Semi stage, flown away in a bit less than two hours …

The favorable wind today that I had to do so few kilometers … it seems almost a waste…

I have just arrived back from the Nile where I had a fast swim, ten arm strokes all together, because the manager of the Nubian Guest House told me that from August to September it is very dangerous and every year more or less twenty people die, the current is very strong, certainly on a canoe I will arrive quicker to Wadi Halfa, … the color today is always the same brown, yesterday in Al Khandaq it seemed more light blue and the play if lights of the evening must have mislead me, even if looking back at the pictures of this morning it did not seem as brown as here … Continue reading →

I did not sleep well in this cafeteria, too much music until late, then the proximity to the check point with the buses stopping, and finally … the laziness of not getting the sleeping mat out … contributed to a night with too much waking up … 

I saw from the map that it was about 60 kilometers towards North-West, so I was expecting the wind which punctual gave me no truce until the afternoon, today the heat is bastard since the beginning luckily there are many water containers, some with water, nobody knows how, very fresh, others boiling like the surrounding air, the reduced traffic does not help in my battle against the wind … Continue reading →

214 km by bicycle I do not think I have ever done them … 

I slept well on my bed under the stars, I blew up the sleeping mat too, and I slipped myself in the sleeping bag and put the panniers by my head to protect myself from the strong wind. Continue reading →

Post sent from the laptop of a policeman from the middle of the desert

No I did not consider the blinds …

Last night I was so tired that I did not realize the there were the window blinds, so this morning after dismissing the alarm clock set at 6 for the great stage, I slept until ten! Not too bad because during the night there was a huge storm, the officers from the Immigration Office arrived late, and my documents came ready around midday and myself … a couple of hours later … Continue reading →

Let’s try to do this great stage!

I bring the alarm ahead of half an hour, when I go down to the hall I find the manager asleep on a armchair, while listening to prayers from a radio station, from the television … last night too they were listening to the radio from the television they were all sitting down listening, watching the blue screen indicating the radio frequencies. He is sleeping, surely they have not prepared anything I think, shit, instead on my table everything is ready and protected by domopack, I manage to keep for the journey, a cheese sandwich and a apple. I pay without receipt because otherwise I have to add the taxes … the world is the same wherever you go … but my passport and visa are registered accurately on two registers … don’t cross checks exist here?

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The Nile for the second time …

This time the meeting was less traumatic than in Ethiopia, no downhill and uphill of 22 km, but simply a bridge guarded by two bored policemen.

Sudan is definitely flat, if it were a woman few would turn around to look at her on the road, but since yesterday, a bit after Al Qadarif, the wind appeared, strong blowing from South to North, today too after the first 25 km of truce it accompanied me for long stretches sideways, at times from the front, and for about ten kilometers he bothered to push me … in Sudan you drive on the right side like in Ethiopia … the wind managed to push me down from the tar three or four times … tomorrow to go to Khartoum you turn right towards the North … hopefully I understood correctly where it is coming from … because I would like to do a great stage … before to dive myself in the North Sudan where the Nile, the desert, villages with camp beds, will challenge me greatly …

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Migreh is not a village …

It is a market, a place where trucks stop when the drivers are tired, there is a mosque and many small shops, no hotel but only those camp beds I avoided in Doka … it is right like this what would be a journey through Sudan without at least one sleep on these camp beds under the open sky, colored, asymmetric, and I must say that they are quite comfortable … it is from here that I am writing I just hope that it will not rain … I do not know whether or not to take the sleeping bag out and if it rains it will get dry in Egypt …

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Goodbye Ethiopia, welcome Ramadan!

The last 35 kilometers passed quite fast, with the bicycle making strange noises like it usually happens when the day before we catch a lot of water.

Arrived at the border to enter Sudan you pass through a barrier made by a rope, I pass under, a typical Ethiopian Sheppard tells me that he wants to check my luggage … I pay no attention … and I go to the office where they stamp passports … the sheppard runs after me … and repeats the same story … I ask him to show me his card … he has it! We go back again he checks, he asks me if I have a laptop, and who can prove that it is mine … he checks roughly in the panniers and lets me go …

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‘Rain rain go away!’ …

‘Where are you going?’ asks me an old man in smart clothes in front of the pharmacy of Gondar where I am vainly trying to park the bicycle on a muddy road … ‘to the pharmacy, but I do not have the bicycle stand …’ ‘do not worry I will keep it’ … the pharmacist told me that I have eaten ‘poisoned food’ and has given me cyproxin to take every 12 hours … ‘are you travelling alone?’ asks me the old man ‘yes’ … ‘I will pray for you’ …

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“Il fuoco di un camino
non è caldo come il sole del mattino…”

(“The fire of a chimney / isn’t as warm as the morning sun”)

After yesterday rain finally the sun, the departure is hot on a easy road … I do not remember a hot day since Addis …

The buses in Ethiopia have a speaker on the roof, it is nice to hear them come, they are joyful and I think the music also keeps the children away from the road and maybe donkeys and cows too … today my theory that the closer you get to touristic centers the more begging and stupidity increase has today found many practical demonstrations … the stones which were not reaching me for some time have reappeared … one thrown at me by a nice young shepard from a hill was the size of a apple … Continue reading →