As the sandy Sahara sunshine beats down on my salty back, the kilometers pass me by. At times, the tail wind shifts to a sideways gust, pushing me into the sand. I stop and walk when the wind overcomes Pandemic The Magic Bicycle. The heat from the black topped asphalt road overwhelms my thirst. The 8L water bag strapped to the back rack is a trusty companion on the long lonesome desert crossing. The buses that speed pass me, give a honk and then blast by me. The suction created feels as if I have been hit by a wind canon ball of war time speeds. The powerful gusts slide me sideways into the sandy shoulder momentarily halting my forward progress.
My company this week, made up of mostly of flies that dive bomb my head, and buzz in my ears. I continue pedaling through an asteroid bug field, despite the heavy winds that stick the bugs to my sweating face. One humped camels line the shoulder dead and decaying, victims to the hot dusty road. Camels that stand nibbling on the scarce trees make way for me to pedal by. My legs welcome the challenge and pedal into the cooler setting sun. Free camping in deserted huts and buildings on route provide some wonderful shelter, for even at night, it is too windy to hold a tent.
Lonesome thoughts, of why on earth I am still pedaling, fill my conscious as the cooler night time stars twinkle overhead. The locals on route are friendly, although cautious in my presence and mostly stare with a curious gaze. Emerging from the long Sahara crossing, 30km from the Khartoum city edge , I am stopped at another check point and this one does not go to well. The weird brown toothed official stops me and asks for money. And then insists on looking through my stuff for things and pretty much starts taking things. I stand there watching him thinking about what to do. A bus rolls up, and temporarily distracts the official; I pull my things free from the crooked fellows hand and pedal off like a maniac knowing he will not follow with a bus load of people watching. As I enter the city limits of Khartoum, I pedal in circles in search of the over landers campsite. After having reached the overlanders campsite, I hear gunfire that is far too close. That’s right, I think to myself, there is a civil war in this country and this is the new capital of the recently annexed southern part of Sudan.
270km south of the capital in Kosti near the southern Sudan border, I find myself in the refugee camp for the southern Sudanese people, who are waiting on boats to head back home to S. Sudan. I am denied passage to the S. Sudan border town of Uganda and I am escorted by security out of the area. Perhaps, pedaling around looking for boats was not all that good of an idea. I am also sure that all the South Sudanese people, escaping a civil war zone, have been waiting far longer than me or my visa will allow me to wait. I hitch back to Khartoum to sort out an Ethiopian visa and here I sit in my tent staring at a Micheline Central Africa map rerouting myself south though Ethiopia to Capetown.
