During my time in Khartoum I went to Omdurman, a city just North of Khartoum, where every Friday, just before sunset, there's a dancing ceremony. It is held in the cemetery next to the tomb of Sufi leaders.
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The point of my trip was to travel over land as much as possible. Hitchhiking, (mini)buses, trains, boats. But when I left Belgium I was sure to fly at least one time. I would go from Egypt to Ethiopia by air as to avoid travelling in Sudan, which was said to be very unsafe.
I am recovering just fine but I haven't recovered well enough to finish my cycling trip this time around. So I left my bicycle at Wild Spirit and I'm going to continue my trip some time in the future.
I wish I didn't have to write this but I do: my bicycle trip has come to an abrupt end.. I got hit by a truck in Knysna, on my 22nd cycling day, 57 km in, towards Wilderness.
I got another bicycle. A better one (sorry Humber). One that will hopefully take me all the way to Cape Town!
I've been backpacking for quite a while now. More than a year! It has been incredible. And still is. But I had been thinking of changing my mode of transport. More specifically to cycling. On the one hand because I had been squeezed into too many minibuses on my way down. On the other hand because other people had inspired me to try cycling.
Many people know about the Berlin Wall. And that it was taken down in '89, uniting east and west Berlin. Tourists visit the Wall and its museums. Learning about the dark times and remembering themselves that this shouldn't happen again.
We came back to Hebron completely overwhelmed by what had happened in Nabi Saley. So we decided to help out with ISM where we could.
When we finished visiting Hebron Jan proposed to go to Ramallah where we could sleep in an ISM house and see the organization in action. Every Friday protests brake out in various cities and villages around Palestine and ISM wants to be present to report on anything bad happening during these demonstrations. This goes from Palestinians getting harassed, soldiers shooting tear gas to people getting shot and killed.
We were officially in Palestine now. Although "officially" might not be the right word, since officially Palestine is not recognized as a sovereign state by the UN. It has its own flag, its own license plates, but it doesn't have its own currency (anymore). The Israeli controlled checkpoints everywhere make it clear however that we crossed into Palestinian territory.