Sleep at café by kilometer 126. Electricity and light.

Sängar och vatten bärs in och ut beroende på var mest vind och skugga finns. Emellanåt kommer någon familjemedlem med mat, serverad på stort plåtfat täckt av plåtlock som skydd för sanden som viner I den kraftiga blåsten. Vägfiket är ett enkelt skydd: tunna vassväggar som strimmar solljuset till linjer på det hårt trampade sandgolvet och ett lite rejälare tak av plank, pinnar och halm/vass. Caféet drivs av Ahmed och yngre Mohamed. Te, te, te, tuggummi, cigaretter, pappersnäsdukar, vaniljwafers och mariekex finns att köpa.
Vatten finns kallt i två rejäla lerkärl. När vattnet fuktar det porösa lerkärlet, fångar vinden den fukt som når lerkärlets yttre och kyler på så vis kärlet med resterande vatten. Sex-sju sängar och en vävd plastmatta finns att tillgå. Solen är på väg ner. Jag får dela en måltid av bröd, under vilken en smaskig grön, klibbig röra (troligtvis gjord av ockra) gömmer sig. Varmt. Brödet tjockt och mjukt; härligt färskt. Svartbränt här och var.
På asfaltvägen några meter bort rusar en strid ström av fordon – mestadels finare bussar. Säkert en var 10:e minut – det tycks vara det föredragna sättet att resa på här; det syns väldigt få personbilar. En avstängd generator står på avstånd ute i sanden (på grund av oljudet?). Fem glödlampor och tre lysrör ser jag också, men ingen elektricitet ännu alltså.
Eftermiddagarna är enormt heta – nätterna och morgnarna kyliga. Efter det att solen har gått ner, dröjer det ytterligare ett tag innan hettan avtar. Tills dess håller den värmen kvar, även om solen nästan är nere. Märkligt. Kanske håller den uppvärmda sanden luften varm under ytterligare en tid?

Sleep at kilometer 256. In the desert, distance is not marked by villages and towns but instead by the small mile stone which appears every kilometer – unless when it’s missing.

Make the final stretch to Dongola – main town of the North and connected by a fine tarred road to capital Khartoum further south. Hotel stay for two nights, which comes with the compulsory although pain-less police office registration.

A thank you is usually met by the eloquent “no mention for service”.

Stay with great Nubian man Yagoup in his house. Much talk about local politics and the proud hospitality of his people.

I resume cycling south just before sunrise. The mornings here are pleasantly cool, but after the midday sun, the scorching heat just stays almost until sunset – so most biking must be done before noon.

Road workers tell me that their manager expects the work to be done within six months, but they themselves didn’t expect anything until maybe after 12 months – loads of mountains to blast; rivers to bridge.

There isn’t much that you can waste your money on here. Coke and Pepsi is the most expensive nonsense there is at about half a dollar a bottle, available in the bigger towns or whenever there is a roadside kiosk for the bus and truck drivers. It seems mainly that travelers buy them; not the villagers.

When you ask for a café with tea, karkady (hibiscus tea) or coffee, and they don’t have a café in that particular village, they instead ask the woman in the nearest house to make it for you – for free. Some minutes later, she comes outside with a pot, a cup and sugar on a shiny metal plate for you to drink.

I camp in a small village school yard some 14 kilometers before Delgo. Houses here are extremely tidy – always enclosed by a man-high mud wall. The houses are often decorated beautifully – if not on the outside then definitely on the inside. Bright pastel colors of blue, green, yellow. The colors feel like deliberate contrasts to the surrounding desert. The enclosing walls are never painted, but the heavy iron entrance door seems to be the way to tell which house belongs to who. Each door has a unique pattern of bright colors. Just beautiful – especially in this rather colorless desert environment.

I think I’ve begun to see mirages here in the desert. Just the other day, I thought that a truck, loaded with sand for the road construction, smelled like fresh baked pizza with loads of cheese as it passed me by.

Decide to cycle to the hospital in Abri as I’ve regained some energy. Hitchhiking – with the lack of traffic and transport on these remote roads – takes longer time than to bike, even with a bad stomach. It’s a decent dirt-road all the way, and once in Abri I find the small hospital where I get to stay for two nights; take tests. The doctors and nurses are extremely friendly, and since this is Sudan, everything is of course free of charge.

The quality of the care is another story. I’m first sent to one house (1) to visit the doctor, but he doesn’t speak English. Then another house (2) for someone who speaks English, but he’s just about to pray. Back to the reception. Five minutes later to house (1) and a bed to rest in. I rest for one minute before they come and ask me to go to house (3) for a stool test – but in a hurry since the nurse is about to go praying. I make coffee, but still no stool. He goes praying – 20 minutes, he says. OK. I wait.

I’ve been given a piece of folded paper (same pastel blue as everything else in Sudan) to use as a container and a piece of wood (a tooth stick, maybe) to use to fetch the stool. It’s hot – deadly hot.

Sudan is sleepy like few other places, but people are beautiful and kind. Good intentions; no action. They take snuff, smoke cigarettes, smoke water pipe. Bread with super-sweet jam. Sandy streets; vast distances. Friday, prayer, closed.

One of the male nurses – with a girlishly light voice – complains on how they lack one of the three satellite channels which has channels with ‘more sexy content’.

The roads in Sudan are of the kind at which you choose side not depending on local rules or laws, but given which way the wind blows. If a truck passes by, you want it to pass on the same side of you as to where the wind is blowing, so you don’t get caught in a cloud of dust. It’s desert dirt roads.

By late evening, well past sunset, I’ve finally found the last hitch to Akasha. I’d previously found a hitch from ‘kilometer 85′ to ‘kilometer 105′ (another road workers’ camp), and from there more or less forced the road workers to grant me a hitch to Akocha. 60 kilometers of road had taken me 28 hours to cover using my thumb (i.e. hitchhiking) – it’s slower than by bicycle, because of the terrible road surfaces.

I visit an Egyptian-Sudanese clinic on a boat in the Nile River – the doctors say they are there to do research on a specific branch of the malaria parasite. They give me the usual Metronidazole; I’ll try the hospital in Abri tomorrow and see if they have any better idea.

Stay the night outside a roadside café.

The road from Wadi Halfa to Dongola (main city in the North) is yet to be finished. After about 20 kilometers of dirt and then 35 kilometers of freshly tarred road, I reach one of the camps for the road-builders, excitingly named ‘Kilometer 55′. I feel tired and after some hours’ rest, I end up vomiting. Hitch a ride to the next camp – ‘Kilometer 85′ – where a small café/shop makes life a little more bearable. Sleep the night by the dirt-road, in hope of finding transport to hospital further south.

Lucky to get a ticket to the always full ferry to Sudan in the late afternoon, I board it together with a wide range of nationals by sunset: Sudanese and Egyptians (of course), one Nigerian, two Italians, one French, one British, three Germans, one Dutch, one American and one Philippine. It’s a decent though boring 15-hour ride across Lake Nasser – the only event being the sight of Abu Simbel a couple of hours after sunrise the next morning. An on-board kitchen serves the usual ful (beans) with bread, jam and cheese, and sleep is best on upper (3rd) deck. Up where the breeze is good and far from the roaring engines.

Customs and immigrations where easy and quick the following day. Camp one night in courtyard of one of the dozen or so bulk hotels (as simple as it gets) that scatter small-town Wadi Halfa.

Söderut från Kairo följde vägen längs med Nilen – en gigant till flod som skapar en grön, levande ådra i annars död öken. Sömn i alltifrån kloster och kyrkor till polisens vägspärrar, med vägarbetare invid vägen och med herdar vid övergiven bensinstation. Underbara, smått kyliga kvällar och lagom varma dagar – knappt svettigt.

Unikt for sträckan visade sig den alltjämt välmenande polisen. Eskort av pickup bil med fyra-fem beväpnade poliser följde under kanske 300 av dom 1000 kilometerna till den sydligaste delen av landet. Tätt följandes efter cykeln, eller framför - inte minst i städer där dom ibland slog på sirenerna för att skingra folkmassor och bilar för min skull. Snudd på kungligt. Bättre blev det när dom en natt till och med bestämde sig för att låta myndigheten betala för en natts hotellboende – camping vid vägspärren utanför stan var inte säkert nog! Det finns helt enkelt en medvetenhet om hur mycket en död turist skulle påverka turistindustrin i landet.

Nu befinner jag mig i Aswan, södra Egypten, varifrån jag hoppas kunna ta båten till Wadi Halfa i norra Sudan (sydligaste Egypten är off limits för turister på cykel; militär zon). Där fortsätter sedan vägen utmed Nilen några hundra kilometer till innan den viker av för att gena över öknen till Khartoum.

Finally reach Aswan – again after having been escorted by police most of the day. From here, I hope to be let aboard the ferry come Monday, so that I can reach Wadi Halfa in Sudan on Tuesday. Insha’Allah. Stay at Noorhan Hotel.

Border details
Boat from Aswan (Egypt) to Wadi Halfa (Sudan): 320/286/262 Egyptian Pounds (Second class). 450/454 Egyptian Pounds (First class).
On board prices: dinner 10 EP, soda 2 EP.

Sleep some five kilometers before Silwa Bahari, together with four road workers. On a thin piece of dirt (maybe two meters wide) between the main tar-road and the busy railroad tracks, we sleep on pieces of cardboard, plywood and blankets. In the night, the workers make a delicious veggie stew on a camp fire; eat with bread. Late night talks. Thundering trains passing by every half hour or so. The blue of the Nile just barely visible behind the green palm trees on the fields on the other side of the railroad tracks. Beautiful!

The last 80 or so kilometers to Luxor is strangely different. Instead of the beautiful, agricultural landscape and rural activities of the past seven days, the government has decided to plant pink, red and orange flowers in abundance along the road. All because of the tourists – giving those traveling only around the largest tourist centers an awkwardly false – and rather dull – impression of a beautiful country. The green of the Nile Valley has been one of the most beautiful and interesting regions on this trip so far. And the very fact that the area has been cultivated like today for ages – even though irrigation techniques have developed – gives it all a historic touch. One that package tourists might not see.