Day 111
Sleeping location: Semi desert 18.22N 30.40E, Sudan
Distance (km today/total): 104 / 8815
Estimated climb (m today/total): 200 / 60400
Coffees: 7
Day in three words: Some odd people
The hotel bed was a strange mixture of concrete and pokey springs so I didn't sleep that well. After a lie in (until 8am, which is usually when my alarm goes off in the UK) we headed into town to stock up on food before another five days of mostly desert. Dongola in the daytime was hectic but friendly, and we visited a few shops to get everything we wanted. At one I waited outside with the bikes and attracted the attention of a strange fat kid, who stood way too close to them and asked what everything was by pointing at it and making the “huh” gesture. Each time I replied by demonstrating, although I had to draw the line at doing this for the poo trowel*. He then asked if he could have my ray bans, the cheeky bastard. A few excellent things seen in Dongola: “Shown the Sheep” crisps featuring the Aardman character, “Maxtella” and “Pandeela” joining Newtella as Nutella ripoffs, and an establishment called “Deep Government Steam Laundry”.
On the way out of town we stopped for coffees and had a short chat with a nice man called Abdella who wanted to practice his English. It was short because he said he would only take two minutes of our time and then rigidly stuck to this time frame, or maybe because we were too boring for him. Throughout Sudan we are having trouble ordering second rounds of coffees because the Arabic words we are using for more/again are not being understood, so they always think we just want to pay for the first round. In this cafe Rebecca tried to order a different number of coffees the second time, to show that it was a new thing, but for some reason chose five. The guy came over to confirm with me that my “wife” wasn't speaking out of turn and that we really did want five coffees, and I had to go along with it to show that women are capable of making decisions themselves, even though I didn’t really want 2.5 more coffees. Whilst we were here a man in the car park proudly showed us his genuine “Jeeb” 4x4.
From Dongola we headed back into the desert, with the greenery of the Nile on our left but quite far away. A gentle tailwind made things easier and we made good time. For lunch we stopped at a very basic cafe where they did us some very basic but pretty tasty beans and eggs for a pittance. The hand washing watering can was empty so I filled it up by dunking it in the big barrel of “washing” water**, but the wizened old lady*** who ran the place didn't like this at all and started having a go at me. Everyone else in the place sprang to my defence and gestured that it was fine. The same woman had previously said something to us about the way we were sitting down, then showed us her knee for some reason, so I think she just hated us and/or was bonkers.
After desert we returned to dry farmland, with lots of camels everywhere. The road degenerated a bit and became annoyingly rattly, which highlighted that my front rack fanta bottle bodge from Bulgaria is starting to die. Farmland means people, and the land is very flat, so it was difficult to find a good spot to camp. We settled for an ok spot in the sand behind some raised bits. We were seen by people on our way off the road, and weren’t really hidden enough, but nobody came to bother us in the evening. There were a few snake tracks around and the odd mosquito so we slept in the tent inner for safety. Dinner was probably something to do with falafel.
*For nature poos. To be clear, the trowel is for the dirt, not the poo itself.
**See yesterday for what this means
***Though given the UV index here, she was probably my age
Distance (km today/total): 104 / 8815
Estimated climb (m today/total): 200 / 60400
Coffees: 7
Day in three words: Some odd people
The hotel bed was a strange mixture of concrete and pokey springs so I didn't sleep that well. After a lie in (until 8am, which is usually when my alarm goes off in the UK) we headed into town to stock up on food before another five days of mostly desert. Dongola in the daytime was hectic but friendly, and we visited a few shops to get everything we wanted. At one I waited outside with the bikes and attracted the attention of a strange fat kid, who stood way too close to them and asked what everything was by pointing at it and making the “huh” gesture. Each time I replied by demonstrating, although I had to draw the line at doing this for the poo trowel*. He then asked if he could have my ray bans, the cheeky bastard. A few excellent things seen in Dongola: “Shown the Sheep” crisps featuring the Aardman character, “Maxtella” and “Pandeela” joining Newtella as Nutella ripoffs, and an establishment called “Deep Government Steam Laundry”.
On the way out of town we stopped for coffees and had a short chat with a nice man called Abdella who wanted to practice his English. It was short because he said he would only take two minutes of our time and then rigidly stuck to this time frame, or maybe because we were too boring for him. Throughout Sudan we are having trouble ordering second rounds of coffees because the Arabic words we are using for more/again are not being understood, so they always think we just want to pay for the first round. In this cafe Rebecca tried to order a different number of coffees the second time, to show that it was a new thing, but for some reason chose five. The guy came over to confirm with me that my “wife” wasn't speaking out of turn and that we really did want five coffees, and I had to go along with it to show that women are capable of making decisions themselves, even though I didn’t really want 2.5 more coffees. Whilst we were here a man in the car park proudly showed us his genuine “Jeeb” 4x4.
From Dongola we headed back into the desert, with the greenery of the Nile on our left but quite far away. A gentle tailwind made things easier and we made good time. For lunch we stopped at a very basic cafe where they did us some very basic but pretty tasty beans and eggs for a pittance. The hand washing watering can was empty so I filled it up by dunking it in the big barrel of “washing” water**, but the wizened old lady*** who ran the place didn't like this at all and started having a go at me. Everyone else in the place sprang to my defence and gestured that it was fine. The same woman had previously said something to us about the way we were sitting down, then showed us her knee for some reason, so I think she just hated us and/or was bonkers.
After desert we returned to dry farmland, with lots of camels everywhere. The road degenerated a bit and became annoyingly rattly, which highlighted that my front rack fanta bottle bodge from Bulgaria is starting to die. Farmland means people, and the land is very flat, so it was difficult to find a good spot to camp. We settled for an ok spot in the sand behind some raised bits. We were seen by people on our way off the road, and weren’t really hidden enough, but nobody came to bother us in the evening. There were a few snake tracks around and the odd mosquito so we slept in the tent inner for safety. Dinner was probably something to do with falafel.
*For nature poos. To be clear, the trowel is for the dirt, not the poo itself.
**See yesterday for what this means
***Though given the UV index here, she was probably my age
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