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We rose at dawn.
"Hey it's 7.30 am!" I shouted
"Numpty, it's December and we are in the Northern hemisphere" Stuart shouted back.
"That will explain why I am freezing cold" Cisca piped up.
We made it to Wadi Halfa, and Stuart made his boat. Now I had to fix the truck. This took two days. The Locals use 109 (pre 1984) model Land Rovers, and subsequently stocked huge quantities of spare parts. I bought new ignition systems and other bits. The corrugations on the road had punctured our radiator. This had go off to be repaired. Then I looked underneath to re-attach the Shock absorber. Unfortunately the entire spring housing had cracked and pulled the chassis apart. I located the town welder and left him to it. His work was outstanding. His team of welders and fitters re welded the chassis, spring mount and then added reinforcing plates to the mount. Wadi Halfa was a trading border town surrounded by awful roads. The town's garages had developed ingenious devices and tricks with which to solve their vehicular problems. I was just another of these problems.
After a few days, the truck was fixed and I kept enquiring about cargo ships. One arrived but would not take vehicles. I was promised another. It seemed like madness to pay $300 to ship my vehicle to Aswan, $500 to get it into Egypt, and then spend $2500 on petrol and tolls driving back to London. The Weasel is in good shape to traverse Africa, but she would need $3000 spent on her to bring her up to MOT (British transport) standards. When I combined all of this with my desire to further explore the deserts of Africa and Arabia it seemed nonsense to drive on. The $3200 could be better spent on another trip. And so after much agonising I regretfully decided to store the Weasel here in Wadi Halfa and continue as a foot passenger to Istanbul.
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