Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of Khartoum - hurtling past. From the houses that lined the road, men emerged to piss in
the street and hawk up great globules of phlegm into the sand. As I did every morning - if
only to remind myself that the days were continuing to trickle by - I checked the date of
my diary: it was 5 May.
'What is it, Lev?'
Moez was already up, refastening our packs to the bicycles.
'Do you know what today is, Moez?'
'Another fine day in the Republic of the Sudan?'
'No,' I said, tramping to the bicycles. 'Today is the first fifth of May in my adult life
that I won't be able to get hold of a cold beer.'
Moez just looked at me, dumbly.
'Today is my birthday,' I said woefully, wiping the sand out of my matted hair and grimy
beard. With shock, I realised it was now well over an inch long.
Moez reached out and pumped my hand vigorously. 'Happy New Year!' he declared.
'Today is a great day! You will not forget this birthday. Here you are, in the middle of
Sudan, surrounded by beautiful desert and friendly people . . .' He grinned wildly. 'How
old are you?'
'Thirty-two,' I conceded.
Moez let go of my hand, shaking his head in disbelief. 'I thought you would be thirty-
seven, thirty-eight. More like my age?'
I took a deep breath, squinting into the morning sun. Thirty-two, and had it not been
for the diary in my pack, I would have forgotten. There had to be something better than
this. Unknown months of walking still lay between me and the river delta. I couldn't spend
every day of them in abject misery and self-pity. I drew myself up, fixed my eyes on the
road ahead, and spoke out loud: 'Lev, you are walking the Nile. You have set out to do it.
You
will
do it. It will be shit at times, but you will reach the end. Nothing you can do will
make it any easier, or any quicker. Just accept it.'
Moez drew his bicycle alongside mine. 'Lev, what are you doing?'
'I am giving myself a birthday present, Moez.'
He looked at me, perplexed. 'What present?'
'I am becoming a fatalist. Fatalism is my present to myself.'
As Moez walked off, up the road, he looked back down. 'You could get yourself a new
pair of boots, too,' he said, grinning, and the day's walk began.
By the time we reached Khartoum, another week had passed. Moez's body seemed to be in
a better state, and so too did my mind. Somehow, reaching that epiphany on my birthday
had transformed me. Whatever black clouds had been smothering me since the failure to
