I reach the Ethiopian border by noon, and the crossing is as easy as one can possibly be. No questions asked – ”just fill in these forms and then get yourself a stamp in the office on the other side of the road”.

I sleep in ”Addis Abeba Hotel”, a two-dollar hotel (although much better than the three-dollar cheapies in Sudan). I enjoy some beer, injera (the local staple – a swampy, yeasted pancake-like bread made of teff flour – served with one or several sauces) and ponder at what lies ahead of me – some tough graveled roads leading up to 2,000 or maybe even 3,000 meters.

An entire book could probably be written about this border. About the stark contrasts between two neighboring small-towns, separated only by an at this time of year dry riverbed; connected by an old concrete bridge. Locals walk freely back and forth – the control of the two soldiers on each far side of the bridge is nil.

The town on the Sudanese side is sleepier than most small villages in Ethiopia, yet quite busy by Sudanese standards. I even met the odd man from Guinea! The Ethiopian border town – Meteme – is bigger than its counterpart, and considerably more busy. Partly I guess because most goods here are cheaper, but maybe also because both alcohol and women stand for sale, and that the loud, cheerful music from bars and shops alike deafens both the mosque prayer calls and the bare imagination of the inner quietness of the orthodox monasteries.

It’s a border between one of the few countries in Africa which enforces Sharia laws, and one of the most heavy drinking and prostitution hubs of the continent. If people would go by the book in Sudan, none would have sex before marriage, whilst in Ethiopia it seems that you could buy or sell it from whenever your body would permit. In Sudan, the law would forbid you alcohol throughout life; in Ethiopia even age is no limit.

In Sudan, large herds of cattle. In Ethiopia, women treated like cattle.

The hotel at which I stay invite me for a cup of coffee. It’s freshly ground and roasted; some larger pieces of beans still left in the small cup together with a bed of sugar. But it’s not the coffee that makes me the most excited, but the fact that I can take off my shirt for the first time in a very very long time. Even in front of women, without offending.

There’s the difference in cleanliness from the Muslim Sudan where people use water to wash themselves after having made their toilet, whilst in Ethiopia people use paper yet can’t afford soft and good such but instead use things like the label for the water bottle. Also, a lot of cold food; cockroaches.

The landscape is getting more and more green; bushy fields. A mix of corn fields and acacia. Large herds of skinny cows, goats and sheep.

Camp at police check-point outside Doka.

Stop for the day 35 kilometers before state capital Al Qadarif.

Sleep with work immigrants from Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. They’ve found job at the farms here in eastern Sudan, but soon mention the prospect of continuing further north – through Libya and then with boat across the Mediterranean (or White Sea, in Arabic) – to Italy. The whole story reminds me of those I and Lina were told in West Africa. Stories of young men who risk their lives for only the slightest hope of a more well-off life.

I continue by myself – I can’t really keep up with Florian’s motorbike. Long day; sleep at a roadside café/restaurant nearby Al Fao. It’s the day before the Eid al-Adha – one of two major holidays in Islam – and traffic has finally abated a bit.

The road is busy as only a couple of days remain until the Eid al-Adha – one of two major holidays for Muslims. Coach busses come in caravans of 30 to 100 each, escorted by police. I’m told that the police escort them in order to make sure that the busses are kept from speeding. This is their Christmas; everyone is heading home to family and friends. The festivity will begin on Monday by slaughtering a goat, and so goats are also seen in unusual numbers – taken to the market place of each village; sometimes situated right next to the road.

The police ask me to step aside at one checkpoint – they’re angry because I used the edge of the tarmac to cycle on, despite the heavy traffic. I’m forced to cycle below the road on a dirt track instead; difficult cycling because of the deep sand. I reluctantly accept it – I don’t have much choice really.

I hook up with German Florian whom I first met in the desert and most recently at the camping in Khartoum. He travels on an old East German motorbike from 1960-something, in the name of charity. A great, humble guy – I guess you have to be, if you choose to travel at a maximum 60 (or 20 in steep ascent) kilometers per hour. We make a joint camp in the acacia bush.

Reluctantly leave the superb camping at Blue Nile Sailing Club in Khartoum (they had great cheap burgers 24/7). The road south-east will continue to follow the Blue Nile for two more days, before the road and the river split in separate ways toward the Ethiopian border. Only one border is open to foreigners – for any other, the Sudanese authorities must at the very least issue a separate travel permit.

Sleep at a roadside restaurant, just south of Al Kamlin.

I was luckily able to get a ticket for that ferry from Aswan in southern Egypt to Wadi Halfa in northern Sudan. A great ferry by local standards, with a restaurant serving the decent but nothing special meal of ful – beans stew – with bread at every occasion (breakfast, lunch, dinner). From the boat, an early morning view of the temples at Abu Simbel, then the invisible border crossing at sea and by noon arrival at the small port of Wadi Halfa. A few hours of painless though time consuming immigration procedures later, I’d pitched by tent in one of the dozen or so hotels in town. A small, uninteresting village – but I definitely needed a days rest. The road south – the first 400 kilometers to main-town Dongola – is famous for its bad standards. But despite the occasionally deep sand that forces you to step off and push the bike, the scenery is amazing, and besides, the road is being re-built and tarred and much of it is already finished. The bitter-sweet of it all is that they’re building the new road far from the villages, date palms and green fields that narrowly line the River Nile.

One theory is the governments plans to construct yet another dam at the 3rd cataract – which would flood even more of that precious Nubian land. Nubians – a people split by the the Egypt-Sudan border – are the calmest, most pleasant and hospitable people I’ve ever met. They have a rich and interesting culture, too, including some delicious foods. But the governments in both countries have for long fought them – and the dams are by some regarded as more of politically motivated to flood their lands than motivated by the electricity that they would generate. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Anyway, since the new road is not yet finished, I get to come real close to those wonderful people, when cycling the old sandy roads. If the Nubians are to eat, they invite you, too. Not sometimes, but always. Same thing goes for sleep, rest, a cup of tea or just a chat. Guests are always appreciated and welcomed. The beauty of the surroundings is breathtaking. A narrower but still mighty, mighty River Nile cuts through the harsh desert lands. A narrow strip of irrigated land lines the river, with date palms swaying above; shading. Then the desert. The latter is not the sand dunes which one would imagine, but more a mix of fine beige sand, grey gravel and pitch black, edgy rocks that every here and there pop up through those flat lands. Amazing contrasts!
I’m now taking some rest in capital Khartoum after another 300 kilometers through the desert (not along the river, which makes a long turn north before continuing south to the capital). This is where the Nile actually begins, with the confluence of the White Nile from Uganda and the Blue Nile from Ethiopia. The air is comfortably clear and fresh after those days in the desert, where hard winds blew up sand in the air.

I’ll probably continue from here tomorrow. Friday is the local Sunday for most people here (70% muslims) – prayers and thus a calm day in terms of traffic in the capital. Perfect for cycling.

I finally reach Khartoum after an exciting ride across the desert; the days always the same.

From Dongola, the road soon ceased to follow the Nile, as it had ever since Cairo in Egypt. Instead it cut through the desert for some 300 kilometers – the days terribly windy; the wind full of sand. Unfortunately, the strong wind almost always came in sideway gusts, creating a mental gameplay against it in trying to stay on the tarmac (without being pushed out in the traffic). I felt like I became crazy – maybe the strong antibiotics I was taking added to it?

Sleep during the night was usually in one of the several roadside cafés (coffee, tea, ful/beanstew and bread, sweets, coke) that lined the road – at first in scarce clusters but from halfway and onwards every twenty or so kilometers. They provided free beds – made out of simple metal bars with plastic cables weaved between them; not a soft mattress exactly, but good for staying above the ground, where sand and bugs otherwise may find every corner of your face.

I begun cycling early in the mornings – the sun rose at seven, but I rose at six. No wind; no sand in the air until about tenish, when the low clouds of sand that lined the horizon to the east during the morning reached the road. Then an hour or so more of cycling in the madness of wind and sand, until reaching a decently sheltered café. By that time, the heat, too, was too much for cycling, despite the sandy air blocking much of the suns rays. After several hours of rest at the café, I did another hour or two of cycling before the sun finally set at seven pm.

Tired of the wind and the sand, reaching Khartoum is a blessing – clean air, and a cooled off climate thanks to the White and Blue Nile that here confluence to form the actual River Nile.

Khartoum by the way, is so dark at night that one has to use a torch to move around. There are few, if any, street lights in town. Nevertheless it is safe like a village – at least so they say.

South African Gideon – traveling together with German Christoph by motorcycle – took some great shots of me when we met in the desert. Their blog: www.wuestenritt.de. I’ve also met Johanna and Anselm in a 4×4 here in Khartoum: www.afrika-spuren.blogspot.com, and Florian who is on a moped: www.slowwaydown.com.

Sleep at kilometer 56 with workers at a construction site of a telecom tower.

Sleep at café by kilometer 126. Electricity and light.

Beds are carried in and out depending on where there is most of both wind and shadow. Every now and then, some family member comes with food, served on a large metal plate, covered by another metal plate to protect it from the sand in the air. The roadside café is in itself just a very simple thatched shelter: thin weed walls, which rays the sun light in lines on the hard treaded sand floor, and on top of it a roof somewhat sturdier, made out of wooden boards, tree branches and again weed. The café is run by Ahmed and younger Mohamed. Tea, tea, tea, chewing gums, cigarettes, tissues, vanilla wafers and marie biscuits are for sale.
Water is in kept two large clay vessels, which keep it cool during the day. As the water wets the porous clay, it reaches the vessels outside where it evaporates with the hot wind and so cools the water. There are six-seven beds and one weaved plastic carpet. The sun is on its way down. I get to share a dinner of bread with a delicious green, sticky paste (possibly made of okra). The bread thick and soft; deliciously fresh. Slightly black-burned here and there – absolutely perfect!
On the tarmac a few meters away, a steady flow of vehicles passing by – mostly quite modern coach buses. Probably one every ten or so minutes – it seems to be the choice of transport for most people, so there are very few cars. A generator stands idle a few dozen meters out in the sand (because of the noise?) – i see five light bulbs. No electricity yet anyway.
The afternoons are very very hot – the nights and mornings chilly. After the sun has set, it takes a while before the heat finally abates. Maybe the heated sand keeps the air warm for a while further?

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.