Update #11
Luxor to Aswan
It’s 40 degrees centigrade in Aswan today. I left Luxor at 7am with the military convoy along with six tourist buses and arrived in the Upper Nile City of Aswan just after nine. It had been a cool early morning ride but was warming quickly.
These are the beginning of the temperatures I’ll be experiencing in the Sudan. When I arrive anywhere and I have jobs to do, I go straight into them. Don’t want to get caught out with timing. For me, this is not a holiday but something that has to be done. Leisure time is measured by the odd hour during the day and the occasional day in a week. I like it like that. 
First I looked for fuel and rode around the city looking for 90 octane but found only 80. This was desperately poor fuel and if I didn’t blip the throttle and keep it open a tad as I rode, the fuel injection failed. This worsened as the engine temperature rose above 100 degrees and at 105 it happened constantly and made finely tuned riding difficult. After fuelling I set out to look for a contact given to me in Luxor by a felucca captain but there was no sign of the address or whom I was supposed to be looking for, but found the offices of the Nile River Transportation Offices. Mr Sala was the manager and had been for 30 plus years. I had heard of this gentlemen through travelling websites and he was given a mixed reaction. When I sat down at his desk he told me registration for tomorrows ferry ended yesterday and was full – 570 passengers. That meant a week’s wait. I said nothing. It was critical because my best schedule is already a week down and to lose two weeks is something I could never make up. Saying nothing is a good policy. Showing desperation out here is a weakness that will be preyed on. I had no knowledge of this man other than some poor reports about the way he operated. He looked in his book and scanned through Arabic scribble in a ledger that made no sense to me.
My phone indicated a text; it was from Bruce, my mate in Khartoum. He said that there was a curfew, that 250 Chad rebels had tried to take over the city. My God, why at the same time was this happening? I looked up at Mr Sala, hot and dirty and trying to stay cool and still smiling. He looked around the office and everyone was quiet, and then he started whitening out two names. "You may be very fortunate, because we are full and registration ended yesterday. We closed the books. But these two people said they would be here this morning and in an hour they will be too late. Take Mr Easle here on your bike and if you finish off your paperwork by 1pm you can have a ticket."
Easle sat pillion, a big bloke, ex paratrooper and sat like a large bag of potatoes spilling from the sides. The bike was running like an asthmatic dog with three legs and it was hot as a desert. I was now about to return my Egyptian number plates to the relevant authorities and to be fair to Sala, it would have taken me all day without his help. Easle and I rushed from office to office. Some bloke sitting under the shade of a tree stamped a bit of paperwork and some young solicitor stapled two bits of paper together and then we continued. Eleven o’clock turned into twelve and then twelve-thirty and then Bruce sent me another text to say the curfew was still on and might mean I wouldn’t get into Khartoum, might stop me at Wadi Halfa, might send me back on the boat, might stop me getting on.
Whenever I have been late for a train or plane, I have always continued to the station or gate in the optimistic hope that either my schedule improves or there’s deteriorates. Until that bus leaves that bus stop I am running to catch it. Twelve-forty five and we have everything done and get back to the office with five minutes to spare. The two guys who should have claimed their tickets have not and so that place is mine. Sala and Easle were great. The bad reports I have heard are from people who don’t realise that a sense of humour overcomes everything. Travelling can be very hard and in these temperatures and alone; it takes you to limits of self-control, which, I’m good at controlling. I drink tea, say thank you a lot and leave. I will have to repeat the process with Easle and customs in the morning prior to boarding the ship that will take me across Lake Nassar. Bruce gets back to me; he says the curfew is over. All the rebels are dead. They were all shot on the streets of Khartoum.
All diplomatic ties between Sudan and Chad have been severed.