It has only been two weeks, but already it feels like the lifestyle of the tour is my way of life. There are a few things i’ve learnt so far.
1. I really should have invested in a better tent.. my parent’s 30 year old tent is a classic and has so much style, but modern tents have had many improvements. Most prominently is the lack of cords with pegs – modern campers are not accustomed to these and have a habit of tripping over them in the middle of the night. This results in my rude awakening as the tent crumples on top of me. Then again, I will never accidentally wander into another riders tent, and I would not trade mine for the world.
2. Habituation does not apply to the 5am call to prayer. All mosques here have lound speakers on their roofs so that the entire surrounding area hears the pre-sunrise prayers (which come as singing). Moreover, no matter where you are in the desert, you are always within 100m of a mosque. The call to prayer comes about half an hour before we typically wake up and it is often beautiful and in tune. This is not always the case – last night my tent was within 10m of the closest mosque and blasting! In most of the villages we camp, there are four or five mosques… some of these coordinate with one another, so we get a series of four or five calls. In other villages they are in direct competition and we get a cacophonyof rythm and sound.
3. Sudanese pita bread is far superior to Egyption pita. It is like comparing a light rye bread to a french bagette – the Egyption pita is healthy whole grain, but the Sudanese pita is white, fluffy and melts in your mouth.. mmmmmmmm.
4. No matter what way you look at it, being told you can’t play because you’re a girl hurts. I still need to digest this one a little bit, maybe i’ll talk more on a later blog.
