This journal covers my biketouring trip in Sudan and has a long preface. Something happened that set me back in several ways. In the end I actually ended up with a double setback. You fall so you can learn how to get back up. That’s been my mantra to boost my spirits the last couple of months. It was a demanding rebound but I’m back and I got a whole new twist to my biketouring route. I guess you can’t wait to get some answers to all these cliffhangers. Time has flown away so you are about to get a two month concentrated update.
Recap of week 91 to 100Week 91, 92, 93, 94: Disaster struck on my last day in Saudi Arabia on my way to the ferry terminal. A car clipped my panniers and resulted in me taking a big crash. Instead of getting on with my touring, I spent two weeks recovering in Hurghada and Aswan in Egypt. Once I was fit for a bit of walking, I visited Luxor and the Valley of Kings. I returned back to Aswan to gear up and get ready for Sudan. All in all I spent some three weeks in Egypt in total doing everything else than what I expected to do.
Week 95, 96, 97: Sudan was a hot experience but also so much more than that. I got two weeks of slow biketouring done before I got trapped by the fighting in Merowe and had to stay put for three days until I could make a somewhat safe escape.
Week 98: Back in Egypt I took a breather in Aswan before bussing all the way back to Hurghada. I had decided to backtrack to Dubai to be able to receive a second batch of bike parts (I had a package of bike parts sent to Khartoum in Sudan I couldn’t get to) and there were no affordable nor direct flights to Dubai from Hurghada. So I was going to take the ferry back to Saudi Arabia. Due to Ramadan I was stuck in Hurghada for four days before the ferry departed.
Week 99, 100: I managed to hitch a ride to Al Ula and took a resting day before bracing myself for two long marathon bus rides getting me to Dubai. I spent two weeks waiting for the bike parts in Dubai. Now the bike is fitted with all the replacement parts and I am ready to go back to Central Asia where I was supposed to be before I got sidetracked by the closed borders of Azerbaijan.
My worst nightmare striking as lightning from a clear skyIt all started when I was about to leave Saudi Arabia heading for the ferry to sail me across to Egypt. The ferry terminal is some 25 km north of Duba and I had to follow a coastal road. It was a double-laned road but with no shoulder. This was one of the few times in Saudi without my safe place on the road. But I didn’t think much of it as the traffic was not overly busy and they did have two lanes to fit their cars. Plenty of space. Still I had this feeling that I should bike off the road as cars came way too close. I was riding in the gravel with only my panniers aligning with the outer road marking. Apparently this was not far enough off the road. A bus passed me and was not giving an inch of space and was practically almost on the outer marking. And when the buses or trucks don’t give way to someone on the side of the road, the car behind has no clue what is ahead since their view is all blocked. You can guess what happened next.
A couple of seconds after the bus passed me I felt a very sudden push and then it all went black. My panniers got clipped by a fast moving pickup truck and I took a big crash. It all happened so fast. I didn’t have much time to register the fall. Next thing I’m on the ground in a world of pain. As some very worried Saudis came rushing towards me I tried to move my arms and legs. They sort of moved so that was good news I said to myself. I managed to sit up after a minute or so and take account of the whole situation. Two panniers have been slung 20 meters up the road. My solar panel had been ripped apart and I got some serious skin scrapes which I could see through my thorn shirt and shorts. All in all my general conclusion of the whole situation was that my life sucked big time. The Indian man in the car that hit me did have time to react. I have no idea where his attention was. I just remember I wanted to yell and scream at him for making me hurt and sabotaging my entire biketour. At that time I thought my bike was beyond repair. No words came out. It was like I lost all purpose and meaning of life in an instant. I had lost my direction and motivation. I was just sitting there staring into the air. By that time I was surrounded by some friendly Saudis who rinsed my skin scrapes with water and suggested I go to a hospital. A hospital seemed like a good place to be indeed instead of the dirty gravel.
I got rushed to the intensive care at the hospital and got various scans to make sure I had no internal bleeding, no fractures and no head trauma. Various doctors came to check up on me and in the end they all agreed that my injuries were limited to some serious skin scrapes, a sprained foot and some very messed up elbows. But I was clear to leave if I so wished myself.
To the defense of the culprit of all of my misery, he did own up. He didn’t flee the scene but rather drove me to the hospital and stayed for the three hours I was there and in the end he also paid the hospital bill and drove me to the ferry terminal so I could get on the ferry to Egypt. At our goodbye he had the most remorseful look on his face and I believed it. I told him I was not ready to forgive him at that time. I was simply in too much pain and grief over what I assumed was an end to my biketouring trip. But one day he would be forgiven and that day has already come and passed. The day of forgiveness actually came only a few days later. No reason for me to hold a grudge when I needed to move onwards.
Some much needed TLC and recovery time in EgyptI left the hospital and got to the ferry terminal. All of the hotels in Duba was fully booked. I learned that the previous day when I spent hours looking for a room. So the only thing on my mind was getting to some tourist infrastructure in Egypt where I could get an affordable room to give myself some tender love and care (TLC) while recovering.
On the ferry I tucked into my sleeping bag. It was a rough night with not much sleep. The 24/7 prayer channel on max volume didn’t help either. My sprained foot and elbows were swelling up pretty bad and as I got up the next morning I could hardly carry my bags and walking was nearly impossible. Somehow, with a bit of help, I managed to navigate myself out of the ferry and through customs in Egypt with ease. Perhaps it helps looking like I have been run over by a bulldozer. At the ferry terminal in Duba I had used my last mobile data to arrange for a taxi in Egypt which could take me and the bike to the nearest hostel.
Nearest hostel was in Hurghada and it was like falling back in slow motion into puffy white clouds when I finally hit the bed. Next week was all recovery both physically and mentally. I quickly began to assess the damages and work on repairs one by one. As I was ticking items off the list my mood was improving dramatically and I decided this was not going to be the end of this trip. I fixed my panniers Egyptian style (they have an ability to give second life to impossible damages), got a tailor to repair my shorts (my favorite pair of baggy MTB shorts is a crucial part of my bike apparel) and my bike got some quick fixes (only the left pedal was replaced and a cracked fender was mounted in place with some glue and straps).
Biking in Egypt is difficult at best and from others I’ve heard that the most likely outcome is that they will put you and your bike in a car. Also I was not fully done with recovery time. After a week in Hurghada I was ready to explore another town and took a night bus to Aswan and there I also quickly got my Sudanese visa which was almost too easy after all my failed attempts on the Arabian Peninsula. Chilling out in Aswan was a good time. Sitting and watching the sun setting over the Nile is nothing short of magical. While I was in the neighborhood I took some days to visit the ancient tombs in the Valley of Kings in Luxor before I returned to Aswan to gear up for Sudan.
Gearing up for another round of desert heat in SudanYeah, as you can read, it was a long wait before I got the wheels turning south towards Sudan. A long prologue indeed but I needed time to also mentally reconcile with the fact of cycling on busy roads again. It was frustrating at first spending time doing non-touring stuff considering it was forced upon me. That feeling quickly faded away though and my three weeks in Egypt was alright. I actually enjoyed my time as a foot tourist but it felt so much better when I mounted my bike and started pedaling. Next stop was Abu Simbel, the Egyptian border town.
My time of joy didn’t last long. Egypt has a lot of military and police checkpoints along the way. At the first checkpoint I managed to convince them to let me cycle. At the second checkpoint I had to argue hard and the compromise was a police escort following me. Third time was not a charm at all. After a heated debate at the checkpoint they put my bike on a passing truck. My three days of desert riding to Abu Simbel from Aswan was reduced to me pouting on the backseat of a police car following the truck ahead of us carrying my bike. The police refused to let me go before I had gotten a hotel room in Abu Simbel. And next morning they were outside my door at 6 AM making sure I didn’t try to make an escape. I’m sure the police do this with all the best intentions but it doesn’t change the fact that cycling in Egypt is a hassle.
To get to the border between Egypt and Sudan you are most likely to take the border crossing on the east side of the Nile for the simple reason that there is nothing on the west side for a long long time. Getting to the border means you have to cross Lake Nasser. The ferry departs Abu Simbel just next to the entrance to the well visited temple of Abu Simbel. Of course there are no schedules for the ferry. So you just show up and apparently the police officer escorting me to the ferry had more important things to do than waiting for a ferry that you don’t know when will show up. The ferry showed up after one and a half hours.
Once on the other side of Lake Nasser and the Nile, I was completely alone in a golden desert again. Pristine stuff. I had a few kilometers to bike before I was at the border. Before I got to the border a long line of trucks were parked on the side of the road. It looked like they had been there for days. The queue of trucks was over 5 kilometers long. And the ferry crossing Lake Nasser could only carry a few at a time which means it would have taken days to accumulate such a long queue. I felt kinda sorry for the truck drivers waiting it out in this barren and hot land for days on end. It was also a very bad omen of what to come. Chaos must be waiting for me at the border, I tought.
I braced myself for the worst as I cycled up to a closed gate to what looked like the entrance to the border crossing. There were many Egyptian border patrol officers but none with the proper authority to open the gate. That’s a thing here. They get assigned to one task and one task only and under no circumstances are they allowed to encroach on a task that belongs to someone else. So I waited 45 minutes for the gate guy to show up only to get told I had to visit two different offices to get two different papers before I was allowed in. No idea what those papers were and I also refused to pay for them unless they could tell me what they were for. Eventually they gave up and handed me the papers so I could pass. Once inside I had to sign a ledger of some sort after they copied in my passport details by hand, then I went to another office to get the exit stamp and then over to the Sudanese side of the border. It was like these guys were copying each other because I got met by another closed gate. My patience was wearing thin so I tried a different approach because standing and waiting for hours in the blazing scorching hot sun with limited water supplies is not a good strategy. First I tried sneaking in through a gate that was kept unlocked. Bad idea. Immediately I got told to turn around. Then I tried sticking my arm through the gate, flashing my passport and yelling really loud that I couldn’t wait to visit the wonderful country of Sudan. Perhaps my flattery worked because a Sudanese border patrol officer came straight away and walked me fairly quickly through the process of getting my passport stamped in one office and paying entrance fee in another. After this they didn’t care much about checking my panniers at the customs so I quickly rolled my bike through and was officially in Sudan.
My first days in Sudan and the feeling of being in a whole new worldI reached Wadi Halfa the same day as I crossed the border into Sudan. It is nestled beautifully next to the Nile river and it has everything a bustling border town should have. Very cheap dorm style hotels and a myriad of different nationalities heading one way or the other. On dusty sideroads you will find electronic stores setting you up with a SIM card and in a tucked away backyard you will find a hectic bus station. For some this has no charm at all but I like it. It’s a melting pot. It’s energetic and full of life. People heading in different directions traveling to new or familiar places. Border cities have a sort of travel vibe to them and I guess that is what I find intriguing which in turn makes me like staying for a day or two just hanging out and soaking up the atmosphere. Wadi Halfa was no exception.
I took to the roads after spending a couple of days in Wadi Halfa. Ahead of me were two days in an empty landscape until I reached Abri. One thing I realized quickly is that the weather is hot in Sudan. Like really hot. This was April and mid day temperatures were getting to 40 degrees. I made sure to top up my hydration level and strap some big water bottles to my front and rear rack before I started cycling.
The Sahara desert reaches into Sudan. It’s not as sandy and golden as some places in Saudi Arabia. There is more blackish rock here and not so much sand. Just a couple of hours outside of Wadi Halfa and the landscape looked like something from the Moon or Mars. Difficult to explain. Lifeless, arid, barren and mercilessly beautiful. I don’t think much rain falls here at all. During my first day I passed so many dead cattles lying next to the road. I must have seen over a hundred dried up carcassases all hollowed out with only the dried skin hanging from the still intact skeleton structure. It was a stark reminder of how brutal nature is in this area.
I don’t think it was only the dead cattles or the fact I was cycling in the Saharan desert that made this place feel so different. It was the people I had met so far. They dress and behave differently and they are more dark skinned compared to the other countries I have cycled. It was also the mud brick houses and women carrying bundles of firewood sticks to cook their evening meals. All these different pieces came together to give me a feeling that I had entered a whole new continent and that I was now cycling in Africa for real. It was like I had entered a whole new part of the world.
The cafeterias of SudanEach country has its own peculiar thing. A thing that’s unique. Something so special that time will never manage to erase it from the image in your memory that sums up the country you once visited. For me, Sudan’s thing was their roadside cafeterias. They are a good source of shade and water and food. The Sudanese version of a highway reststop and a crucial piece of biketouring logistics. I don’t know what I would have done without these thin cladded ram shackle structures that would pop up when you most needed it. Don’t let their looks deceive you. They are a paradise oasis filled with wonderful and kind people.
On my way to Abri the cafeterias were more or less what you see of civilization. From gathered intel I knew there were a couple of cafeterias midway to Abri. My days started very early. At break of dawn I was on my bike to make the most out of the day before the heat of the day would peak. This also means my day on the bike was done at noon and this was the exact time when I reached my first ever Sudanese cafeteria halfway between Wadi Halfa and Abri.
Yeah, I was kind of skeptical at first. The cafeteria was just a collection of random thin slabs held together by scrap wood. A simple bed frame with strings of wide rope as a mattress was parked in the doorway. I didn’t get to stand long before a smiling woman waved me in. She quickly introduced herself and said if I couldn’t pronounce or remember her name (she actually spoke some English) I could just call her mama. That just made me feel right at home and it also made me name the place as Cafeteria Mama.
I went straight for the big freezer box. It was filled with sodas swimming in water between blocks of ice. My heart got instantly maxed up with joy. I doesn’t take more than that after cycling in blazing heat for many hours. I gurgled down a few sodas trying to restrain myself from looking too greedy. Then the cafeteria mama offered me food. This was the time of Ramadan and I was hesitant at first to accept food. Eating in public during this holy month was something I was told to avoid. But the son of the family, who was also there to greet me when I rolled my bike into the cafeteria, explained to me that travelers are exempt from fasting so it was all fine for me to eat. Perhaps they saw a hint of doubt on my face and in an act to rid me of it they took me to their kitchen. Inside their kitchen was a big tall slender pot with fava beans that smelled mouth watering good. That cured me of all hesitation and I went straight for a double portion of mama’s special foul recipe served with home baked bread. It tasted so good that I went for a third round.
Once my belly was all good and full they said I could rest on their bed. And so I did. In fact, it was so nice to relax there that all of the sudden the sun was setting. I didn’t even realize how much time had passed. This cafeteria was run by a whole family. I think it also served as their house. It didn’t take them long to invite me to stay for the night so I happily pitched my tent in a corner and spent the evening in great company. As the son spoke English well, he was the translator for the evening. Sudanese are very chatty and curious and I didn’t get to ask many questions myself as they all wanted to know about Denmark, my family, why I was not married and if there were polar bears where I lived. It was a wonderful night at the cafeteria and only the first of many to come. I made it a quest to visit as many cafeterias as I could along my way.
Meeting the modern day gold diggersThe road south followed the Nile river. I expected to see the river all the way but that was not the case. Either I was too far away or a green wall of vegetation was blocking my views. For obvious reasons people have settled along the river which is an important source of life. Abri was one of these bustling settlements that had clearly evolved due to its location just next to the Nile. Getting into these towns was a highlight. I spent the night in Abri just to wander around their dusty streets. Finding wild camping spots was not so important when I could hang around these centers of buzzing life.
As I continued my journey south I would go off the main road to zigzag the gravel roads of the mudbrick villages that took up the space between the larger towns and cities.The roads were flat and the scenery the same. Days were on repeat. That didn’t bother me at all. I can do the same thing over and over for a long time as long as there is quality to the monotonous repetition. During my days I would go searching for water at every opportunity. There’s not a 7-eleven at each streetcorner so when you see what resembles a cluster of shops you go for it. I was well on my way to Kerma when I spotted some buildings off the road. They were not your typical looking light brown clay and mud brick houses so I was betting on them being shops. I dragged my bike off the road and made my way and approached a narrow strip of road lined up with shops of all kinds on each side. I figured this to be the shopping street of the village nearby. Immediately I got surrounded by curious Sudanese. They did like to examine my stuff with their hands inspecting my water bottles as if they were some sort of alien craftsmanship and some even began to open my panniers to see what’s inside. Of course they mean no harm by this but me being Danish this is very much encroaching on my personal space and something I will never get used to. I was patient and smiling but at a certain time I felt the need to flee inside the closest shop. Very conveniently this shop had exactly what I was looking for - water and snacks. In the same shop I also met Mr. Golddigger. Now, I don’t remember his name so he just goes by Golddigger. He explained to me that he had a shop buying and selling gold and he really wanted me to pay him a visit. I promised to do so just after finishing up hoarding snacks.
“For buying raw gold”. That was the translation Mr. Golddiger had put just beneath the Arabic line of letters. It was printed in golden colored letters on a big billboard sign placed on top of a white tin shack. He stood in the doorway and invited me inside. Apparently the area is rich in gold and the local people here extract raw gold from mud. He showed me how to do it with a big pan of water, some quicksilver trapping the gold and a burner to melt the quicksilver away leaving behind a tiny piece of gold. Yes, ee actually found gold.
Sudan is rich in gold. It is one of the big gold producers in the world. Along the road, from my first days in the country, I had seen locals with metal detectors sweeping the desert floor. When I met these people on the road, I tried asking what they were looking for but never got a solid answer. I jokingly replied and concluded that they were looking for some ancient buried treasure. Mr. Golddigger explained to me that they were searching for gold and that the metal detectors in fact were gold detectors. Yes, you may think that is a big hoax, but try to Google it. You can buy gold detectors. It’s a real thing. In fact, when he was explaining this to me, two young men came into the shop with gold detectors strapped on their back. They were selling their finds of the day. I really love these chance encounters. I go looking for water and get a firsthand introduction to a part of the Sudanese gold industry.
Water clay jars and my much beloved water filterThe chance encounter with Mr. Golddigger was one the more memorable moments in Sudan. I was closing in on Dongola and was just swinging by this city to change money in the bank and get supplies for a two day lonesome road to Karima. International credit cards do not work in ATMs so the only way for you to get cash is to exchange dollars you bring in or transfer money to yourself via WesterUnion. Both options are available in Dongola. I did my practical stuff and got myself a room to get some good rest before heading onwards.
Leaving Dongola also means leaving the Nile river. I was very excited about the next couple of days. For one I was going to enjoy solitude in empty nature. Then I was going to visit the pyramids of Merowe. Sudan has more pyramids than Egypt. At least on paper. They are not as impressive or well-known as the ones in Egypt but you can enjoy them in peace. My plan was to camp next to them and watch the sunset. So I was properly motivated to get up at 5 AM to hit the roads.
Temperatures were now slowly creeping above 40 degrees. I was actually doing quite well as long as I had enough water and didn’t use much energy on the bike. It was slow cycling but at least I was getting somewhere. On my way to Karima, I realized I hadn’t taken enough water with me. I was drinking well above 8 liters a day and my water rations literally evaporated in the sun while I was sweating in a race against the heat. Or actually I never experienced the wetness of sweat. If I was sweating, it dried up so fast I never realized it. But the water needed to go somewhere because I was hardly doing number one. I’ll spare you the details. It is just important to introduce what happens next.
There was only one cafeteria on the way to Karima. When I got there I was all out of water. And I was very thirsty. My lips and mouth had all dried up. I so badly wanted a cold soda and some bottled water. My heart sank to the ground when I realized the cafeteria didn’t sell any soft drinks at all. What they had were water in clay jars. Besides the cafeterias, this is the second unique thing about Sudan. Until now I had gone to great lengths to avoid drinking the water from the jars. The water is murky and since I have no idea where the water is sourced from my best guess is that it is taken directly from the Nile. I was not happy about the situation but I needed water badly and the only way I would do this was to put great faith in my water filter. I filtered water for my cup to drink right away, I filtered water for my bottles and I filtered water for my lentils and soup dinner. I must have emptied almost a full jar (and they are big) and felt a bit bad about not leaving more water behind for all the truck drivers stopping by. But I was in great need and when the need is great your standards for drinking water drops rapidly. Biketouring in Sudan is not really complete before you have taken a sip from a water clay jar.
Cycling straight into a warzone in MeroweThe midway cafeteria was just like any other cafeteria in the way that it’s a magnet to people driving by. There was a constant flow of people coming and leaving and I got stranded there talking to all sorts of people. My phone was not doing too well in the heat so I had to do without Google Translate. When the locals I met at the cafeterias didn’t speak English I was down to my skills at charades in order to communicate the basics level of chit chat which worked surprisingly well. That night I slept in my tent in the backyard of the cafeteria.
Next day I was up bright and early and started my last day before I was going to do some pyramid gazing. I had a bad headwind from the side so I was struggling. All my efforts to filter water into my water bottles came short. The energy used to push against the wind and the heat was immense. Kilometer stones were lined up along the road and I was slowly counting downwards as I got closer and closer to Karima. My mouth felt like it hadn’t tasted a drop of water for years. Two Egyptian truck drivers parked on the side of the road saw my ordeal and offered me a big and cold water bottle. Nectar of heaven I tell you. They also made me chai and let me sit in the shade of their trucks. It was just what I needed to complete the last distance.
With my mind set on all the cold sodas I would drink in Karima, I didn't think much about the cloud that lay on the horizon. It was just weird, I remember thinking. There are no clouds in Sudan. At least not the two weeks I was there. When the cloud shrunk in size and turned into a black color, I didn’t think much about that either. I guessed it was just a field of crops burning. A bad guess as I was far away from any water source which would make cultivating any farmland close to impossible.
The kilometer stone was down to 2 km, I had the rooftops of the town in sight and I was very pleased with myself for coping with the immense heat. My confidence was at a high level. I was sure I was going to make it through this country. The heat was not going to beat me. As I cycled through Karima I saw a lot of heavily armored military vehicles. After being in Egypt you get used to seeing such things. But this time there was something different. The soldiers were running towards their vehicles, jumping on and racing out of the city at high speeds. My naive mindset guessed they were late for something and needed to rush. On my way into the town, I had already decided to take a day of recovery in a room before finding a camping spot next to the pyramids. So I settled in a guesthouse and connected my phone to the WiFi. All of the sudden my WhatsApp got flooded with messages. That same day early in the morning, a war had broken out between the Sudanese Military and a paramilitary group called The Rapid Forces. The fighting was concentrated in Khartoum and also in Merowe which was only 5 km from Karima where I was staying.
For three days I was hiding in my guesthouse listening to the sound of gunfire and explosions. I spent the days communicating with my embassy and trying to get information about the routes I could take to get out of the country.
My escape to Egypt and the big backtrackKarima was strangely normal when you think about the fighting happening just next door. Many people lost their lives in the Merowe battles. But in Karima the locals were still headed downtown to shop groceries at the market. At night we were sitting outside on the street and eating dinner. I would ask the locals about the situation up north. I had quickly ruled out all other exit strategies. Karthoum’s airport was shut down due to heavy fighting. Port Sudan and the ferry to Saudi Arabia was a question mark. A few clashes between the two military forces were reported and even if the ferry was sailing I would have to cross areas with fighting. So that was also off the table. Going south to Ethiopia was a no go for the same reasons as Port Sudan as I would need to go via Atbarra and Kassala in a big circle around Khartoum passing areas with reported fighting. My only and best option was going back where I came from and crossing into Egypt. Every night at dinner time I asked about the cities up north (Dongola, Abri, Wadi Halfa) and the locals would call their friends and relatives. The roads and towns were safe for now they said. My only issue was that they kept telling me the border to Egypt was closed.
It gave me a sickening feeling to the stomach hearing that the border to Egypt was closed. This meant I was trapped. The sound of gunfire didn’t bother me too much. But that feeling of being trapped in a country on a path to a civil war was the absolute worst. During my three days at the guesthouse I kept asking my embassy to get news about the border situation with Egypt. On the third day they managed to confirm that the border was in fact open. That was the news I had been waiting for. I asked my host if there was a bus leaving for Dongola next day and he was very optimistic about my prospects. To my luck, the Merowe fighting had come to a stop on the fourth day and there was a bus to Dongola that morning. It was a no brainer. I had to try to escape even though my embassy had told me to stay put. Besides, the embassy had told me they could not help with transport out of the country so I was on my own.
At the market in Karima, I found my bus, strapped my bike to the roof and took my seat. To my great relief, another tourist was going with the same bus and with the same escape plan as me. The feeling of having an escape buddy, to be able to team up and not being alone, was like having a heavy burden lifted from my shoulders. We made it to Dongola without any issues. In Dongola we managed to catch another bus going to Wadi Halfa the same day. There were no soldiers on the road except for two tanks parked outside the bridge leading into Dongola. Towards Wadi Halfa there were no extra military checkpoints either. Life seemed very normal. People were tending to their fields just like they had when I cycled down south two weeks earlier.
In Wadi Halfa we got a bus ticket for the following morning. I was surprised to see that people were not fleeing in hordes. My guess was that people were still trapped in Khartoum and couldn’t escape yet. At the border the next day, there was only one other bus. The Egyptian side of the border was beefed up with a lot of extra security. It took four hours to get our bus through various controls. My panniers got completely emptied and searched two times by two different groups of soldiers. Why they had to do the second search was beyond me. I also went through the normal X-ray. But I didn’t care much. After four hours I had gotten my Egyptian visa sticker in my passport and I was going back to safety.
The border crossing bus ended in Aswan. I don’t know when I decided on my big backtracking plan but by the time I reached Aswan I was sure I was going to continue my biketour one way or the other. First challenge was to reorder all the bikeparts I had sent from Europe to Khartoum. I needed the bike parts to replace wear and tear items and fix the broken stuff from the crash I had in Saudi Arabia. Due to heavy import taxes in Egypt (80% on bike parts) I couldn’t get any parts shipped there. Saudi Arabia could have been an option but I was sure it would be easier to get the parts shipped to the UAE. Amazon had a web platform in the UAE and there were far more flights leaving from Dubai and Abu Dhabi to take me where I wanted to go. It was settled. I had to backtrack all the way to Dubai.
I didn’t count the days it took me to get back to Dubai. I took a night bus to Hurghada from Aswan. No cheap or direct flights were flying between Hurghada and Dubai. So I took the ferry back to Duba in Saudi Arabia. Due to Ramadan I waited four days to get on the ferry. Back in Saudi Arabia I hitched a ride into Duba where a truck driver picked me up and took me to Al Ula. From Al Ula I boarded a night bus taking me to Riydah. And in Riyadh I got another night bus to Dubai. I had to fight hard to get my bike on board the buses in Saudi Arabia. The bus drivers wanted to rip my head off for bringing the bike but somehow in the end I managed to convince them that there was enough space - and there actually was enough space. Back in Dubai I was utterly exhausted. It had been the longest backtracking I have ever done. I had already started ordering items to Dubai while I was in Egypt. I got all the parts during the first days and managed to get the bike to the bike shop very fast. My good luck was depleted because the bike mechanic was the bearer of bad news. The pedal thread in my crank was damaged and couldn’t hold a new pedal. I had to order a whole new crankset and delivery time was almost two weeks. Despite all my efforts to speed up the shipping process I was now stuck in Dubai for the next two weeks.
I got myself an AirBnB in Dubai Marina and spent the days by the pool and preparing my next move. All my overlanding options were gone. I had to fly. And since I was going to fly I figured I might as well go back to where I was supposed to be before I got derailed by the closed borders of Azerbaijan. So I got myself a plane ticket to Baku and was going to take the ferry over to Aktau in Kazakhstan and pick up where I left it last year before deciding to head south through Armenia and Iran.
The whole idea behind this trip was to overland my travels and show the world you could do extensive traveling in an environmentally friendly way. If I wanted to continue I had to fly. It was a dilemma and I still have mixed feelings about it - it was a very difficult decision. Heading back home would count as a defeat and I am not ready to give up yet. So I will ask Mother Earth for forgiveness in the hope that she will one day understand how much it means to me to go to Central Asia and continue there. I will make it up somehow. That’s a promise.
biketouring route saudi arabia
2023-03-16 | itinerary
Biketouring route for Saudi Arabia covering the roads from the Empty Quarter to Riyadh and then further on to Ha’il where I drop down towards Al Ula and finally end up in Duba where there is a ferry connection to Egypt
planning and travel toolkit sudan
2023-04-19 | toolkit
A biketouring guide for Sudan helping you out with practicalities of any trip to this east african country. Based on personal experiences.
Hi, I am Dani Kainoa. Summer of 2021, I set out on a journey to explore the world on a bicycle. Join my world biketour and follow my travel blog for stories, reviews, guides and more. Visit my photo journal on Instagram to keep up with more of my adventures.