We have arrived in Khartom, Sudan yesterday. This completes the first 'section' of the 2008 tour d'afrique.The section was called "pharaohs' delight". After this section, in spite of riding borrowed bikes and riding in street shoes for 3 days at the start of the tour, and having terrible flat & mechanical problems because of shitty bikes, I am happy and thankful to only be down 1 hour and 13min to the 3rd place racer on the tour. My riding is getting stronger, and I am slowly chipping away at my time deficit... I hope to come in at least in 3rd place by the end of the complete tour...Inshallah (god willing). The first section was approx 2,000k, made up of everything from good paved roads along the Nile river, to very rough, badly rutted gravel and sand roads through the Nubian desert. I have been able to enjoy some small climbs up hills neart our desert camps when the opportunity presesnts itself... In Luxor , Egypt I picked up some weird sort of chest virus, which caused restristricted breathing and a whole lot of coughing, eventually turning into a cold, the first one i have had in about a year and 1/2!! The only benefit is i now have stronger chest and abdomen muscles from all the hacking..Luckily, after 2 weeks it has cleared up...I was up at 6 and went for a 35min run this morning...felt good... Yesterday we had a 20 km time trial race first thing in the morning... I came in 2nd place, a full minute ahead of the next fastest rider! The guy thats leading the tour is a danish ex-pro racer riding a fancy road bike..Unluckily, The next 3 fastest guys are riding mountain bikes,(including me) which simply take more energy to push up to high speeds, and run out of gears at about 50kph, whereas the top racer guy has the gear capacity to go 60+ kph... I am getting some faster gears shipped to Addis Abba, Ethopia, so that i won't be at such a disadvantage as the tour goes on... All in all I am happy, well, going faster with less effort every day, rounding out into form, and loving every minute of the adventure....For some reason they have not posted the daily race results on the tour website, but I understand that has now been corrected, so look for my name near the top of the list on a daily basis.... The weather has been quite cool and windy as compared to last year... Every day is sunny and usually between 20-30 degrees c. However there has been a cool north wind blowing, which makes it seem much cooler. Yesterday our group of 62 riders was escorted through Khartom by police escort, sirens wailing, people cheering and waving from the roadsides. It was quite a sight! So there you have it.. Eat, ride, set up camp, have some soup, then dinner at between 5-6pm, then sleep by 7-8, wake up at 6, breakfast, ride 80k's, lunch at 10-11, ride another 50-80k's, soup at 1-2pm, dinner at 5-6, repeat, usually for 5-6 days until a rest day, when we can relax, do laundry, use the internet, shower, and then go at it again... so far we have covered about 2,000kms...The people in Sudan are very nice and friendly, and much more welcoming than in Egypt, whhich is much more touristy, with 1/2 of all the seniors in Germany taking decadent luxury Nile Cruises...

Ps) oh by the way; With all the news of shootings and political instability in Kenya, the tour organizers are looking in to flying us over Kenya, and having us land at kilimanjaro national airport in tanzania, where we will have an extra 10 days to use up that we would normally have spent riding across Kenya. SO...........there is a possibility some members of the tour will have the time and attempt to climb Kilimanjaro....If this does come to pass, I will likely join them, or possibly climb Mt Meru, or possibly participate in the Kilimanjaro Marathon, an annual event that happens about the time we will be there.. stay tuned, I will let you know what I decide to do.......choices/choices! Say hi/hello/Salam to all from me,Chris Wille in Khartom, Sudan, on the 2008 tour d'afrique..Feel free to share this e mail with everyone... REgards, Chris I know he's busy and all, but please let me know if its possible...