2 broken wheels! 27 Nov 11

James and I are currently in the famous Afra shopping mall in
Khartoum, which almost every overlander heading North has told us
about. I must say its quite strange being in a fairly modern mall
after almost 2 weeks of nothing but desert and the odd mud-brick
building! In fact the whole Khartoum experience so far has been
somewhat surreal. From Wadi Halfa all the way to Khartoum we found it
difficult to get anything other then Fuul (tinned fava beans heated up
with a (un)healthy dose of vegetable oil and some lemon juice) and
flatbread to eat. So once we got to the big city we couldn't believe
our eyes when we saw all the burger and pizza restaurants, smoothie
bars, ice-cream parlours etc. Our first pizza was so good...

We are lucky enough to be staying with Simon's (the English cyclist we
met in Aswan) friend Rosa, who is an English teacher here in Khartoum
and so we have been living a sortof ex-pat existance here the last few
days. Only a few hours after arriving on Thursday evening we were
whisked off to the British Embassy for a few beers (Smirnoff Ice
actually as they had run out of beer much to our dissapointment) where
we met a whole host of ex-pats (mostly English teachers) all lounging
around the pool area within this Fort Knox style compound.

Then it was off to a party organised by a U.S Marine in his spacious
flat in another high security villa in some leafy suburb of Khartoum,
where we met more ex-pats from various countries, as well as many
local Sudanese of the upper crust, all of whom couldn't believe we had
cycled from London.

Since then we have been keeping ourselves busy by going to a highly
entertaining Nubian wrestling match, watching a 1953 Spanish film
(with Arabic and English subtitles) at the European Film Festival, as
well as some relaxing at the flat and doing a few chores like washing
our filthy clothes.

Which brings me to the unfortunate point of our 2 broken wheels.
Yesterday James was doing a routine checkup on his bike when he
discovered cracks in his rear wheel rim on the outide (tyre) side
between the spokes. I subsequently checked mine to find I have the
same problem, although not quite as severe. So the question we both
had on our minds was, "Now what?!". The only bike shops in Khartoum
sell cheap chinese bikes with wheels that just would not fit the bill.
So we have decided our best bet to limit down time will be to order
some new rims and spokes from the UK and have them couriered to Addis
Ababa where we will have to build up the new wheels (it can't be that
had can it?) when we arrive there. The obvious problem is we have now
got about 1500km to ride on somewhat dodgy rims, so fingers crossed!

Right our 1 hour internet time is just about up, so I have to end
here. Hopefully tonight we will be able to upload some photographs and
give some details of our trip through in the desert...