Desert Ride to Dongola…

A stroke of luck this morning… The manager of the Martyrs Hotel came over to say goodbye while I was loading the bike. I mentioned that I was heading to Dongola and asked him how long he thought it would take me…

“On this bike, less than two hours…”

“Are you sure? It is almost 300 kms away!” I said…

“No, no… It is only 180 kms from Merowe…”

I went to get my maps and showed him my intended route. He nodded as I traced my finger along the road back to Korti and Abu Dom, and then up the western bank of the Nile through El Khandaq and into Dongola…

“Ah yes, you can go this way, but there is a new road through the desert which is much shorter… An asphalt road…”

“Hallelujah!” I cried, startling him…

For a second I expected the usual “Amen!” which throughout Africa thus far, had immediately followed my “Hallelujah’s”… But of course, none came this time… He showed me the road that on my map was listed as a gravel track…

“This is the new road. But be careful, there is nothing in between Karima and Dongola… Nothing..! No water, no Benzina, and no people… Not many cars use this road…” he warned me…

That sounded like a challenge the Gypsy Biker could not ignore…

Early morning outside Karima...

I refueled in Karima, even though I knew I had enough “Benzina” to get me to Dongola with maybe 40km to spare… Running out of fuel the day before was still fresh in my mind… That, and the fact that the Big Fella was pulling hard to the left as we passed the service station, and I couldn’t control him… Sometimes he’s like a bloody horse that smells its home stable…

The hotel manager had been right… Not many people used this road… I saw my first vehicle at the 140 km mark and then no other until I reached the cultivated fields on the edge of the Nile… The river does a massive loop through northern Sudan, flowing north from Khartoum for almost 750 km, before changing its mind and turning south west for a further 450 km, and then finally deciding that the Mediterranean was its best bet after all, and turns due north again, heading for the Egyptian border…. The Nile River is clearly a “she”…

Theres not a lot out here, Dudes...

The road through the Nubian Desert was like riding in the Bahrain Grand Prix… Just track and desert… This one even has lines painted down the centre! With nary a soul about, and a full tank of fuel, I decided to let the bike have its head, and pinned the throttle back… The desert flew by… I rode close to the centre line, using the whole road for the few long sweeping corners. At the 100km mark, I stopped to have some water, and took a few photos to try and show the vast emptiness of where I was standing… Knowing I had plenty of time on my hands I unpacked my mini-tripod and placed it out on the road to get these snaps…

"You ready to burn some rubber...? And a lot of fuel...?" Reply: "Yeah, Baby...!!!"

The desert is eerily silent… Nothing out there but sand and stone, and they very seldom break into song… It was 8.30am, and hot enough already to have me sweating in my kit… Out on the northern horizon, I saw a dust cloud billowing up into the sky and watched it for a while, wondering what was causing it… Then I felt a feint movement of air on my cheek, and the answer came to me in a flash… A Haboub…!! It was still a long way off, but it seemed to be moving in my general direction, and that was more than enough to get me back on the bike and up to top speed… I was NOT going to be caught in one of those again… Once was more than enough!

A wicked northerly wind buffeted me from then on, and I could occasionally feel the front wheel come up off the tar… I had one “big moment” as I came out from behind the protection of a long line of sand dunes… I leaned my shoulder to the right to counteract the wind I knew was waiting for me there, but I was a fraction too late… The bike was shoved right across the centre line onto the other side of the road, and while trying to correct the direction it was taking, I came off the power, which severely affected the balance of the machine, sending it into a 100m long wobble that had my heart in my mouth and my sphincter biting holes in my seat… I gave the back brake the slightest of taps to straighten the bike up, while pouring the power back on… That got us on the straight and narrow again… But it had been a near thing…

As I have mentioned many times before, high winds are my least favourite condition to ride in, and I am seldom comfortable negotiating them… I am yet to see the chapter in any riding manual, where it explains the “dos and don’ts” of riding a fully loaded bike in a strong wind… It might well be listed under the chapter, “A Hope and a Prayer”, which I have studiously ignored, assuming this was aimed at novice riders about to take their bikes down a mine shaft…

The lush green banks of the Nile. Crossing over from the desert and into Dongola...

A smudge eventually appeared on the horizon ahead of me… A few minutes later it became a distinct line, and then the line turned green! It was the trees lining the banks of Nile! We were traveling at a steady 160 km/h, and the engine note had hardly changed for the last half hour, while we outran the Haboub… We had left it far behind, or maybe it had changed course… Either way, we didn’t care… Dongola lay up ahead, and it was barely 9.30 am!! We crossed the Nile for the second time today, over yet another wide and modern bridge…

The green banks of the river were an amazing contrast to the yellows and oranges of the desert we had just blasted through. I was grinning in my helmet as I pulled up to the first service station I saw, to refuel for the long haul tomorrow. I also filled the spare fuel bottles, as at 400km away, Wadi Halfa was at the extreme limits of the bikes capacity… That is if we kept the speed to 110 km/h… The combination of high speed, heavy load and high wind, had wrecked havoc with the fuel consumption… It was down from almost 20 km/l the day before, to just 13,5 km/l for this last ride…! Thirsty little devil, this bike can be…!!

The absence of a "Mind your Head" sign was a worry...

Dongola was a much larger town than I thought it would be… There are nine hotels here for a start! My friend Tariq had recommended the Al Muallem Hotel (“Teacher” in Arabic), and after a short unplanned tour of the town, I gave up searching for it, and asked a young guy on a motorcycle where it was… He very kindly led me to the place, down a long sandy alleyway, and out onto a busy street… He pulled up in front of what at first glance seemed to be a building site…

“It is here…” he said pointing at a narrow entrance through which a gang of labourers were carrying bags of cement…

“Are you sure?” I asked…

“Yes, yes… It is here… See the sign…!”

“Lovely…!” I said, reading the sign above the narrow doorway, “I’ll just be popping in for a cocktail, and a dip in the pool…!”

“No swimming here…!” he replied…

“Really? That’s not what the brochure said! Where can I swim?” I asked…

“In the Nile,” was his quick response, “I can take you to the place…!”

“Bugger that…! I’ve seen what the guys in Khartoum throw into the river… You won’t catch me swimming in the Nile… Have you heard the saying “All roads lead to Rome”? No..? Well here in Sudan, it is “All sewage pipes lead to the Nile”! Thanks for the offer, but I’ll settle for a hot shower from the cold tap instead…!”

“Ok… Nice to meet you!” he said, and with that, he kicked his 50cc bike into gear and puttered away…

Reception had become the cement store...

The reception area had been converted into a cement store, so I climbed the dusty stairs to the 1^st floor where a very friendly old guy advised me that before I could check in, I needed permission from the Police…

“But I was cleared of all those charges against me!” I told him with a stern expression… “It was all lies, I tell you!”

That went whistling by his left shoulder, and he pointed back down the stairs while giving me directions to the Police Station… It was now as hot as anything I had experienced before, and I needed to put my jacket and helmet back on, like I needed a sharp object jammed into my left eye… Muttering a few un-printables, I made way back down the road to the traffic lights (yes, believe it or not, Dongola has a whole bunch of them!) turned right as instructed and pulled up in front of a heavily guarded Police Station… It was either that, or half the force had been put on door duty…

My name and many other particulars were entered into a much thumbed register, and then a Hotel Permission Form was filled in. This was the first time that I had required “Police Permission” to stay at a hotel… My reputation had finally caught up with me…!!

Hotel Permission Form... Have you ever...??

Back at the hotel, I was ushered along a corridor and shown my room. Builders marched up and down outside the room all afternoon, pushing wheelbarrows, carrying bricks and shouting to each other… While I ate a lunch of two fried eggs (they could not make an omelette because they had no vegetables…!) and two dry rolls, they continued their work, walking around me as if I wasn’t even there… Cement dust covered the table I was sitting at, and I idly wondered if I had brought any medication for constipation… With this much cement around, some was bound to find its way into my system…

"That's all very well, but can you put it back together again, Ron...?"

But everything else in my room worked, (even the toilet flushed!) and at SDP 65.00, (about R240.00) this was as good as it gets in Dongola… The heat here saps your energy, and by mid afternoon, I am usually ready for a short nap… Today was no different… I slept for over two hours and then had another shower, washing the dust off my jacket and pants at the same time, and hanging them on what passed for a balcony, to dry… I then took my helmet apart for the first time, and washed all the components… I will look like a new pin tomorrow, when I set off through the desert to the Egyptian border… And the Big Fella…? Here in Dongola, it’s every man for himself!

While wandering around outside the hotel a little later that evening, I noticed green Landrover with Cape Town registration plates parked outside. It was the French couple and their young son Sammy, who I had met in Khartoum while doing the Alien Registration lark… They had bought the Landy in Cape Town, and were driving up through Africa on their way back to France. They were in a room just down the corridor from mine, and we sat discussing our routes for the days ahead. Our vehicles would most likely be on the same barge, and we would certainly be on the same ferry to Aswan. They had secured a 1^st Class cabin, and I hoped I could get one too… At least my gear would then be safe from the hordes of people who crowded the ferry’s decks…

It would have been nice to ride together to Wadi Halfa, but whereas they had the luxury of an air-conditioned vehicle to ride in, I had to contend with the high temperatures of the desert, and would therefore be leaving much earlier than they intended to…

They mentioned that Scott Parker, the Canadian I had met in Nairobi, and who was bound for Djibouti and Saudi Arabia, had been turned back from the border, as he had discovered that he would not be allowed to ride his bike in Saudi… He was presently stuck in Khartoum, trying to extend his transit visa… So far he had come up against a wall of red tape, and might possibly have to fly back to Nairobi to apply for another visa…!!!

Big Fella and I strike a pose out on the Desert Ride to Dongola...

My French friends had also had a brush with the law in Khartoum, when Sammy took a picture of a building that turned out to be a police station… The police descended upon the hapless trio and made them delete a whole bunch of photos from their camera, including all those who contained pictures of Sudanese, even if their faces were visible or not… They had gone to the trouble of obtaining the “Photographic Permit”, but this made no difference to the boys in blue… In this respect, Sudan can hardly be described as a tourist friendly country… You have to be constantly on guard that you do not unintentionally offend somebody who will make life difficult for you…

I had not bothered with a photographic permit, and as yet had not been asked to produce one, yet had taken many photographs of people and places which I probably shouldn’t have… I made sure however that it looked like I was taking a picture of the bike, or I held the camera in my hand, looked the other way and pressed the shutter… All very surreptitiously, you see….

My French friends were understandably very keen to get out of Sudan, and on to Egypt and Libya. They would be shipping their vehicle to Marseille from Tunisia, and kindly invited me to stay with them at their home near Bordeaux, if my timing coincided with their return…

After bidding them good night, I returned to get my stuff ready for the early departure I had planned for the next day… It was over 400 km to Wadi Halfa, and I fully intended to thumb my nose at the sun, by getting the bulk of the ride over before it could bring its blow-torch heat to bear on my narrow shoulders…

©GBWT 2010