Cycling in an oven

 

 

Monday the seventh of April our alarm-clock rings at a quarter past five in the morning. Outside it's nice and cool at 23 degrees Celsius, there are millions of stars in the sky. We eat a sandwich and drink one and a half litre of water. When it gets lighter at a quarter past six, we immediately leave. Nimeri wakes up when we open the gates and very sleepy he says goodbye, sad because we're really on our way. Last night we declined his offer to stay a couple of nights for free. At his request we wrote two short essays for him for his study: one about war, the other about peace. He loved it.
The road leading out of Ed Debba is bad: loose sand which means walking large parts. A lot of people are awake already and on their way to work or mosque. Everywhere we look people are sleeping outside, the coolest place at night. So do the two men of the security-police, who wake up when we pass by. We have to show our passports and they wish us a safe journey. After a little while we reach a wide road with a hard top-layer of dry ground. Cycling is wonderful here, sometimes we even go twenty kilometres per hour. Left and right villages appear, where the people have just woken up. A lot of goats, dogs, camels and children. Looking towards the rising sun we see a caravan of camels coming towards us out of a haze, probably they're on their way to a market. A wonderful scene.

A few kilometres further the road gets worse and worse, we have to walk through sand and mud-powder. The fine dust is everywhere after some time. Bad stretches are alternated with gravel and washboard. Two and a half hours later we reach a high dike, where people are constructing an irrigation-canal. On the other side of the dike the workers invite us for coffee and tea. Immediately about fifteen people gather around us that offer us biscuits and bananas.
Two kilometres further we see a mosque with two green minarets, flanked by an obelisk. The starting-point of the tarmac-road to Khartoum. Our first tarmac in Sudan! At the cafeteria there it's very busy: a lot of busses loaded to the brim with people take a break here. We replenish our water-supply, drink tea and eat something, watched by dozens pairs of eyes. The women look beautiful in their colourful tobes. Some of them have large gashes in their cheeks or their temples: tribal scars. Clothed thoroughly against the heat we continue our journey, on the tarmac. It's extremely hot and it feels like we're cycling in an oven. Ten minutes later I have my first spontaneous bloody nose. Together with a headache and empty, elastic legs sufficient reason to stop at a deserted mudhouse, where we find some shade in the left-over part of the reed-roof. We make ourselves comfortable with our mattresses and groundsheet of the tent. A neighbour a few hundred metres further spots us and together with an armed soldier inquires about our wellbeing. He offers us his house and water, but we decline.
In the afternoon we both sleep like logs and frequently wake up, bathing in our own sweat. Strange, it's only 43 degrees Celsius in the shade.
At the police-post a bit further we drink tea and gratefully accept the offer to eat some fool and bread. Again we meet great people with loving hearts! We wait until the sun sets and in the twilight we start cycling again, to profit as much of the relative coolness as possible. It's only 37 degrees now. The road radiates an enormous heat, which causes the temperature to be much higher than we expected. In the dark we cycle on, rear-lights on and headlights within reach. The quarter moon is sufficient to see everything. We are quite visible for the trucks that pass us, hooting loudly. At eleven p.m. we call it a day. A few metres from the road we stretch out on the groundsheet and fall asleep immediately.

After having slept for seven hours in the open air we're cycling again at six a.m., profiting from the relative coolness of the morning. This is not an easy adventure, litres of fluids keep coming out of my nose, Peters legs are made of elastic; he has no strength at all. At nine a.m. it's already 39 degrees and the temperature is rising fast. The wind is to our disadvantage again and burns our eyes out of their sockets, despite shawls and glasses. Every kilometre we stop to drink, rest and apply lip-salve. At noon we reach, after having cycled a mere 58 kilometres, a cafeteria, where we drop ourselves in the shade. We're more dead than alive. The owner allows us to use one of the mattresses, we spend the whole afternoon sleeping like roses. In the afternoon there is virtually no traffic; the engines of the busses, cars and trucks can't stand the heat. After seven p.m. life starts again.

With pain in our hearts we arrange a lift on a truck, to go to Khartoum. Bicycles and bags are lifted four metres up in the sky and land on big bags of cumin and garlic. We too climb up and lie comfortably on the bags. The high and heavy load causes the truck to drive very slow. Despite the smooth tarmac we shake and bump, this doesn't stop us from falling asleep though. In the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, the driver stops to sleep as well. Three hours later we're moving again and with the rising sun we arrive in Omdurman, north of Khartoum. We unload our things, pack our bicycles and give the men some dollars for the lift and all their help.
Cycling alongside the Nile to the centre of Khartoum, we see dozens of young men ride their donkey-carts to the water. On the cars are oil-drums that are welded together. The men fill the drums by hand, then ride to the villages to fill the earthen jars that are standing everywhere. The jars where we filled our bottles with. This might explain Peters diarrhoea.