TdA Stage 20. Pleasure and Pain.

85km. Dinder Bush Camp to Doka Bush Camp.

Wow. (Except for the pain) Today was awesome. One of my favourites so far for terrain and scenery. The arms held up better than I'd expected, though my impaired motor control resulted in a little crash that left me with some gravel rash along my right side (lucky Carrie got to pull rocks out of my, uh, back side).

One of the first towns that we went through was a mining town. Old school mining with random hand dug holes in the ground. I felt as though I was transported to another century!

A bunch of us missed a turn in the morning and got some 'bonus mileage'. I think that a few people were annoyed by this, but I thought it was awesome. It's more of an adventure when there is some uncertainty (though I reserve the right to change my attitude on this as my four month adventure continues).

Our detour took us through a cool little village. Rustic. With huts and donkeys and narrow dirt roads. The sort of place in which you might expect to run in to Bilbo Baggins. We are getting in to National Geographic style Africa!

Carrie and I finished together today feeling fabulous. We might have been the only two, as there were some long faces - getting heat stroke, getting lost, getting rattled. Sometimes I wonder how much thought some of the people here put into this trip and what challenges they would face. Yeah, my arms hurt like hell and I've had some small pains along the way, but I feel like there are much harder things to come. We have been so lucky with how smoothly this first fifth of the trip has gone.

Hopefully me and my bike are up for what is to come. Certainly, the bike has held up well so far(thank you Craig, Pat, Shawn, Erik and Bow Cycle). Considering how much rattling my bike has been through in the past few days, I'm shocked that nothing seems to have come loose. I hope that I haven't missed anything...

We are back on the pavement tomorrow. I'm hoping that means that the feeling will return to my fingertips and the intense pain in my forearms will subside. I can't wait to feel my legs burn again!

We also cross into Ethiopia tomorrow afternoon. I'm excited to see this country for the first time. At the same time, I'm sad to leave Sudan; I've really enjoyed it here.
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network