Through the Haboub to Merowe…

Today’s ride was one I will never forget…

I was up at 5.00am, packing my gear back into the various bags that lay scattered at the foot of my bed. George was also up early, and left for work while I was lugging my kit out to the bike. Nick helped me tie the bags down and by 6.00am I was ready to roll… There was the smell of dust in the air, and minutes later a haboub, the dust storms this country is famous for, began blowing over the city… Paula came to the door to wish me farewell, but wisely chose to stay indoors while the dust cloud above got bigger and thicker…

Visibility could have been better... The Haboub shuts out the sun...

“You blew into town with a haboub, and now you are blowing out of town on one too,” she said as I walked outside to start the Big Fella up for the ride. I would miss Paula’s bubbly personality and George’s dry sense of humour in the days to come… They are a great couple and I thoroughly enjoyed my stay at the Tutt’s of Khartoum…

Getting out of the city at such an early hour, was a breeze, and before long my GPS advised me that the next time I would have to make a turn, would be in 279 km… This told me that I was now out on the main road leading north to Karima and Dongola. I had crossed the bridge over the Blue Nile, and then headed east to the bridge which crossed the main Nile River, just north of the confluence of both the White and Blue Niles… I would have liked to have stopped here for a photo of the confluence, but the wind and dust was such that I could hardly make out the river, let alone an area a few hundred metres away where the Niles joined… The streets of Omdurman were filled with litter and this, the oldest part of Khartoum, was practically deserted as I made my way through them to the northern outskirts and out into the desert…

The intelligent sought shelter wherever they could find it...

The wind and the dust combined to make riding extremely unpleasant. The road surface was in very good condition and it irked me that I only managed 65 km in the first hour. I had deliberately left early, to escape the worst of the unbearable heat, hoping to ride the 440 km to Karima in under five hours, but the Haboub had made that impossible now…and it got worse… a lot worse!!

I was amazed that after an hour, I was still in the midst of this mother of all sand storms… I came upon a police checkpoint (very suddenly, I might add!) and sent the traffic cone that was standing in the middle of the road, flying… I shut the power down, thinking that someone would come running to see what had happened… No dice! In this storm, whoever was manning the checkpoint did not give a hoot about what was going on outside… I rode on, and in seconds, the checkpoint was swallowed up behind me… Trucks and buses had mercifully decided o ride with their light on, but they only became visible when the vehicles were about 50m away…

I had mentally prepared myself for the long ride, the heat and the endless desolation of the desert, but I had no idea that a completely different danger awaited me, out in the desert today… At the 100 km mark, I saw an archway in the murky dust ahead of me, and slowed down, hoping not to repeat the “cone hit-and-run incident” again. This time the policemen were outside in the storm, waving me down frantically… A siren was wailing from the top of one of the police pick-ups… I was instructed to pull over, and after a series of hand signals and much shaking of heads and pointing to the sky, I realized that the road was being closed to all traffic…

“Too dangerous….too dangerous,” were the only English words they seemed to know, and they repeated them over and over. I indicated that I had lights, and was riding with them on, but they were having none of it… I eventually agreed, and pointed up ahead to where two buses had parked, and told them I would park there… I inched the bike forward, a metre at a time… First I got in front of one of the buses, then pretended to change my mind, and inched forward until I was in front of the second bus… I looked back, and could hardly make out the police checkpoint… I eased the clutch out and rode forward until I knew they could no longer see me, and then gave the throttle a quick twist, and we were gone… Into the storm…just like that!!

The Police Checkpoint near Abu Doolah disappears behind me as I make my way back out onto the road...

The positive thing about the Haboub was that it completely shut out the sun, and as a result, temperatures were far cooler… I wanted to take advantage of this for as long as it lasted… Better a few kilometres in the Haboub, than a few in the 45° heat… Or so I thought…

The roadblock had been just outside the little town of Abu Doolah. I had passed other towns I assume, but had not seen a single person or animal moving in them; just the indistinct shapes of mud dwellings a few metres off the road… For the next 50 km I seemed to be in the centre of the storm… Sand blown across the road all but obliterated my view of the tar… I slowed down to about 50 km/h, and still felt that I was going too fast… The adrenaline was pumping through me, and I had to keep myself from giving the throttle an excitable squirt every now and then… The wind buffeted me from both sides, shaking the bike vigorously at times… Swirling clouds of thicker dust caused huge shadows in front of me, and at times had me believing that I had come up behind a bus or a truck… But I was the only nutcase out there in the storm… Everybody else had headed for cover, and I started looking for a place to lie up myself…

But there was none to be had…the only solid cover I could see were a few abandoned mud huts too far off the road to get the Big Fella to, and I was NOT going to chance my arm in the thick sand… Not in the middle of a sand storm… No Sirree!!

The Caberg helmet has many good attributes, but airtight it is not! Dust had by now got into my helmet and my tear ducts were working overtime, trying to rid my eyes of the grit that was getting into them… I felt the sand in my teeth each time I ground my jaw in frustration at the lack of visibility…

I passed a sign on the side of the road that said,

“SquiggleSquiggle__!! Q_squiggle, squiggle…”, which in Arabic means:

“Are you having fun yet?”…

As a matter of fact, I wasn’t…!! This storm had been raging for almost three hours and I had covered 180 km through what seemed like the heart of it…

Still under a cloud of dust, but there was light up ahead...

And then there was light... Back into the sweltering desert...

At the 198 km mark (exactly!) I broke out into clear blue sky, and the open desert… It was like stepping through a door into another world after being stuck in the sandstorm for so long. I came upon another checkpoint a few kilometres further on, and was waved to a stop by a guy in camouflage uniform… A jeep with a huge machine gun mounted on it was parked off to one side… I thought it prudent to stop…

“Salaam Aleikum” I greeted him cheerfully…

“Aleikum al Salaam” he responded with a worried frown, and then before I could ask how the family were, he said, “You drive in Haboub?” I nodded and then shrugged my shoulders to indicate that it hadn’t been that big a deal…

He wagged a finger at me and said, “Not good, not good! Very dangerous…!”

“Yes, yes, so I’ve heard..! But tell me kind Sir, do you know of a good dry cleaner in Karima? I don’t think this dust is going to wash out of my kit in a normal wash…” I enquired…

“Dry….in Karima? Yes, yes… Very dry this time…and very hot…!” was his reply.

“I thought so… Anyway, lovely chatting to you, but the sun is beginning to fry my brain, and I have to be going now…” I said, indicating the molten ball hanging above us, and pointing down the road in what I assumed was the general direction of my destination…

He stepped aside smartly, threw me a short salute with a grin and said, “Go…!”

And so I went…

We stopped in the desert to discuss issues pertaing to fuel...

About 100km later, I had an entirely different problem to contend with… I ran out of fuel…! I had expected to find a service station somewhere between Khartoum and the turn-off to Karima at Abu Dom, and for all I know, I probably passed a few of the darn things in the storm… I had nursed the bike over the last 50 km after my Fuel Management System advised that the Big Fella would soon be in tears… I tried to remember how far it was to Abu Dom, and checked to see how far I had come on the present tank… This part of Sudan is a little shy when it comes to road signs you see, unless you count those boards with all the squiggles on them…!!

I came over a low rise, expecting to see a few buildings up ahead, or a mosque that would indicate human habitation… And there it was… Bugger all…!! Just desert… Sand, a few rocks and more sand… The FMS read “0”, and the Big Fella’s usual growl sounded a little more like a dry cough… I thought I heard a whimper from the Garmin Girl too…

“Calm down to a panic, everyone,” I said, “I’ve got this covered…!”

I hopped off the bike, hung my helmet on the mirror stem, drank half a litre of water, lit a B&H, and looked around me… In a word: “Desolation”… Even the camels had packed up here long ago… The only sound was the ticking of the Big Fella’s engine as it tried to cool down…

I started doing a few mental calculations… I had covered 413 kms on the present tank. (Good going, Ronno!) I had four litres of spare fuel in my front two fuel bottles, (which the Big Fella had probably forgotten about) and I assumed that over the last few thousand kilometres there had been a bit of evaporation… (I had filled them in Uganda, which was a long, long way away…!) Soooooo…, we should be able to ride another 60 kms at least, I figured… Muted clapping from the Garmin Girl and a long sigh from the Big Fella, as I emptied the spare fuel into the tank and got ready to ride again…

Just then a truck stopped next to me… It was the first vehicle that I had seen so far today, going in the same direction as I was…

“You OK?” asked the driver.

“Yes… Shukran… No mushkalla!” I said, ignoring the polite cough from the Big Fella and the throat clearing noise coming from the GPS…

“You need water?”

“No… Shukran… Eh… Abu Dom, almatar ba’reed?” I enquired nonchalantly… (How far is it to Abu Dom?)

“Twenty Seven kilometres…!” was the answer…

“Benzina Abu Dom?”… This was the kicker! (Is there petrol at Abu Dom?)

“Yes…and diesel!”

Polite admirer... The service station at Abu Dom...

I heard a loud sigh from behind me, although I was pretty sure that the Big Fella knew no Arabic… I thanked them again, and the truck headed away from us…

“See, I’ve got it all under control!” I told the two Nervous Nellies…

The Stellae at the intersection leading to Merowe and Karima, 140 km away...

I was a little wary about the “27 kilometres” though, so took it easy for a short while, until I saw the minarets of a Mosque far in the distance, and then I opened the throttle to the max and we screamed across the desert, past the truck who had stopped to offer assistance, and into the outskirts of Abu Dom… EXACTLY 27 kms from where we had stopped out in the desert… Clearly that truck driver had ridden this road once or twice before…

First filling station… No Benzina..!! Second one…only sold diesel… Third one… Jackpot!! I used the last of my Octane Booster as a little prezzie for the Big Fella, and made a few calls to Colin in Khartoum (Sales Director for Coca Cola) and Tariq, one of his agents responsible for Karima (to confirm the name of the hotel in Merowe where I would be staying…turns out there IS only one hotel in Merowe!!) and then a last one to George Tutt, to let him know that I was OK, and had made it through the Haboub…

Merowe lay another 100 kms to the northeast of Abu Dom, and I made it there in less than an hour, reveling in the perfect road conditions, and going like the clappers to get out of the midday sun…

Someone thoughtfully added the English name, otherwise I might still be out there...

I checked in to the El Shaeed Hotel, which means “Martyrs” in Arabic… I hoped they didn’t expect me to undertake any “missions” on their behalf… I have a rather busy program as it is, right now…

I carted all the gear to my room on the ground floor, (yippee…no stairs to climb for a change…!) before telling the manager that I was going out again to visit the pyramids near Karima…

My room at the Al Shaeed Hotel... The chair could have been bigger...

“Not now!” he almost shouted… “It is too hot for you…! You can go later, at 4 or 5 pm…”

It sounded too much like an instruction to be ignored, so I quickly agreed with his advice, and retired to my air-conditioned room to while away the heat of the day… After taking a quick shower, (to get the dust out of every nook and cranny, especially the crannies…!) I took a short nap, and then kitted up again and rode out to Karima, on the opposite side of the Nile.

A massive, new dual carriageway spans the Nile here at Merowe, and just a few years ago, I would have had to use a ferry to get across this sluggish but mighty river. A short ride further on, is the town of Karima, dominated by the Jebel Barkal Mountain. A section of the mountain looks like the raised head of a cobra and this is what the mountain is named after.

There are also pyramids to the north of the mountain, clearly visible from the road that passes them. An ancient city once stood here, now all but covered by the shifting sands of the Sahara.

More of those triangular thingys outside Karima...

Remains of an ancient mud walled fort...and the litter in front...

On the road running next to the Nile, the remains of an old mud fort can be seen, in amongst the present day village that has sprung up around it… I cruised along the tar roads that criss-cross the area, and then on an impulse took the road that leads out into the desert and on to Wadi Halfa, almost 500 kms to the north…

The road follows the cultivated banks of the Nile for about 20 km, before swinging north into the desert… With the bike so much lighter, and at speeds that had never been seen in these parts, we zoomed through the desert… In what seemed like only minutes, we had covered almost 30 kilometres, and I turned the bike around and sat sweating there for a few minutes, before heading back to town…

It’s a weird feeling being out there on your own… There is absolutely nothing moving, not a bird or an animal, and certainly no people… It was just us and the shadows the Big Fella and I were casting… It was both humbling and exhilarating at the same time. There is a stark and dangerous beauty to it all. It is harsh and can be unforgiving… I flirted with danger today, first riding through a sandstorm for three hours, and then almost coming to grief without fuel…

I do not consider this as a victory of some sort, but rather confirmation of my determination not to be easily overcome by the elements, and certainly not to panic in situations that put me in harm’s way. (Even if they are self-inflicted!) In any case, I do not think that you can triumph over the desert, but rather it decides whether it will let you pass though it unscathed or swallow you up and leave your bones as a warning to others…

"A Road Runs To It..."... Sequel to that other movie about Brad Pitt and trout fishing...

Today the desert smiled at, and with me, and welcomed me to those that have ridden through parts of her… I hope her other parts will be as forgiving…

©GBWT 2010