We had planned to quickly go ashore handing over the rest of our toys and clothes to Mr. Mohamed, before going to the farmers market, lifting the hook and going sailing. Northerly winds have been forecasted to clam down a little and we wanted to use the weather window for going north. That’s what we did, with some extra loops.

Before breakfast I noticed that I had missed to contact an Egyptian agent. As the next spot with internet coverage actually might be egypt, I was stuck with my computer for quite some time. Eventually, we made it ashore carrying three full bags and Jonis‘ bike. But today we couldn’t find Mr. Mohamed. Finally, we left the toys with a man, who promised passing them along. It doesn’t matter, who will actually circulate the things. Heading finding a tuktuk taxi we crossed the path of a few boys and I immediately regretted not having anything left to give away. One of the boys was pulling a home made car, build from a cut jug, with wheels made out of lids and nail axels.

We couldn’t find a tuktuk and decided to have some Jelaba and Coffee instead. In the shade around 20 men were sitting seeking protection from the heat of the day. In front of them stood tiny roundish bottles containing coffee. At this time of the day many of the men have been wearing turbans out of white cloth. They were waving us over to chat with us. Without speaking Arabic, communication is working with hand and feet mainly. Barely anyone is speaking English. We couldn’t even find the bakery, despite asking multiple time people carrying bags containing bread. And the reason was not that people haven’t been trying to help. It really is a pity, the language barrier is limiting what we learn from people and the local culture.

Anyhow, it was quite special sitting between the men in the shade just watching the happenings on the street. A man just arrived carrying water in open jerry cans from his donkey wagon to the hut selling tea and coffee. Sometimes a woman quickly passed by vanishing in one of the shops. Two boys were riding on a donkey and on the edge a man was milking a goat. Across the street a tuktuk was getting a gas bottle. As we were running out of coffee, we asked him to bring us to the market municipal. We had been recording Mr. Mohamed saying the word in Arabic. Our driver smiled and took us but stubbornly rejected to take our money for the ride.

At the market not only vegis and fruits were sold, but meats too, hanging from the roof. Bread however we still couldn’t find. Also not in the many surprisingly well stocked shops around. Finally, we bought flour instead of bread for baking ourselves as well as frozen ground meats.

Imitating waves with the hands we let the tuktuk driver know we wanted to the port. He dropped us a little later. A new sail boat had arrived - Miss Cat. On board we met the French captain and a german couple he was about to drop in Suakin. „Poor you, how are you gonna fly out with the borders closed“ I wanted to know, but they just smiled shaking their heads. „We are living here“. On our voyage we have been meeting many German, virtually everywhere. I think only the number of Swiss and Australians on our route was about in the same range. It‘s always great to talk to expats, everyone has a different story. Today we learned a little more about the UN mandate in Darfur and the work for the german embassy. All to soon, Mike and Janine had to leave catching their domestic flight to Khartoum, where they are living and where they have been looking forward to partying with the locals tonight.