Aleppo, Syria



Italy


























It's the nature of travel in the 3rd World that things do not always go as one would like. Add to that, the complexities of maintaining a motorcycle for extended periods of use. So I wasn't too surprised to find myself loading my bike into the back of an ancient Bedford truck 50kms inside Sudan. What I was surprised about was that it was my heavy duty rear suspension installed at some expense in Europe that had decided to blow up completely.




So anyway, this leg of the trip started in Egypt. The intrepid 3 amigos (myself, Mick and Diego) made a dash for the ferry to take us to Wadi Halfa in Sudan. The land border between the two countries is closed, so the only way to get into Sudan from the north is by an over night boat trip along lake Nasser. The road from Cairo to Aswan is in good condition, but we where required to take a police escort most of the way. The escort was a complete waste of time as they spent most of the day trailing along behind us at some distance. Each time we passed a check point we had to wait for the car to catch up. This was very annoying as we had a lot of miles to do during the daylight. These escorts we were told were for our 'protection'. Well they didn't do much to protect me from the 100ft diesel spill that I hit at speed. All of a sudden I realised that I appeared to be sliding down the road on my arse instead of happily motoring along the side of the Nile. Anyway, thanks to full protective gear I didn't suffer any damage at all. However the force of the crash wrecked the left-hand pannier and bent the gear lever. Duct tape and spare lever installed we were on our way again. Aswan was a mad rush to get off-road tyres installed. We found a Nubian guy who pressed the front tyres on with his bare feet, as he didn't have a big enough mounting machine.



Morning on the ferry

The following day after some well timed and planned histrionics from the Spanish contingent of our truncated League of Nations we were allowed on to the ferry despite being late. Diego was so good at this by now having spent 10 days getting his bike out of customs in Alexandria, he managed to get the customs guy come back from his home so we could have our carnets discharged. We paid for the taxi. We joined the other overlanders who had been waiting all day to load the 3 cars and 3 other motorbikes on the barge which would follow behind the ferry and arrive in Sudan 2 days after us.


Nubian Captain

The ferry is pretty much what you'd expect an overloaded 50 year old African boat to be like. Although it glided easily through the calm lake waters, the decks were awash with people sleeping, praying, talking, staring or doing what ever. We foreigners were able to grab a bit of real estate close to the wheelhouse. Come sleeping time I scored a spot on the roof of the bridge, windy but plenty of space. I little bit later, Fabio jumped up to join me on the roof to sleep. He's one of 3 Italians traveling around having a good time and doing good deeds. Read about their trip:

http://www.movingslowly.com/~mslowly/index.htm

Wadi Halfa wasn't much to report except the fun and games we had when trying to extract our vehicles from customs. It was a small victory for the travelers as we were able to avoid being ripped off. It only took all day and all 12 of us to not bend under the pressure to pay mysterious fees and inexplicable taxes. We were released finally from the port area and I immediately went in search for a welder to weld my left foot peg back on. Everybody left early the next morning, except for the TLoN who dilly-dallied about for a bit, expecting to catch everybody up later. On the outskirts of town my bike wouldn't start. After unpacking and tracing a short circuit we were off again at the crack of 14:30. After an hour, having lost spare water and oil off the back of the bike, my expensive suspension suffered its last corrugation and gave up the ghost. 4 minutes later, the land barge of a Bedford squeaked to a halt and Mr. Kabashi was to enter into my life.


Fellow Passengers

Sudanese Bikers


Fortunately for me the owner of the truck, Kabashi was a top bloke who laughs a lot and was well known in the surrounding area. Tall and lean in his mid 50's he agreed to take me to Abri and then after Friday, the day of rest in Islam he could take me all the way to Khartoum adding the phrase 'inshallah'.



Crossing the Nile

My logistics team

For the next 3 nights I spent my time in the back or on the roof of the 1968 Bedford, sleeping in Sudanese truck stops, learning to count to 10 in Arabic, eating with the crew and other passengers and helping out from time to time by lifting the heavy blocks that served as handbrakes when the truck was stopped or broken down. It was quite an experience to chug through the Sudanese night staring at the Milky Way or watching the surprised locals who had never seen a foreigner travel in this way.

The next 2 1/2 weeks were spent in a Khartoum camp ground arranging to have parts shipped out from Holland. Luckily WP Suspension sent me new parts, free of charge! Good on them. The tricky part was that the rebuilt shock was supposed to be refilled with nitrogen. They may have well told me to fill it with kryptonite. However after another call to Holland, it was decided I could use just normal air. After one failed attempt to install a filling valve from an old car tyre, under careful supervision, another hole was made and the valve was glued in.

I fell into trouble with the Sudanese Army who were also staying at the camp after taking a photo of their marching band that was unbeknownst to me practicing secret marching maneuvers. Not much to report about Khartoum except that it is the merging point of the White and Blue Niles and there is a massive UN base there. Quite often you will see dozens of flash new Toyota SUVs with the UN symbol on the spare tyre. I'll leave you to make your own judgment on that.

On the road again with rebuilt bike and new riding buddy. This time I was rolling with 6' 7" Mark from the UK/Holland. We hit the Sudan-Ethiopia border in the 3rd day of riding. A very easy and cheap border crossing was cancelled out by crazy Ethiopian kids who would see us approaching and run from behind their rock, shack, tree, cow, donkey or whatever they were standing next to, shouting 'youyouyouyou!!!!' like some kind of Apache war cry. They wanted anything from plastic water bottles to money. The first day this was tolerable but by the time we arrived in Addis, I had already chased one kid through a house after he threw a stone. Didn't catch him... yet.