Round and round we go

Day Total: 148 Km

Total Time: 4:20:00

Avg. HR: 122bpm

Avg. Speed: 33.2 km/h

Song of the Day: Run DMC – Tricky
Planning only gets you so far on a trip such as this. Variables are constant, their impact dynamic. My preparations for the morning paid off, my rehydration efforts seemed to be working to design (I peed three times during the night), and I was ready to roll well ahead of schedule with some of the early-goers. Paul suggested we start just 10 minutes after the group led by Australian Luke and I figured, what the hell, we could make that up without too much difficulty. As we finalized preparations and were about to clock-in for the day, I decided to check my tire pressure only to find my front wheel flat. This is the same tire I repaired during our rest day in Dongola. Paul was an expert assistant and we got it changed quickly, the root cause of the issue seemingly a rim strip (a piece of cloth/plastic on the outside of the rim meant to protecth the tube from protruding spokes) that shifted slightly. The only downside was that we rolled out of camp 18 minutes behind instead of our planned 10.

Jorg, Paul, and myself grouped up again and set a steady, brisk, pace for the early kilometers. My body told me early on that it was perhaps too brisk, but we quickly picked up a 4th rider – Dutchman Kim – which meant only about 2 minutes of work to 6 minutes of relative ease. We covered the distance easily with fairly neutral winds. At around 41km, we turned away from the Nile and headed into an expanse of desert unlike anything we have seen thus far. The early days of riding in Egypt had similar desert, but it was broken up by frequent construction projects and checkpoints. There was simply nothing here to be seen in any direction for the next 20 miles to lunch. After lunch, we passed near a number of villages – mostly mud structures with no electricity and few signs of water. This really is the desert.

Lunch was the usual quick affair, but on arrival we were very surprised to see the Luke group. On the previous day we did not manage to catch them, today we had 18 minutes by lunch. I was silently elated as Sunday’s dehydration was definitely kicking me in the head repeatedly. We rolled out ahead of then and quickly decided that it made more sense to let them catch us and work with them than try to stay away. They took about 10km to pull even, but once they did, they seemed eager to whip up the pace and in no time at all we were matching and exceeding the pace we held to lunch. This was ideal for me as it meant that I could just fall in line and tap out the miles to get to camp. I was uncomfortable, my nose was running incessantly, and the heat of the day was bugging me again. My drinking regimen was strict today however – my watch reminding me to take a couple of sips of water every 8 minutes. Without too much difficulty we hit camp just before noon.

Tonight’s camp is in the middle of a very, very barren desert landscape about 50 meters from the highway. There is a low mud-brick building and a communications tower nearby, but other than that, nothing in any direction. The wind blew with building strength all afternoon which was enough to deter me from erecting my tent with any haste. Instead I changed out of my cycling shorts, changed footwear, and pulled up a chair in the shade of the truck. I sat for an hour, shooting the breeze with other riders. I dozed for an hour with my head resting heavily on the back of the truck. I read for an hour. I consumed 3 bottles of energy drink to combat the heat and wind. After about 2 hours, a truck pulled up. It left. A fellow rider commented that the guy should run to the nearest town and bring back cokes – he would make a fortune! I could not agree more. The truck returned and the guy offloaded a few boxes and what appeared to be 3 orange sodas. I ran up to the truck and the guy was willing to sell me one, but then he opened a cooler and had about 40 more that were ice cold. Genius! I bought one for myself, Paul, and my dad (who was still on the road riding) and quickly retired to my chair in the shade. Sometimes it’s the riding that makes you happy, sometimes it has nothinhg to do with the bike… Content, I joined other riders in the windbreak formed by the mud building. There were 3 empty cots and I comandeered one for the purpose of a 60 minute power nap.

Just after dinner, the winds dropped and I could erect my tent, confident that it woudl not fill with sand. As I brushed my teeth, a donkey wandered into camp. He was a bit jittery, but some soft talking and he nuzzled up to me. A nice ending to the day, albeit a bit strange when viewed in isolation.
Tomorrow is another 148km. Warnings about traffic and crazy bus drives – the likes of which we met on the road today as they went side by side straight at us – were issued during the rider meting. This means we are nearing our next major city: Khartoum. The promise of a shower after baking in the hot, sandy wind today is appealing, but for now, it’s time to retire to the tent with another 148km stage tomorrow.