Before I lose the overview, also provide a few overview comments on Sudan and how it was different from both Egypt preceding and Ethiopia following:

• We spent a total of thirteen cycling days and two rest days in Sudan.
• Sudan is difficult to get into (at least for westerners) and also don’t have sense of many tourists. That is nice in many ways as locals haven’t quite built up much dependency on tourists (e.g. in Egypt when tourist industry is down, those dependent on it were pretty aggressive on drumming up business). In Ethiopia it seems like they see enough tourists so they will “charge what the market will bear”, whether it is 8 birr for a coke or 40 birr. In contrast it was consistently 2 or 3.
• It felt a bit like we saw three different slices of Sudan:
  • The northern seven days of cycling were deserts with much sand and rock. Houses were square with low mud walls. There wasn’t much agriculture. Many more mosques here and even smallest towns would have a minaret tower and even in some of the desert camps we could hear call to prayer. Dongola in center of this area also was very Muslim and shut down on Friday.
  • Khartoum was the big city. We were in middle of ministry and central business district. Many more passenger cars crowding in and buildings were several stories
  • The Southern parts were more agricultural. Buildings were still mud/adobe but more likely round. There were more people than in north and they did some farming and herding. The three days of off road cycling brought us through these smallest places – very few other tourists here. We saw some mosques but nighttime noises were more likely animals than calls to prayer.
• Overall, Sudanese people were friendly but just a bit reserved. This made it easy to travel and stop. There were also less of them and less aggressive kids than Ethiopia (so far) and Egypt. Overall enjoyed my travels through Sudan and glad to have seen this.

Sudan is an Islamic Republic. Photo below is of the Grand Mosque in middle of city. While walking during midday prayer time, also saw plenty of prayer mats spread out and people taking break in middle of bustle to pray. I also had one occasion where someone called attention to my knees (I’m wearing basic travel shorts). Not sure if they thought it was the crazy foreigner (there aren’t too many tourists) or perhaps the knees myself but I did notice that locals weren’t in shorts.
[See image gallery at bike2013.com]

Yet despite being capital of an Islamic State, I still found the Coptic Church in photo below.
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In our part of town there are many ministries, e.g. Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Justice, etc. I am generally careful in photographing such official buildings, but the complaint department was just a little too good to pass up.
[See image gallery at bike2013.com]

I found the very nice modern Al Waha Mall. It is rather fancy and new looking with shops selling high end goods. However, it is also somewhat empty. Fortunately, in basement was Sena Hypermarket, a surprisingly large grocery and excellent chance to pick up some foods for dinner.
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Just a block or so from Al Waha is the Souk (market) with streets that look more like the photo below
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and shops that look a bit like this
[See image gallery at bike2013.com] ; colorful shop

Above the shops are places some live and you can see the multitude of satellite dishes for catch latest media.
[See image gallery at bike2013.com]

In addition I am struck by how many passenger cars try to crowd these streets and how varied this is from rest of Sudan we’ve traveled where we barely saw buildings over one story tall.

In addition to being a tourist, I started the day off with a walk to the TDA camp. I tuned up my bicycle and shook out as much dirt as I could from my tent. Catalin also did a true on the wheel.
[See image gallery at bike2013.com]

Also now starting to anticipate the road ahead, while reflecting on the past fifteen cycling days and ~1200 miles we’ve ridden:

• TDA has broken this trip into eight “sections” and we just completed the first one. We’ve ridden ~1200 miles.
• The next section, to Addis Adaba is also fifteen riding days and the one after to Nairobi is sixteen riding days. However, while the previous section was rated a “2” in difficulty, both of the upcoming sections are rated “5”.
• I’ve found the riding so far to be fairly straightforward. We’ve been fortunate to have many more tailwinds than headwinds and that has made for not too difficult riding. What has added to the fun was more things like our sand storm and the insect plague and slightly warm temperatures. Will see how this compares with upcoming challenges including heat, off road cycling and some climbing – best to take it one day at a time.
• I haven’t yet seen the next section board, but last year the next eight days entailed: two long days of cycling on good pavement followed by three days of challenging off-road including some ugly roads, crossing into Ethiopia and then three days on pavement but with a lot more climbing. We’re going into remote corners again, so expect fewer updates.
• Otherwise, still having fun