Shit day! 

Or rather shit end of the day …

Everything had started well, sumptuous breakfast with two sandwiches take away with some kind of ham and cheese, the temperature is more acceptable than usual, and the landscape becomes increasingly greener as the kilometers pass by. Here the Nile is used well for agriculture, other than the usual big canal parallel to the Nile, there are some small canals too from where, with the help of diesel pumps, the water is directed to the middle of the cultivated fields. The maize is very green like in Zambia it is seen rarely. At the sides of the road tall palms full of dates gift a bit of shade even when the sun is high. Continue reading →

At the end only twelve kilometers more than expected …

I left at 6,30 and I pedaled for nine hours, at the beginning, until midday, the temperature was acceptable, then when the shade moves from the left side to vertical, and you can only see the projection of the handlebar and the frame under you, the heat becomes suffocating, luckily there is no wind and compared to Sudan there are many more shops and bars to supply fresh water. Here too there are the water pots smaller then the Sudanese ones and also some kind of fountains which filter the water. Continue reading →

Should I go or not?

Luxor is 225 kilometers from the port, with this heat it would be difficult to reach there in one stage, in the fifteen kilometers from the port to Aswan there is no adverse wind and I pedal quite well, before starting off, I have to withdraw, buy an Egyptian sim card, eat and drink something … once in the centre I manage to do these things fast … I eat two ice-creams … it was not a great idea … I drink a lot … and after Giorgia and two taxi drivers confirm to me that there should be hovel in Kom Ombu I through myself … when I pass in front of the beautiful hotel on the Nile Giorgia has booked for me a have a short vacillation … but the decision is now taken … Continue reading →

‘Why are you wearing underwear?’

There is no water …

Despite the dam is a couple of kilometres way full of water this morning there is no water …

I do not have my passport yet, but Magdi seems trustworthy, I called him last night he said he had come but did not find me … I was at the internet point or the bakery … then as I watch the highlights of Korea – Japan on the television at the bar, Magdi arrives with the ticket and the various stamps and the water too arrives, literally, because the water in brought by a tanker and pumped in the tank on the roof, we give each other an appointment at the port at 10 … Continue reading →

The voice of the very long Arabic registration which I do not seem to recognize among the many heard in this stretch through Sudan surprises me, it is followed by a very short ‘the number dialed is out of coverage area’. It is about 5,30 in the afternoon in Zambia, at the last phone call around 5 the ferry had not left yet, there was a terrible noise on the background, I could not hear much only the ‘call me later’ … I assume the ferry has left and that Matteo with his bamboo bike is in the middle of Lake Nasser next stop Aswan in Egypt. Shame! The children and I had prepared a support phone call to celebrate the end of Sudan, Chimba too was practicing on the phone and kept repeating ‘Matteo, how are you?’, the phone call will be postponed to tomorrow for the arrival in Egypt. Continue reading →

Today I want to rest …

Yesterday I fell asleep at nine, this room does not offer the natural silence of Abu Sara or Melik el Nasir, and in a hotel more or less conventional like this one you cannot take the bed outside, if you wake up you cannot see the stars and moon around you, surrounded by total silence, you see only the light of the fridge and hear the noise of the air con and of the blades of the fan, it is cool like outside but with a energy waste extremely superior. Continue reading →

Wake up at 4,59 in the morning …

I do not want to get trapped in the grip of the heat and wind even today, I snooze the alarm clock just once, everybody around me is sleeping, some on beds like mine, others on carpets and one in front of me on a heap of grey sand which seems very comfortable judging from how he sleeps …

While I fold the sleeping bag, which I used up to knees, and I do the panniers I force myself to eat about ten digestive biscuits and some dry figs which I bought in Dongola, I take on credit some pockets of very sweet milk from the freezer of the cafeteria and take some pictures. Continue reading →

‘Now you cannot go ahead! You are welcome to the house of the teachers …’ told me my guardian angel, an old teacher at the school in Akashah.

I do not fight it.

As soon as I laid down on the bed with a Nile view, in the shade of a big thatched shelter, I fell asleep, on the bed net to mine the Head Teacher was sleeping deeply covered by a blancket good enough for an Italian winter … it was three in the afternoon … I slept about one hour and I woke up only because I had a crazy thirst … I could have stayed there but I had done only sixty kilometers … and I would like to be in Wadi Halfa tomorrow evening … Continue reading →

I do not think hell really exists …

… but if I am wrong it probably will be similar to today’s stage …

On the map a semi stage to get closer to Wadi Halfa, I thought I was going to be there before one, instead I arrived at six … 13 km/h on average … hotter than yesterday and a adverse wind and very strong … it seemed to have a air-drier pointed straight all over the body but where it is the most annoying is on the face … I feel the need to breath like when you are swimming … I have a constant thought to the Picornell my favorite swimming pool … I see myself diving in … doing a couple of laps and drinking a ice cold beer with the Monjuic around … instead on my stops I have to make do with some drinks, a yoghurt, and a lot of water a bit sandy of the water containers which I drink only when my mouth risks the spontaneous combustion … beers are forbidden in Sudan … that may be why you can find a series of fizzy drinks in the taste of apple, cherry, mango, … which I can manage to drink only in extreme cases … bottled water cannot be found often … it makes me laugh that at times these fizzy drinks have the bottle and the label similar to those of a Belgian beer … Continue reading →

‘Today it is not very hot there are 57 degrees’ … told me a policeman …

My today’s objective was reaching Delgo about 130 kilometers from Dongola, I arrived there relatively early and I found out it is not a town, but a big and convulse market frequented by thousands of gold diggers who every day fathom the surrounding mountains. They do not have the sieve of Uncle Scrooge and Rockerduck, but they are equipped with some kind of sounder, Made in China I assume, which they keep over the shoulder at the market and use as a hoover on the ground, seeing them busy sounding the ground they seem CIS on the crime scene, or NASA analyzing the surroundings where it is thought a alien ship landed … Continue reading →