and the excitement people have never ever seen white people here. Grown ups chase the children away with a stick, half a minute later they're all back where they were. After having drunk the tea we force our way through the crowd in order to buy some bread and fruit on the market. We replenish our water-supply and we leave in a hurry: a quiet siesta is impossible here.
The underhooks of Peters panniers have broken off because of the bad and bumpy road, so has the computer-holder.

bbb

After a bad night because of the increasing wind, we are on our bicycles very early, to cover the last kilometres to the border. The muscles in our arms hurt from steering and holding the bicycles upright. The surroundings are a pleasant diversion: birds of prey, tropical birds, termite-hills and magnificent trees that stand out beautifully against the background. The border turns out to be seven kilometres further than the map says. The border town Galabat isn't very much. Except for some shops it consists of a police-station, customs-office and immigration-office. We spend our last dinars, check out of the country and enter our nineteenth country over a metal bridge that crosses a dry river. This border has opened only six months ago, after border-clashes between Sudan and Ethiopia that lasted for years.

We say goodbye and hope to return one day to Sudan, but then in the winter-period. The friendly people are worth a visit and hopefully the civil war will be over by then, so we will be able to visit the whole country.