We've in Dongola at the moment, on our second official (or proper) rest day. Another rider has his birthday today, NYC bike messenger Dave Arman, a pretty cool guy - so a shoutout to him! In the middle of the desert, it's amazing what will grow when given a proper supply of water. Dongola and the sides of the Nile are seriously green and crawling with flies.

We're camping at the Dongola Zoo, a bit of a misnomer given the lack of animals present. Dongola is a bit of a dusty town and I'm fairly sure it's affecting my asthma. In addition, I've got a headcold, probably caught from several other riders who have been coughing and spluttering for a few days now. Hopefully by the time the rest day is over it'll be on its way out but the combination of pushing yourself quite so hard whilst being ill doesn't lend itself well to speedy recovery.

So far I'm still EFI - it's strange that this the second time in my life that I've ever actually tried so hard for something (the first time being my end of university exams). Most of the time I tend to roll into things casually and don't mind failure since I don't really try. This time however, I've tried so hard for EFI that it'd be a true shame to fail. I've never heard the question 'how's your ass?' so many times. (Perhaps it would have been wise to white lie about the true nature of my problems, pretending to have a knee problem like I know at least one other rider is doing.)

We've only had three riding days since the ferry to Sudan, this route normally takes four days but has been paved over since last year - Tour D'Afrique decided to shorten it. As I wrote previously, I spent the first day (150km) entirely standing. The second day was another 150km and I was just exhausted by the end of the day. I rode with Dave and he decided to help motivate me by standing up when I was - we altogether managed about 60-70km standing up. In the evening, we had a camp fire running but I headed off to bed early, almost unable to walk. The morning of the final day was an ordeal in itself - it took a lot of effort just to get my tent and bags packed up.

As I rode my bike out to the main road where the day's ride would start, my legs felt very heavy. The racers soon started and as I started pedalling, I realised instantly that my rear wheel was flat. Thinking it was a slow puncture, I pumped it up slowly (with my tiny hand pump). Pretty much being the start of the day, the sweep rider (who rides behind everybody) caught up with my instantly, and Shanny, one of the ex TDA tour directors who is here to help the new directors out, lent me his slightly more beefy pump.

We pumped it up as hard as the pump would permit and hit the road again. Sure enough, 5km later, the tyre was flat again and it was time to replace the tube. Again, the sweep rider caught up with me and we changed the tube, pumping it up to 50psi to bide me by until I got to lunch. Caroline, the sweep rider, went on ahead, thinking I'd catch her easily - in actual fact, my legs wouldn't permit it. No matter how hard I spun, I couldn't top 25 km/h and catch her.

In the end, I never caught her, and after 40km of churning my legs trying to advance, I realised that my tyre was flat again. As I pumped it up by the side of the road in the middle of a desert, I was shocked to see a young Sudanese man walk up across the other side of the road and introduce himself to me, shaking my hand and asking if I needed any help. Once I had pumped my tyre up (and realised that the brake had been rubbing on the tyre for the last 40km...slowing me down massively), I rode with Musab (the Sudanese guy) for a while - he was apparently hunting in the desert, for rabbit and goat. On his clunker of a Chinese bike, he managed to keep up at a good 25-30km/h. His English was surprisingly good and this snippet of our conversation amused me:
Musab- 'Who is your girlfriend?'
Me- 'I don't have one'
Musab - 'Why not?'
Me- 'Because I'm in Africa'
I point to my bike- 'This is my girlfriend.'
Musab laughs.

I rolled into lunch just as they were packing up and about to send a search party to look for me, since the sweep rider had arrived and they had no sign of me. A brief lunch later and I caught up with another group of riders who had all been involved in a huge crash in the morning - supposedly a peloton they were riding in had collapsed and about eight people had hit the road. The nurse's supply of bandages has been compromised slightly but luckily no one was seriously injured.

The rest day has been surprisingly busy with mundane chores that just need to be done, washing, eating and fixing my tubes. This morning I tried handwashing my clothes for the first time ever (our negotiations with the Minister of Tourism to find someone to help us do laundry failed). The clear soapy water I used quickly turned a horrific shade of grey and brown. As I piled clothes onto my hopelessly inadequate washing line, it collapsed and a good quantity of my clothes fell into the dirty, rendering my efforts of the last hour pointless. As Ruben, a German rider said, it makes you appreciate your mother's effort washing clothes - I partially agree but they have washing machines to help them!

I them spent a good thirty minutes using my tiny pump to fill up my now fixed rear tyre. Just as I reached 100psi, I went to unscrew the attachment for my pump carefully. Within seconds I heard the depressingly familiar sound of air rushing out and thought perhaps I was depressing the valve head whilst unscrewing (as anyone who has ever used a Presta valve will know about). I unscrewed it faster and the tyre flattened even quicker - undoing all my work in less than 30 seconds. The valve attachment had unscrewed the inner part of the valve. Oops. I tried again a couple of times but no luck, so I'll try with another pump sometime later.

Well, I'm still EFI, for the moment. Determined not to give it up, I put aside medical advice not to cycle and cycled the whole 150 kilometres today standing up. Most of the weight is transferred to your legs when you stand up, roughly doubling the load on your knees and quads, so I took care to stretch my legs every 10 kilometres or so. At the moment they don't feel too bad but I worry that this is one of those cases where the day after always feels much worse. Tomorrow is another 150 kilometres and the Egyptian doctor I saw said 3 or 4 days of avoiding sitting in the saddle. It's now been 3 days, so I'm comtemplating my options for tomorrow.

Sudan is a beautiful country - unlike anything I've ever seen before. The landscapes are stunning panoramas of sand and rock, reminding me of the Planet Tatooine from Star Wars. (Mental note: put Star Wars soundtrack on MP3 player) It's crazy warm here, and is only going to get warmer as we head further into the desert. My water consumption is beginning to go up rapidly too. The sunset from the camp was beautiful tonight, an array of colour that seems impossible to replicate photographically.

Our camp tonight is by the river Nile. I found it strange but obvious that the Nile should flow through Sudan - years of education have left the notion fixed in my head that the Nile only passes through Egypt. There are swathes of flies around, about two dozen or so are camping on the roof of my tent. There are also some scary looking insects around; when I went towards the trees earlier to discard some of the water I'd been drinking all day, my eyes slowly came to focus in on some floating object right near my face. It took a few split seconds to realise that this was a spider at which point my reflex reaction was to bend backwards as fast as physically possible. No sign of the spider since, and luckily the encounter wasn't messy as it could nearly have been.

Connectivity is good but strangely difficult in Sudan. My Kenyan sim card is now working, and I bought a local number too. The only problem is that neither lets me send text messages to the UK, which renders my Twitter updating almost pointless (I'm now phoning in coordinates to home!). However, the local sim lets me use GPRS at a not-too-unreasonable rate, which I will try once I pick up some more credit in Dongola in a few days time.

I'm on the ferry at the moment. We're currently anchored about a mile off the port of Wadi Halfa, our entry port into Sudan. The overnight ride has been an unforgettable experience.

We rode to the ferry port at Aswan in convoy, which I successfully managed entirely standing up. My legs weren't too tired by the end of it, so I figure the 150 kilometres tomorrow might just be plausible. Boarding the ferry was a complex logistical problem which the Tour D'Afrique staff handled calmly and in the end everything went smoothly. While there were no chickens carried on board (which they had repeatedly referenced last year), there is no shortage of blenders and televisions made in China being transported to Sudan.

There aren't normally enough cabins for the entire group, so it's usually the case that the younger riders are made to sleep out on the deck - indeed I was quite looking forward to it. However, the cabins aren't the cleanliest of places and many of the older riders switched camp. While initially I was looking forward to a night on the deck, as more and more passengers and boxes were loaded, a cabin looked like a more sensible option. Luckily we managed to grab one of the spare cabins left vacant. The deck soon became a curious shanty town of boxes, rugs, sleeping bags and tinny pop music blaring out of mobile phone speakers. Some of the passengers who had evidently done this trip several times, built a fort of their goods around themselves. We joked between ourselves that it would be fun to step inside their fort and observe the end outcome but the menacing looks of the portly Arabic gentleman were enough to stop that idea in its tracks.

The ship is rusty, grimy and to quote one of the German riders - 'Everywhere you look, the ship is moving'. Our included meal on the ferry, yesterday at lunch, was punctuated by the occasional sound of slapping as riders defended themselves from the many insects interrupting the sanctity of their mealtime. The room was no better, seeming initially to be relatively clean. Eric, one of the French riders soon showed us the secret of finding the roaches (lift up the mattress quickly and look in the corner of the bed) and we hatched various plans to try and avoid bodily contact with them. These ranged from finding an alternative place to sleep (as it was though, deck was hugely congested) to sleeping on the floor (it is pretty filthy) to lining the bed with a groundsheet (we had no groundsheet here).

The final solution which I used all night, and which Adrian, my roommate, attempted for a while before giving up, was to sleep inside our tents. I used the inner part of my tent minus the poles, wearing it like a sleeping bag. This worked well enough until abruptly in the middle of the night we were woken up by a tannoy call, 'Tour D'Afrique riders, please come to the dining room immediately'. Struggling to break free of the tent, I eventually found the zip and made my way down the hallway, thanking myself that the boat wasn't sinking in this case. Having gone to bed at 7pm, and having been woken up from the deepest possible sleep, it seemed natural that it would be some obscene hour of the night. However, glancing at someone's watch, it had only just passed 8:30pm! Much less antisocial.

The reason we were woken was that Sudanese immigration now takes place upon the ferry (and not when we arrive - which should hopefully speed the process up a bit when we eventually dock). This consisted of filling out yet more forms inaccurately (when the questions are vague, what hope do you have? E.g. 'Carrier') and duplicating more information. I'm half contemplating writing as illegibly as possible for the next few countries and seeing whether anyone notices. They also took our temperature with an ear canal thermometer. Presumably this was to prevent illness entering the country but if anything, not washing the thermometer inbetween uses probably spread any sickness that was there. After this we queueued for an hour or so to get our passports stamped, after which the official realised that he didn't really need to see us to stamp our passport and just collected them all instead.

Bedtime rolled around again but it was much harder to sleep now. The hunger pangs from our bodies' now-all-eating metabolisms were beginning to strike and it took a good hour to fall asleep. This morning we awoke to see Abu Simbel from afar, a huge temple by the side of Lake Nasser. Now we wait for customs to board our boat whom the ferry captain is repeatedly calling with three long bursts of the ship's horn, deafening those on deck each time.

The ride into Aswan today was similar to the ride to Idfu yesterday, lots of traffic, fairly smooth roads and quite a fast pace. We rolled into lunch at about 9:15am and then into camp itself at 11:30am. The mornings are nicest time to cycle, I've decided - the winds are usually much less fierce and everything looks much prettier.

It's winter here in Egypt and the weather varies quite massively, from near zero at night to baking hot in the afternoon (no exact figures I'm afraid). Every morning it becomes harder and harder to make the effort necessary to crawl out of my sleeping bag. This morning there was lots of dew - I didn't set up the flysheet for my tent properly last night and most of the inside of my tent was wet as a result too.

I spent most of the afternoon tracking down a doctor to get a professional opinion on my saddle sores. First the local tour company who is supporting us dropped me off to a hospital where I struggled to find someone who spoke English. When I succeeded, the woman who spoke English took me to a group of doctors who were working furiously on one ill looking gentleman on a surgical table. They said something in Arabic which apparently translated to 'come back tomorrow'. After some more time and a taxi ride, I managed to find another doctor who was available. I walked up there to find two people who spoke little English. In their broken English they told me to come back tomorrow. Not wanting to give up, I asked another guy downstairs who told me to come back at 2pm.

I walked around, bought a falafel and came back after 2pm when luckily the doctor had returned. I'll stray away from graphic imagery and tell you that the overall result was that I'm not allowed to cycle for 4 days. I've also been given some fairly heavy duty antibiotics to take for the same time period. The next couple of days are only 20 or so kilometres of convoy riding, which I could feasibly stand up and cycle. However, the next two days are solid 150km days and I fear these might not be rideable. This could be the end of my EFI status.

It's amazing what a single day of rest can do for your body. I was actively feeling the strain in my legs the last few days before we arrived in Luxor and the ride today was almost like starting from fresh. Last night in Luxor, I changed my saddle from the (pretty new and hence unmoulded) leather Brooks saddle to a spare Specialized Body Geometry saddle I had brought with me. My saddle sores are getting quite bad, to the point where I'm on antibiotics and the nurse wants me to see a Doctor as soon as possible! She recommended against cycling but so far I remain EFI* qualified and don't want to lose it until absolutely necessary.

As I was fitting my saddle in the dark, I was surprised by a trio of staff and riders who burst into a song of Happy Birthday and handed me a box of Hohos, a local chocolate cake wrapped sweet (similar to Twinkies in texture). I was so shocked that I dropped the box, no doubt waking up a dozen other riders who were fast asleep in preparation the next day.

The morning ride was 70 kilometres of pure pace (31-32 kmph average), we carried along the same highway that took us to Luxor. I realised today that the river that I thought was the Nile is actually just a side channel of it. Regardless, it's amazing how lush the banks were, compared to the dry, lifeless and seemingly infinite desert. As we rolled up to the lunch truck, we got a stunning view of the Nile itself, shining the bluest blue my eyes would recognise. A life-giving river indeed.

Every rider in the peloton I had ridden in with agreed that we should probably slow down and take a few more photos. It's ironic that individually we were all thinking the same thing but as a group the emphasis shifted to eating up tarmac as quickly as possible. The remaining 50km we took at a much more leisurely pace and stopped several times to-
- Take photos
- Give sweets to children (but only 7 children because I ran out pretty quickly)
- Drink carbonated beverages
- Tresspass on a local market

The last item was quite amusing. Just 5km approximately from the campsite, we noticed a market on the left where pick-up trucks were congregating to drop and pick up produce and local people. It was quite obvious that this wasn't a place on the usual tourist route, so we dismounted and rolled our bikes down the single carriageway on which all the stalls were set up. About 20 metres in, an official looking guard started speaking to me in Arabic (this has happened several times now, apparently I am easily mistaken for a local). I couldn't understand him but after he started pointing to his gun and then pointing to the riders who had gone walking ahead, I assumed that this was a cue to leave. Our understanding of it was that he was quite worried for our safety and didn't want us to get into trouble in the market...very odd.

The final few kilometres took us into the city of Idfu itself, via a bridge over the Nile. The Idfu end of the bridge consisted of a large roundabout which was surrounded by hordes of Egyptians. It was here that some moron in a van decided to try and throw a stick through the front wheel of Gerald's bicycle (a French rider). Gerald sped up and chastised the guy through his open window, quite a drama to observe. Luckily no harm was done but these sort of incidents are likely to become increasingly common as we head further south (I'll explain later as we approach).

The campsite here is a bit grungy, it's a soccer field in the middle of the city. There's at least two mosques on either side (and correspondingly prayers seem to be out of tune, out of sync and extremely loud). I won't go into too graphic a description of the showers / toilets but they are possibly the worst I've seen. The shovel option is non-existent here since our trucks have already left for Sudan, taking the shovels with them. In addition, the soccer field is surrounded by tower blocks of apartments.

I feel quite happy at the moment, I'm listening to a mixture of bhangra music and Coldplay in my home - my tent. I've just discovered two pockets on the walls and I've made a makeshift desk out of my day bag so there's an alternative to the awkward typing on the knees position. It's bedtime now. Last night I was dreaming of smooth flowing singletrack since all the riding so far has mainly been road riding. This whole trip will probably mostly be some form of road cycling too. If there are any mountain bikers reading this, the next time you hit a technical piece of singletrack, drop me a thought!

*I can't remember if I've mentioned EFI yet or not. EFI means Every F**king Inch, and is a accolade given to riders who cycle every single inch of the tour. Quite why it's in inches when the tour distance is measured in metric units I'm not sure. If your bike breaks or injury strikes - or for some reason you're unable to cycle any or part of any day, you lose your EFI status. Roughly 10 or 15 riders make EFI every year and hence it is quite an elite club - about 100 or so riders worldwide.

This has been a very strange birthday - for the last 17 years or so I've been confined to celebrating it whilst attending primary school, secondary school or university. This time however, I'm in a campsite on the edge of the city of Luxor in Egypt.

The final day of cycling before our rest day here was a brisk 90 or so kilometres along a fairly major highway which ran alongside the Nile. Before lunch I joined a train of pretty fast riders as they averaged about 30kmph or so towards lunch. The peloton oscillated from short to long, much like a longitudinal wave, as riders sped up and slowed down in turn. Soon enough though, we reached lunch, at the almost ridiculous time of 8:30am!

I hung about for a bit, wanting to eat more than just the two half pitta breads that the speedier guys were restricting themselves to. Instead, I helped myself to four halves, two with vegetables and two with peanut butter and jelly. Soon enough, my usual riding buddies, Jason and Jen, and Australian Dan rolled up and I just hung about until they were ready to go.

The 50km after lunch was just as rapid as the morning ride and we rolled into camp at about 10:25am yesterday. Most of the afternoon was spent tending to laundry and picking up various essentials (toilet paper, suncream, chocolate). The campsite is basically the lawn outside a hotel, which luckily comes under the remit of the hotel's wi-fi coverage. Essentially, I'm sitting in my tent writing this.

Today we journeyed (by horse and carriage) to the Karnak Temple Complex, a huge site of ancient temples which tower into the sky. It's impressive how large these were built given the comparably less advanced technology the ancient Egyptians would have had! After exploring the temple complex for some time, we walked to and then around the Luxor temple and then walked into the market. It's quite amusing here that many of the local sellers put on Scottish accents. The usual exchange goes something like the following:
Seller - 'Australian?'
Me - 'No'
Seller - 'American?'
Me - 'No'
Seller - 'Scottish?'
Me - 'No, Venezualan'
I've also developed a habit of greeting all the kids we pass when cycling in Swahili. I think once I reach Kenya I'll switch to greeting people in Arabic.

This afternoon I was using my degree in Computer Science to help fix people's computing woes. One of other rider's brand new Asus Eee isn't recognising it's hard disk anymore. Having tried several electrical screwdrivers over the last few days to try and open it, it appears that it was tightened by a robot with superhuman strength! So that she had a useful computer again, I downloaded Ubuntu Netbook Remix, sideloaded it onto a bootable SD card and the little netbook was good to go!

Other than that, this afternoon was more of routine chores, cleaning my bike and collecting laundry. To my relief, all my socks matched up (several other riders lost items of clothing on the chaotic washing lines outside). One point of confusion is that my cycling chamois (the padded cycling shorts) are exactly the same type, size and brand as another rider's shorts. Something to look out for!

Tomorrow we head south towards Sudan, and in a couple of days we'll be on a pretty epic ferry (30 hours!) which is the only official route for tourists to take into the country. Connectivity is likely to be difficult, so until next time, kwaheri! (Or, to be correct- ma'as salaama!)

The last update was written in a bit of a rush from an internet cafe in Safaga. I was running out of Egyptian currency and so my internet time was limited! I spent the afternoon cleaning my bike (not terribly effective but it's less sandy now) and looking for a money exchange. Walking into town, I passed several convenience stores. Since the trip has started, we've been eating a lot (and burning a lot) - whenever I see food now I think it must be eaten! As I walked towards the Bank of Alexandria, I bought and ate some biscuits, something similar to a slice of sponge cake and Fanta in some strange purple colour.

The town itself was quite a sleepy tourist town - there are a few resorts and hotels scattered about and most of the shops seem to be around on the back of those visitors. At 3pm on Monday though, there were few customers and many of the shops were in fact actually shut. The bank was shut but I managed to withdraw some money from the ATM which I promptly used to purchase biscuits (something similar to custard creams but round in shape). On the way back I passed a hairdresser's shop and with my electric razor being a poor excuse for a grooming device, decided to get my face shaved. The hairdresser's English wasn't that great, when I asked him how much, he replied 'It's okay, it's okay!' quite enthusiastically. I just nodded and pointed to my growing beard. After what seemed like an age of spreading shaving foam on my face, he put a new blade in his razor and started work. This was the first shave I've ever had with a loose blade and it was surprisingly decent. After he finished, I was a bit alarmed to see him attempt to cut my hair. I shook my head (while the scissors were held away, or it could have been painful!) and he got the idea, although he still insisted on using hairspray and combing my hair. Hairspray combined with a bicycle helmet results in an interesting hairstyle!

That night on the beach seemed like it might just be the quiet night we were all hoping for. In actual fact, the three dogs that seemed to live in that enclosure were at war with each other (seemingly) and several times during the night they were barking and making various noises of aggression towards each other! The morning came soon enough and we began the 138km fifth stage to yet another desert camp.

The Egyptian riders had forewarned us that the first 40 kilometres were all climbing, and it was with this in mind that we tried to form a group of riders. Trying to maintain a speed of 20kmph with a side/headwind on the ascent was just about manageable and we soon reached the lunch truck at about 10:30am! The remainder, a solid 75 km, was much less hilly but just as strong wind. Our group of riders absorbed several smaller groups and at its largest consisted of sixteen riders! At first we were a disorganised mass of bicycles and people, but Jen, a fairly loud (she admits this herself) Canadian lady, soon organised the group into a more orderly two column peloton*. It was a tough day all-in-all but we pedalled on and reached the desert camp at 2:30pm, giving us plenty of time to unpack, drink soup (a mixture of broccoli, potatos and other vegetables - great) and chill out.

Riders are starting to feel the pain of five hard days of cycling now (myself included) and knees are one of the most common disturbances so far. This happens because people aren't used to spinning (using a low gear and pedalling fast) and prefer to mash (using a high gear and pedalling less often). This is a cycling trait of mine as well, coming from a mountain biking background where there is less constant pedalling and more high intensity bursts, so I've been trying actively to spin more.

Camp life is starting to get quite fun - an enterprising local turned up today with a cooler full of beer which he sold to us at quite a hefty price. Since I don't drink beer, I tried my luck and asked if he had any soft drinks. The answer - 'no!'. We usually have a rider meeting just before dinner where they explain our route for the next day and discuss the next few days of the tour. Today the truck crew had an auction (the currency: cans of beer) of all the items that had been left lying around the truck. Luckily none of my items showed up - trying to fit my bags in the locker may have pushed the door off its hinges...

It's sometime after dinner now, which really just means bedtime. There are flies buzzing around my tent - I figure these are relatively tame compared to the nasty insects that will invade later in the trip. For some reason the Tour D'Afrique trucks were playing Celine Dion's 'My Heart Will Go On' (or whatever that song from Titanic was called). This probably makes sense given that Canadians represent the largest proportion of riders here.

*I realise that I keep using the word peloton and non-cyclists are probably wondering what on Earth they are. It's literally a group of cyclists, taking various formations, where each cyclist is fairly close to those in front and behind. This is more efficient than cycling solo since there are aerodynamic gains to be made - whilst the cyclist at the front works harder, all those who are drafting (i.e. riding behind) tend to save energy because of lower air resistance. The cyclist at the front usually rotates so that riders save energy most of the time.

Just empty.
(View in high res)

The fourth stage was pretty straightforward (I wouldn't go so far as calling it easy, but relative to the horror of the second stage, then sure - easy). A brisk before lunch run to the lunch truck followed by a brisk after lunch run to the campsite saw us reaching Safaga, a town near the coast of the Red Sea.

This campsite is luxurious compared to our previous three nights - Tour D'Afrique has booked out three hotel rooms for us to shower in and there are GENUINE toilets! We're camping on the beach pretty much, adjacent to a hotel. There's a bar just next to the 'campsite', most of the other riders are busy getting beers.

There's really not much to say about the day's riding so far, so I'll leave off now until we arrive in Luxor in three days time - an 'official' rest day (also my birthday).

Yesterday's entry was cut short by a lack of energy. The ride today was much easier - shorter (all in all, 147km) and much less effort (a tailwind instead of a headwind!). I cycled the first 20 kilometres solo, having been dropped by the faster Australian riders within a kilometre. As we reached a police checkpoint however, the ride came to a halt. The heavy rain of last night had apparently caused the roads to become flooded and the police didn't want us riding down the road. After nearly half an hour of waiting around, we were given the all clear to proceed, ahead of about a hundred waiting trucks. As we spun along the road, the wind helping us along, there was no surface water to be seen. Supposedly the Egyptian police were being overcautious - either that or the sun is incredibly efficient at evaporation in these parts, especially at 8am!

I rode with Alison up until lunch, one of the staff who was on her day off and had chosen to ride for the day. After lunch (more pitta bread) I managed to join a group of riders - a mixture of North Americans mainly. It's amazing how much easier it is to keep up a certain pace when you're riding with other people. On my own, I'd struggle to motivate myself.

You can usually tell something is amiss when you roll into any place and all the riders who were in front of you are just sitting, waiting (as happened in the morning at the police checkpoint). As we reached the finish flag, we were greeted by this sight of riders just sitting, waiting. Supposedly the campsite was actually a further 8km (but actually 10km) down the road due to, wait for it, flooding at the original choice! This alternative campsite is very windy and right next to a police checkpoint. While we can hear the rush of trucks going past, the tent is also flapping all over the place. Luckily there is substantial debris on the ground around the campsite, so it's possible to ground the tent. Putting it up was an interesting experience, if I was any lighter, I'd have been literally blown away. As each pole went into the tent, it became more and more like a sail.

Camp life is interesting, since we wake up quite early daily (most people are awake sometime after 5am) and because we have been riding quite hard, bedtime is usually soon after it gets dark (and/or dinner has been eaten). We've been at 'desert' camps for the last few days now, which don't really have any facilities. Going to the toilet is a substantial effort involving a shovel and a lighter. Tomorrow evening we're passing through a town called Safaga, and we'll be at a genuine campsite with showers (and hopefully, toilets). Dinner at the campsite is usually a generous serving of carbs with some kind of vegetables. It's not the tastiest food in the world though, and I think I'll soon have to burst open the various packets of chilli powder that my mother has equipped me with. Tour D'Afrique has also given us enough energy bars for 2 per day - one of the riders today noticed that these bars all expired in June 2009. I'm not quite sure what to make of that.