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"Never forget where you've come here from" </br> Take That

Aswan, Egypt to Khartoum, Sudan (1 March 2002)

Roundtheworldbybike
2005-11-18 10:53:49

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place, bringing a ferry and a weekly splash of activity into the silence of the desert. Wadi Halfa is an odd place to have on a list of ‘highlights’: a few clusters of square single-storey dwellings, sand coloured and bleak as all the world appears to be from up here. It is a town featureless like snowfall- no paths or roads, no trees, no colours, no contours. I wonder which route I will take across the desert but I can see no clues or tracks. But in the warm light I realise that Wadi Halfa is a highlight for the very fact that it is the most remote place I have ever been to. I pause to remember and to thank in my mind all the people and places who have combined over the years to have got me as far as this, to this small hill in this torpid backwater at the northern tip of the largest country in Africa.

My backside is bruised, my spine compressed by several inches and my neck is whip lashing dangerously but I am delighted: the corrugated ‘road’ out of Wadi Halfa is far better than I had feared. When the rattling becomes overbearing I venture off into the sand, following my nose in search of hard ground. I hit soft sand, my legs spin like a Dervish, the tyres slip and slide and I slew uncontrollably through deep powder. Direction of travel becomes entirely random. When the sand is too deep I push the heavy bike through the drifting sand- laden with 3 days supply of food and water this is not as easy as it sounds. Even pushing is often impossible and then I have to pull the load instead. Hard work.

I lie on my back in the sand, crusted with dirt and salty sweat. A hot wind wipes across the land cracking my lips into a smile. Barefoot in the desert of Sudan. At night the oppressive heat dissolves and the stars seem even more exotic through the tickling folds of my mosquito net draping down over me from my bicycle.

Sometimes I fear that I claim things to be tough when perhaps it is just me being a wimp. So I was able ...