Some memorable experiences

• I absolutely love camels! I don’t think they are the smartest – but they are real cute. We were flying along last week and came cruising at low altitude over a bridge. As we crested, I noticed Tom’s helmet ahead and was still wondering why he should be stopping on the bridge when I came face-to-face with a good hundred camels approaching the bridge …!! We pulled over and really enjoyed the “herd” pass by.

• The stars, moon, full moon, sunsets, sun rises are all absolutely marvelous out here in the desert.
  
• Time alone on the road – away from all my friends and partners on the tour – in piece and quite, heat and sand … peaceful and quite splendid.
  
• The Yoghurt Truck … we had just settled down to dinner in one of our desert camps shortly after Wadi Half and in the middle of absolutely nowhere. A dairy company truck came by from seemingly nowhere and stopped to give us three free yoghurts (gee, thanks … how are we going to split this amongst forty people) … we obviously jumped at the chance and bought cold, fresh yoghurts and sweet milk … YEEHA!! By Khartoum we had passed the same truck another four times and were buying milk whenever we could flag him down.
  
• The change from the Nubian Desert (east of the Nile – more grey, rocky and harsher) to the Sahara (West of the Nile – Light brown/beige sand, less rocky, intermittent trees/shrubs and more camels).
  
• My self inflicted Rest Day … I took on a twelve hour penalty and decided to leave early (before the official 08h00 Race Start). I was feeling tired and sore and just wanted to chill-out and enjoy the day. I left at about seven-forty and cruised along alone while the sun was rising slowly. I passed some other strollers and was soon passed – at immense high speeds – by the lead bunch. I joined Sarah and Alice and we were soon joined by Andrew and Marcus. After a fun lunch stop with food, music and dancing (led by the dancing girls Elaine and Rachel) – our little group had grown, and included Baby Sean, Dave, Darrel and George. Along the way we lost and gained some people and eventually I crawled over the finish line as the last person … but thoroughly happy after our experience at the well.
  
• Our experience at the Well! Our little stroller group was feeding thru the desert and we spotted some animals and people at a well a hundred meters to the right, off the road … so we went to investigate. There were several locals filling buckets and various vessels with water. The well was a good thirty meters deep and they were using their donkeys to pull up the buckets … they would attach the rope to the donkeys and they would then walk the donkeys away from the well. Some camels were floating around – but as usual they were very shy. The locals were initially very quiet and introverted. The mood changed quickly when George took the rope from one of the donkeys and pulled up a bucket – also by walking away and pulling the rope over his shoulder. In the end the locals were having so much fun selecting us at random to pull up buckets. They provided the camels with water which got them real close, Sarah got to ride a camel and we all got together for photographs. All in all we were laughing and having a lot of fun … and there was one little donkey which always got into a neighing fit each time we were laughing about something …
  
• One can walk down the road in Khartoum without constantly being accosted and irritated by money hungry twots.