Stage 1 - From Cairo to Khartoum
 

An epic ride deserves a memorable start. The Tour d'Afrique doesn't disappoint. The riders were taken in convoy to a high desert plateau with a view of the Pyramids of Giza that the tourist doesn't get to see. After coffee and cakes, and endless photos, the moment arrived. 44 cyclists, nervous in anticipation, turned the pedals and began the ultimate journey. I was privileged to be among them.

Barely a mile gone, and there was a crash! We all came down to earth, metaphorically speaking, but the Egyptian guest rider who hit the floor had the rudest awakening. His tour was over as he was taken to hospital. The rest of us stood and waited, a little dazed, next the the Sphinx, almost oblivious of this magnificent monument, treating it like it was just any old piece of stone.

Four days of bare sandy desert roads followed, punctuated by wild camping with no running water. It's amazing how little cleaning materials we actually need. In any case, I am informed that a good bodily smell keeps the mosquitoes away....
 

On day 2, we gathered a police escort. The pair in the car designated to shepherd a group of us women riders for mile after endless mile must have drawn the short straw. The pace was a mundane 15 mph, and when I dropped back to take a photo, I noticed that the officer in the passenger seat had fallen asleep. The driver put some Egytpian music on at full blast through the loud speaker, to entertain himself, and give us all a headache!

In time we were joined by a fire engine and an ambulance....

The emergency services personal service continued throughout Egypt. Night shift for the probationer consisted of sitting out in the cold, keeping a watch over 44 precious bikes. Add to this, closing roads, admonishing over-eager truck drivers, and policing busy junctions, and it all adds up to a quality service. And not a performance indicator in sight....

I am now in Luxor, and for those concerned about the state of my hygiene, I can report I am showered and clean! My hair no longer resembles a straw mat, and all is well.

A felucca is a sailing boat. Sailing boats require wind. I and a few of the group decided to take a felucca ride on the Nile on the calmest day of the year. Not a breath of a breeze anywhere. A current in the river took us some 100 meters to the centre of the Nile, where we stopped. The sun began sinking over the Valley of the Kings, and the Egyptian boat owner, Sahed, began to turn the sail, more in hope than expectation. The sky turned golden, red, orange, but the felucca did not move. Sahed apologetically served us tea in his best china cups, as we pointed to the shore, but there was no movement towards it. A mild panic set in as it turned colder and darkness fell. Sahed hunted out an oar, and found only the wooden gang plank used to board the boat. He proceeded to row us ashore, often round in circles, with us taking turns at the steering. A crowd gathered on the shore line to witness the spectacle. We weren't sure whether we should pay him, or he us for the 'dream felucca ride up the Nile

We recovered with a beer or two.

Cycling along the riverside brought us to Aswan. From here, I would leave Egypt in style - on a ferry, departing from beneath the huge wall of the Aswan High Dam - across Lake Nasser to the Sudan.

Nasser is the second largest man-made lake in the world. It was created in 1971 when the internationally-built High Dam was completed. The dam itself is the only modern day Egyptian monument to rival its ancient treasures. But the size of it outshines even the Pyramids, with 40 million stones being used to create the dam compared to just 2.3 million to build Cheops Great Pyramid. It is the third largest dam in the world, and the Tour d'Afrique had a privileged police escort to cross it.

And so to the ferry. In typical African fashion, a straightforward 16 hour crossing was turned into a 28 hour marathon, with hundreds of passengers squeezing onto the tiny boat, carrying every type of goods, from food, fruit, vegetables, dates, drinks, fridges (very popular), televisions (flat screens are in), sofa beds, wicker chairs, bed ends, ovens, lampshades, huge bags and suitcases, bursting at the seams. Oh, and 44 bicycles, riders and all the Tour's paraphernalia for good measure. The boat creaked its way across the Lake.

Why pay to fly from Aswan to see the famous temple of Abu Simbel, when you can sail right past it on a creaking ferry?

A highlight of the morning sunrise was a view of the sun's rays falling perfectly on the huge statues of Pharaoh Ramses II and his family. When Lake Nasser was created, a mammoth effort was made to move this treasure above the water level - an incredible feat of engineering in itself.

At Sudanese immigration, a young official became far too excited at the presence of a female English police officer, and insisted on retaining my passport, "just to check."

"To check what?" I inquired.

"Just to check."

The tour leader came to the rescue, demanding the return of my passport, and the official sheepishly handed it over

From now on, I think I will be a teacher for official purposes. Much less controversial....

Despite its much publicised troubles, Sudan offers the most friendly of welcomes. Mile after mile of cycling through enchanting desert solitude in the Nubian and Sahara deserts, was interspersed with smiles, waves, and offers of chai and delicious local ginger coffee.

The cycling was hard. Temperatures touched 40 degrees, and the "roads" were often no more than rutted sandy tracks. On the second day, with yellow sand on every horizon, I saw a mirage. A narrow strip of green fertile land, and blue gleaming water. Was I dreaming? No, it was the Nile. The world's greatest river bisecting one of the world's greatest deserts, bringing life to an otherwise barren world.

I am writing in Kahartoum, Sudan's capital city and home to a fifth of its population. Riders are falling like flies, with stomach upsets, chest infections, colds, sprains, heat exhaustion and dehydration. So far, I remain fit and well. There is a theory that the illnesses only began when the group stopped drinking beer - (Sudan being a totally dry country). So roll on Ethiopia....!

In section one of the tour, I rode every inch of the way - a total of 1,239 miles. And no punctures....