Day 120

Sleeping location: Checkpoint 15.17N 33.02E, Sudan
Distance (km today/total): 76 / 9338
Estimated climb (m today/total): 100 / 61400
Road surface: poor
Day in three words: Some slow progress   

I woke up feeling a lot better and, whilst not fully recovered yet, decided I was well enough to get moving again. We have to meet my friend Beth in Mekele, Ethiopia in 15 days. It’s 1200km and there’s a lot of climbing involved after we leave Sudan. After gentle progress we were finally up and out by 9.30. My balance still felt a little off but I quickly learned to compensate and we got out of the city ok. The traffic was bearable but navigation around all the sand and potholes took a lot of mental energy. After we’d left the city we took a “shortcut” that quickly turned into a sandy bumpy pain in the arse. Somewhere around Khartoum we’d left the desert and were now in a more “African” feeling savannah with regular small trees and lots of grass that looked like tufty blond hair.

Once back on the main road things didn’t get much better. The surface was very cracked and bumpy and the road was narrow. We had chosen the east side of the Blue Nile as we’d heard the west side was busy, but this road still had too much traffic for comfort. The driving was frequently awful and a few times we were forced off the road or into potholes by trucks, luckily with no ill effects. Thanks to the “shortcut”, the poor road surface and my weakness we made slow progress all day. The afternoon’s terrain was mostly unremarkable farmland, including some kind of enormous chicken city which took up a good 10km. There were big signs proudly announcing “Hatchery” and “Feed Mill”, then things took a turn with “Slaughter House” and finally “Broiler”.

There were occasional checkpoints on this road and at one we met a nice group of soldiers who gave us lots of cold water. One of them had a big white beard and hair and looked like some kind of Tactical Santa in his military garb. I hadn’t felt hungry all day and had forgotten to eat as I was focussing my energies on keeping the pedals turning. This was silly and I started to feel very weak by late afternoon. When we got to another checkpoint at 4.30 we decided to pack it in for the day and asked if we could sleep there (which was also handy because it looked like it would be hard to find somewhere good). They were initially reluctant but my pained expression and general wobbles must have convinced them, and we were allowed to pick a spot about 100m away from the road. It was nice enough, despite being a little loud and having thorns aplenty. For dinner we repeated the “feta” and snozzcumber pasta with added chicken, but sadly the snozzer had hardened and gone sort of apple-y so it wasn’t as good as before.

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