kassala

slow slow internet here in kassala (easter sudan, pop ~500 000) dictates no more than 4 photos can be uploaded before i lose my mind in this heat, so here they are! the first is from last month (already!) in ste-catherine on the sinai peninsula of egypt, of roger and shu at the top of our multipitch route on jebel bara. the second is a hilarious photo of ed after climbing the skull thrutcher (we did a 'thrutch or die' variant of a route called the skull...i can't explain it well here, but thrutching is essentially an uncomortable full body heave in a narrow chimney). we successfully climbed the ~8 pitch route, did all the descent rappels, then ed fell over 5 minutes from camp and banged his head and leg on a rock and got all bloody. once we saw it wasn't serious, it was just hilarious.

the bottom two are the jebels of kassala, which, although stunning, have proved unclimbable due to the intense heat (max 45, min 30ish), flock of huge vultures overhead, and baboons and wild dogs roaming the cliffs. however, i am passing our few days here with wandering the souq (market), drinking the delicious spiced gingery coffee, downing litres of fresh mango, guava, grapefruit, sugarcane, etc, smoothies, and trying to move as little as possible, lest i become a laura puddle. i usually fail on this last point.