Pharaoh's Delight retrospective
The Tour d’Afrique 2009 has arrived in Khartoum. Riders are enjoying their rest day and making good use of the shower facilities to scrub the grit and grime of the past week off their sunburned bodies. Everyone approached Khartoum with a sense of guarded optimism. Certain cities just emanate a sense of exotic wonder; Kathmandu, Beijing and Istanbul for instance. Khartoum is another one that should automatically be on such a list but it often falls to the wayside as a symptom of the difficulty in reaching it. While the physical challenges of getting here are pretty insignificant: all you have to do is fly to Cairo, and cycle for several weeks across sun baked roads in +30 temperatures across two deserts, hitch a ride on a floating electronics/ livestock depot masquerading as a passenger ferry across a manmade lake and then negotiate several hundred more kilometers of roads constructed in the style of North Vietnamese runways circa 1972. Word is that some people choose to fly into the city but between you and me that is just an urban myth. The true challenge of travelling to Sudan is actually getting permission from the government. As I am sure any current TDA rider will tell you, many a sleepless night was spent tossing and turning over whether the passport they mailed to the Sudanese embassy in their respective countries would be returned with an exotic visa so brilliant Hermes himself would be jealous or if it would be returned chopped to a million pieces like you see in those movies from the 90’s when the spendthrift daughter of some big-shot businessman gets her credit card returned on a silver platter sliced and diced by a snooty waiter. Fortunately for us, the former situation happened.
In the 20 days since Cairo the 2009 Tour d’Afrique team has bonded in a way that defies words. We have seen friendships form on the road that will last years and span continents. Already an intricate bartering system has been developed that would put most prisons to shame. Perhaps the best example of this is when new boxes of PVM energy bars are handed out. These boxes are stocked with 20 mixed flavours and within 30 seconds of their distribution they are cast open with about 15 people standing in a circle shouting “Strawberry! Strawberry! Who wants a strawberry? Only two caramels for my strawberry PVM bar”. Pretty much the only time Frank isn’t cracking jokes is when he is haggling over energy bars.
In terms of the Td’A staff, things are going swimmingly. Most of us entered Egypt as fresh faced expedition chefs, mechanics and nurses. It wasn’t long before our grizzled, wizened Tour Director Randy whipped us into shape and formed us into a crack team of onion choppers, race timers and early rising breakfast cooks who can still fix the odd impact wound from a fall, rebuild a rear derailleur or write a mean update at 11 pm surrounded by a swarm of bugs. Despite Randy’s guidance, there is always the underlying fear of our South African Indaba staff keeping us in line. While friendly to a fault, everyone on tour, staff included, knows that their kickass new trucks and valuable time are not commodities to be messed with. Speaking of the new trucks, to all you former Td’Aers out there; I think you will be interested to know that no longer are long term bags relegated to red boxes on the roof. Oh no, we have been furnished swanky on-board lockers with enough space for our smaller riders to sleep in. On this tour when we rock the bike, we rock the bike right.
Tomorrow we leave Khartoum and will very shortly be crossing into the land of coldish beer, kickass off road, and a welcome paucity of minarets waking everyone at 5am with the call to prayer. That’s right, Ethiopia lays to the east and we intrepid explorers of the African continent are ready and willing to toss another country under our belts…inshallah.
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Posted January 30, 2009 by Erik Dobrovolsky
Sudan | Tour Updates |
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