The torrential rain as we crossed the border into Sudan disappeared within about 50kms and soon we were travelling through desiccated desert, what a difference altitude makes. We passed numerous, actually hundreds of dead cattle in various stages of decay along the stoney shoulders of the tar road. We caught up with MC and G in Gedaref, (where we were ‘imprisoned’ for a couple of days in ‘75) and drove on to wild camp up a valley in the most idyllic spot about 1 km from the main road. There was a village on the other side of the hill, but no-one came near- what a difference from Ethiopia where we couldn’t have even contemplated wild camping because of the numbers and intrusive/inquisitive nature of the people. We had our first puncture the next morning which turned out not to be from an acacia thorn from the campsite but a good old wood screw from wherever!
The temperature rose steadily the closer we got to Khartoum reaching about 45 deg, Khartoum is huge, with many modern and some high rise buildings in the centre the newest of which is a modern hotel reputedly owned by Col Gaddafi. Our couch surfing host, Omar gave us directions by phone, more and more specifically the closer we got to the city. Eventually we found the Blue Nile campsite where most overlanders stay, causing interested stares from the locals as we crossed the Nile in both directions over fabulous modern bridges. The campsite loos were nowhere near as bad as others have described, the shower worked and the manager was nothing but helpful. Kitcheners gunboat the Melik from the late 1800s English campaign against the Mahdi is now used as the Blue Nile sailing club office. More phone calls then, more bridges, and yet more traffic eventually arriving at Omar’s 3 storey modern white painted flat roofed palatial family home. Not everyone is as fortunate as Omar’s family – across the road from Omar’s house was an incomplete building where a family were living, in the open between the concrete floors of the yet to be built walls.
Omar was out having his bike fixed and his mother was ill. We were shown into a huge (8x8m) triangular tiled sitting room with couches, each as wide as a single bed, lining 2 walls and a huge dining table complete with labels and some plastic covers giving the impression of a new hotel foyer. The maid brought us cold drinks, we waited for our host to return home and wondered where we would sleep. The rest of the ground floor apartment which Omar shared with his mother consisted of kitchen, bedrooms and another, smaller sitting area. The other 2 floors were similar apartments where his older brothers lived with their families. It was dusk by the time that Omar arrived, a tall handsome 30ish vet, who had lived, studied and couch surfed in SA, USA, Europe and India. It became apparent that the sitting room was to be our shared bedroom for the next 3 nights. The toilet and wash hand basins were adjacent and the shower for our use in the back yard. Despite this being a new experience for us all, we soon became used to this home away from home.
Omar explained that this was to be the last night before Ramadan (when Muslims fast between dawn and dusk for 30 days) and that we were all invited to a party for couch surfers that night. Over dinner he talked about his late father, who had led the military coup in 1959 against the Sudanese government 3 years after independence from UK andEgypt. He had worked as a consultant to other governments including Kenya and the current Senegalese government and the family name Kibeida is held in great esteem amongst Sudanese people, although Omar and his brothers are not welcome into the army, in case revolution is genetic! The party was on a rooftop in central Khartoum, the only 3 other women there were young Italians and French working for NGOs in Sudan, one of them leaving to become the press officer for an international news agency in Darfor. In Khartoum she had been working closely with journalists from The Press Association (based in Howden). The male guests were mostly Sudanese musicians, accountants and the like who went out of their way to be friendly and involve us, despite being half our age!
Sudanese bureaucracy cut in the following day when we had to register at the Alien Registration office (N15.55887 E32.53653), and get a stamp in our passports to prove it, as well as tracking down and obtaining a photo/travel permit from the Ministry of Tourism (N15.58000 E32.56441). This was a long drawn out affair, culminating in failure as Omar had to accompany us the following morning to obtain the said stamp. Incidentally we then had to photocopy the travel/photo permit to hand out when asked to police along the way (and we needed them on at least three occasions). All this in temperatures exceeding 45 deg, necessitated spending too much time in an air conditioned shopping centre, drinking divine fresh orange juice. Late one afternoon the Haboob (hot wind) blew hard, the dust obliterating much of the Khartoum skyline. This heralded a massive rainstorm that flooded the streets and initially gave some respite from the dry heat, then the humidity increased which made it even worse.
The Sudanese people were definitely the friendliest and most helpful we have encountered apart from the grumpy official at Alien Reg. We were often invited into their homes, for tea, to stay, to camp on their land and to take their photo, purely for the pleasure of seeing themselves on screen. Apparently Islam teaches that a stranger should never be left without food and shelter, and the Sudanese take this literally. The only notable exception was when the four of us ventured out one evening in search of a local fish restaurant. The welcoming owner of the very basic pavement restaurant showed then fried in a giant wok beautiful fish, fresh from the Nile. We felt like really experienced travellers, eating with the fingers of our right hands only until unfortunately he then demanded 200SD£ each (the previous night we had paid 20 each for a curry). We had committed the cardinal sin of not agreeing the price before ordering. With our tails between our legs we phoned Omar, he warned him that we were Americans and would report him to the USAembassy, so he reluctantly reduced the bill by 75%.
The two Niles converge here, the mixing of the colours is sometimes visible from one of the bridges. This was particularly relevant for us, bringing back memories of the White Nile in Rwanda before it flows through Lake Victoria and the source of the Blue Nile at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. Each evening the population of Khartoum migrates to the banks of the White Nile where literally thousands of people meet to drink sweet, spiced tea (shai) or coffee (kahawa) sitting on plastic garden chairs, blankets or bits of cardboard and put their world to rights. It’s the same the whole world over one way or another I guess. An enormous number of tea sellers make the drinks from flasks, some carrying the necessary equipment in large baskets.
The souk is a must do for tourists and so we headed in that direction with a mental list to find a maze of narrow streets and covered alleys containing anything and everything that can be bought or sold in a relatively small space. Goods ranged from cheap Chinese junk to lovely antique jewellery, crocodile and snake skin handbags, galabiyyas and brightly coloured Nubian tobes. Aromatic spices were displayed in huge sacks, and the traders were keen to describe their use. Haggling is a necessity and always politely and respectfully undertaken until a mutually suitable price is established. We bought a selection of spices and incense. MC and I went back into the souk as they hadn’t found the spices, so the men waited by the cars. Big mistake—we found the spices fine, but then couldn’t find our way back! About 45 minutes later after being helped by various locals who spoke very little English, and we no Arabic, we arrived back, hot and bothered but otherwise fine---.
Drivers here are much more considerate, even in Khartoum in rush hour there is order, sometimes imposed by rifle toting police who seem to close roads just because the traffic is too busy. OK for locals who know where they are going, but not so easy for us, although the Sat Nav coupled with Terry’s sense of direction saved the day on all occasions. The Sudanese vehicles especially desert busses and tuk-tuks are unique, obviously the pride and joy of the owners. They are decorated with fringes and tassles, lots of chrome, chariot wheel hub caps, with blacked out windows and velvet or white leather upholstery. Even the windscreens of the busses are blacked out except for a narrow slit in line with the drivers’ eyes, Terry says they look like high speed burkahs!
We had 2 week visas for Sudan and needed to be in Wadi Halfa to catch the once weekly ferry on Wed 10Aug, so headed on through the desert, visiting various historical sites en route. The ancient temples at Naqa, stand about 25 kms off the main road into the desert, incredibly, on T4A which was a good job as there were many other tracks across the desert and we did unfortunately veer off the straight and narrow at one stage and have to dig ourselves out. We wild camped about 100 metres from the The Lion Temple, and were all thrilled by the reliefs there and at the Temple of Amun that overlooked us as we cooked and eventually slept under the stars. We were woken next morning by the sound of a desert bus coming to pick up the ghaffir who collected the 20 SD£ fee from us before rattling off to market, leaving his donkey and dogs to look after his house. The only other person we saw was a man herding his goats to drink at the well..
The pyramids at Meroe are thought to be about 1000 years older than those at Giza near Cairo though they are much smaller. We set up camp just over the crest of the hill away from the pyramids and waited til early evening under our awnings to escape the blistering heat (by now the temperature was just over 50 deg!!). At about 5 pm 3 men on camels turned up offering to give us a ride over the top to the Pyramids. Marie Claire and I jumped at the chance whilst the men drove round. It was fabulous riding on these smelly yet strangely majestic ships of the desert to the pyramids, with their handlers walking alongside, dressed in the galabiyas and turbans as if out of the New Testament. We wandered around marvelling at the engineering, and the sense of ancient history that prevailed here, not to mention the isolation. Tourism and the antiquities in Sudan are definately much underrated!
Sleeping in blistering heat is not so easy so when we reached Dongola, back on the banks of the Nile we checked in to a local hotel with air con.-all I can say is that our standards have dropped somewhat and that we will not be returning there. However Atef the owner spoke good English and was able to translate for us when attempting to have our fridge repaired, Mohamed Ali Osman the engineer was very competent and of course he and Terry had a great deal in common so we have arranged to send essential equipment out to him via Atef. Unfortunately the fridge repair was not a success.
At the hotel we also had a nice example of “lost in translation” – He asked “double or single beds”. “Double” we replied and he showed us a room with two single beds. “No, double we said”. “Oh, a single bed in the room” he said and showed us a room with one double bed!
We spent another night on the Nile bank in a lovely date palm grove at the ferry crossing to Sai Island which has more ruins, but it was so hot that we rested in the shade and didn’t bother to take the ferry across. The land owner, a man of at least 60, was up a palm tree apparently pruning as we arrived, he came down to greet us, told us we could sleep anywhere on his land, then led us to his best tree, shinned up 20metres and presented us with fresh, crisp, sweet dates.
We drove on to Wadi Halfa along a perfect empty new tar road and whilst this made life easy there is no doubt that it diminished the awesome experience of finding a way through pristine desert. We met our fixer Magdi who needed the paperwork to ensure all the boxes were ticked for the ferry up Lake Nasser. Other travellers had recommended him, we in fact met another fixer Mazar who seemed equally on the ball and offers a much wider service including home stays.
Contacts-Magdi Boshara nubatia51@yahoo.com.-- mob 012173885, or 0905568968
-Mazar Mahir mashasharti@yahoo.com; mob +249122238740, or +249911075226, or indeed ask anyone in WH for Mazar BMW (he still has the BMW motor bike that belonged to a German who was eaten by a hyena in 1989.)
The Kilopatra hotel (yes Kilo--see pic on the blog) was on the same lines as the Dongola one and the newly completed alternative mentioned in the Bradt guide little better so we opted to find somewhere on the lake to wild camp for the next 2 nights. This was a good decision. Apart from distant fishermen we saw no-one, and spent the time relaxing, taking frequent dips in the lake, but not for long as there are reputedly some crocodiles, washing clothes and the LR. Our camp shower has been worth its weight in gold, nothing nicer than to have a cool(ish) shower before bed, drip dry then fall asleep with the water gently lapping against the shore, the LR parked so that we caught the slight breeze on the roof tent.
Wednesday was sailing day, we met Magdi at 10am as arranged. Then waited until 2pm, went to the port for final passport stamps and carnet check, waited again. Loaded the vehicles on their barge (this is towed up the lake separately to us) boarded the ferry at about 4pm and were shown to our air conditioned first class cabins. Unfortunately ours was across the corridor from the gents and although the odour reduced when we were sailing, it was a matter of holding one’s breath when opening and closing the cabin door. I hadn’t thought to bring my sweeping brush and fairy liquid from the LR so had to turn a blind eye to the level of cleanliness. We left WH at about 6pm, the vehicles were to leave the following day.
Jean is being “positive” here and everyone knows that I’m not worried about a bit of muck – but actually the boat was filthy. Our feet stuck to the floors in the Dining Room. Everything you touch is filthy dirty and sticky. The waiter carefully avoided the ash falling off his fag into our food. The decks have never been cleaned from the continuous spilling of any and everything and many of the men spit all the time. It was difficult to see out of the windows because of the level of grime and I wouldn’t let my dog sleep on the mattresses. In fact I wanted to throw the pillows out of the port hole so they would have to replace them, but it was stuck closed with muck. The toilets are squat, which is fine, but were a disgrace and don’t appear to have been cleaned in the 30 years of the boat’s life so the terrible smell is from the encrustations in the trays and even up the walls. Thank goodness they weren’t actually blocked on this voyage.
Everyone talks about the trials of travelling on this boat and it’s certainly an experience which we won’t forget. Eventually they will open the road along the coast and this boat will rightly stop abusing travellers.
Seriously though, hindsight is a wonderful thing so other travellers may want to be a little more prepared than we were;- so -Doom to spray for potential bed bugs and take your own pillow and a sheet to cover the mattress, we weren’t bitten, but just in case. The air con did work in the cabin, but we did adjust the cold water flow otherwise ironically it would have been too cold to sleep! The cabin doors do not lock, but there was security and we had no problems. If we were to do it again we would definitely ask for cabins away from the toilets. At a cooler time of the year, and if the ferry is not too crowded it may be better to sleep on the steel deck or take a hammock.
Nevertheless we made the best of it, and drank lots of water, I declined most of the food at the restaurant (we had dates, biscuits and fresh fruit in the rucksack). We played silly card games, met more backpackers, an unlikely trio of Portuguese, Russian, and Canadian and put the world to rights again with them for a while. Whilst wandering on deck (choosing not to spend too much time in the cabin) we chatted to the only English speaking crew member, explaining that we had travelled the same route in 75. He showed interest so we found the photos on the lap top and took them to show him. It turned out that the paddle steamer from the 75 trip was the Isis and the captain of this ferry had been 2IC of the Isis. Great excitement on the bridge as various old hands came to reminisce. They told us that the engineer from the pic had died only weeks ago.
Tomorrow we arrive in Aswan where we wait for the LR.
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