41: Khartoum to Kerma (Sudan)

Khartoum Pictures Here:

Naqa Pictures Here

Meroe Pictures Here

Karima Pictures here:

Dongola and Deffufa

Week 41 Update:

Khartoum, Musawwarat, Meroe, Karima, Dongola, Kerma

Day 282:

It was Friday morning in the Muslim city which meant only one thing: It was Sunday… Well, close enough. We slept in and made steaming hot and very strong coffee before once again abusing the comforts of the very nice and extremely hot shower in Justin’s flat. It was also his day off work, so we had a fairly rare opportunity to chat about current affairs. Our first point of business for the day was to meet a man who could help us book our place on the Wadi Halfa ferry and Maggie’s place on a cargo barge to get into Egypt. We had made contact the day before and agreed that we would phone whim in the AM with a meeting time and place. His phone was turned off…

There are no banks in Sudan that accept foreign cards and we were running a little low on cash, so we decided to change some more of our precious $’s for local currency. The close by mall was the obvious place to go, but then Justin offered to change some money at a favourable rate, voiding the need to leave the flat for another hour or two. We did eventually venture out, and we did eventually end up at the mall. Our food stores were running quite low and we had managed to make a list of things we needed to get us all the way to Egypt. It made sense to get them in the capitol. Back at the flat we had a scrumptious lunch with freshly bought bread, Salami and fruit and lazed around some more. It was Sunday after all...

It was past 15:00 when we eventually left again. As we drove out the flat the thing that struck me most was that every single shop was closed and every street was totally deserted. I mean, it was fairly quiet when we drove around that morning, but in the afternoon Khartoum had turned into a ghost town. We ventured past the centre of Khartoum and into the old Muslim city of Omdurman. That meant crossing the White Nile again, but thankfully we could pick one of the massive new and modern bridges to do so. It only took about half an hour to reach it and we stopped in at the massive Muslim cemetery and the Hamed El-Nil Tomb. We heard a rumour of some religious ceremony happening there in the late afternoon and wanted to check it out. We followed a track that was almost wide enough for Maggie into the compound, being really careful not to drive over any graves. The site was littered with heaps of gravel and stone in the shape of humans, but very few actually had any form of head stone. In the middle of the place we came to a large dusty square and parked on the edge close to the ladies selling tea and coffee.

That was when we were approached by an elderly man who wanted to know if we came for the dancing. “We did indeed” I informed him and he welcomed us. In my most humble voice and manner I asked if if we would be allowed to watch the ceremony from the edge of the crowds. He not only told us that it was possible, but also wanted to know if we brought a camera to take some pictures. When I seemed surprised and asked him if it was also allowed to take photographs his smile widened as he said “You are most welcome…” He even told us that we were about an hour too early, but we were welcome to hang out and drink some tea. It was a little strange for me, especially coming from Ethiopia where everything that seemed nice would end up costing you money. This however could not cost money. It wasn’t a touristy attraction, but rather a weekly ceremony which was not allowed in many other Muslim countries any more. Even more bizarrely, we as obvious tourists were welcomed to not only watch, but also take photographs and even participate if we wanted to.

We decided not to hang around, but to drive to the “Soak” (Market) which happened to be the largest market in Sudan. We should have known that would not be an hour long affair, but we went anyway. Before long we got immersed into the hectic and insane traffic of a normal African market on a day where no one worked. It was bumper to bumper and suddenly we knew where the whole of the population of Khartoum went to on Friday afternoons. We found the edge of the Soak eventually and was totally overwhelmed! It was a market under a single metal roof that spanned a whole city block! And that was only the formal part of it. Every side street for another four blocks around was covered in stalls and small shops and it seemed like a place where you could really buy anything your heart desired. It was obvious that we had to leave that for another day though, so we started the slow and painstaking process of finding a place to turn around. We eventually saw a fuel station which made things a little easier and half through our manoeuvre a man in a minibus decided to reverse into us while we were stationary. He dent his back door and broke is rear lights and totally buggered the lock to open the back. We had one 2mm long scratch on the bull bar, so we drove on.

Back at the tomb we found the place transformed. It was busy! I mean really busy compared to when we first arrived there. We parked in the same spot after establishing that it was the correct thing to do and before I had time to turn the engine off we were greeted by familiar faces. It was Andrew and Lucy, the two backpackers we had first met in Nairobi and then again in the Omo Valley. They had arrived in Khartoum a day after us and actually walked to the Blue Nile sailing club to try and find us. It was fantastic to see them again and the babbling conversations that erupted caused great entertainment for the tea lady and her other clients.

As the shadow got longer and the tea got less the drumming and chanting started in front of the nearby Mosque. We paid up and ventured over. The people there were known as the whirling Dervishes and it took me a while to figure out their concepts. There were three guys in white robes, probably priests of some description, who were singing and beating their hand drums. Then there were two guys dressed in rags with colourful tags on them. The one had a wooden replica of an AK47 while the other had a walking stick. They would “face off” to the priests and when the chanting intensified, they would start spinning in one spot like professional Ballet dancers. I was working my way around the outside of the circle trying to get a better vantage point of the festivities when a young pointed at the perimeter wall of the mosque. There I saw two other men sitting and I asked if it was permitted for me to join them. They agreed that it was and within a few seconds I found myself standing on a six foot high wall of a religious building taking photographs of a religious ceremony to which I was invited as a guest. What was up with this country?

I eventually moved down again and positioned myself low down next to a lamp post to get a better view. The priests were working their way around and I decided to switch my camera to video, just for a laugh. As the group came closer the priest made eye contact with me, smiled in mid chant and put his face right into the lens of the recording camera. He wanted me to take his photograph! He wanted me to video him and it was as if they all wanted us there to join in their celebrations and be witness to it. I found another perch on the wall which was actually the roof tp the hand washing place. I wasn’t alone though. There were about four young men there including a guy from Egypt who told me that Dervishes were banned in his country as they were seen as a political rally and potentially dangerous. He was 27 years old and had travelled all the way to Khartoum to see it. Another man had a chat and asked if I was a Muslim. I did not want to lie, so I told him that I was a tourist only, but that I really appreciated being allowed to be there, experience the people and the vibe and take some photographs. He smiled back and said that he wasn’t Muslim either, but he went there every Friday afternoon because he loved the music, which at that point stopped.

I though it was incredible and I also thought that we saw the whole ceremony. However, within a minute or two some really big PA speakers arrived with an amplifier. Another group of priests arrived with bigger drums and then it seemed as if all hell broke loose! An army of men dressed in green and red, closely resembling Christmas elves if truth be told, came around the corner dancing and chanting. The circle got made bigger to accommodate the new masses and new priests took to the stage, microphones in hand. The chanting got louder and the dancing more vigorous and the atmosphere was… well… festive. It was incredible to be there! The beat of the drums vibrated the buildings and the floors and the faces were all smiling and laughing and even the guys in rags were playing to the crowds. We were no longer the only tourists there and a lady from Khartoum even took a photo of Catt standing in the crowds. If I had to guess I would say that there were about three thousand people there and the men forming the inside barrier of the circle were chanting and dancing with the best of them. Another priest walked around with an incense burner and offered the smoke to everyone, including the four pale faces in the midst of everyone else. No seemed to care that we were different. No one seemed to care that we were just there to be entertained and they did a brilliant job of entertaining us.

When the dancing was over the four of us were standing on the roof over the hand washing building. We watched the worshippers line up and face the east for prayer and the men and woman, in their thousands chanting away as they knelt down and completed their rituals. I felt amazed! I was impressed and moved and just totally blown away and flabbergasted by the show of hospitality and pride that there people had. I was moved by their dedication and surprised by their friendliness and started wondering what influence western propaganda had on my views about them.

When the sun finally moved behind the horizon and the sounds of joy and celebration died down, we were left standing in the cemetery next to the tomb by the mosque and felt somehow fulfilled by a tremendously intriguing experience. The place was empty, almost eerie and it was strange to think that it was covered by people only half an hour earlier. It was time for us to leave as well though. Somehow we managed to squeeze four people into the front of one Land Cruiser and gave our friends a lift back to their hotel. It was difficult not stay with them longer, but we had promised to make dinner at Justin’s flat, so we had to leave. We did however establish that our travel plans aligned perfectly, so we were sure to see them again before long.

Back at Casa Justin we made a stir fry and drank some fruit juice as alcohol was obviously just not allowed in the country. We chatted about our day and downloaded our photos and video and before we knew it it was the middle of the night. I found it strange how we world rarely manage to stay awake after 8:00 when we were alone in the bush, but there in the city within the confines of four walls with electric lights, midnight seemed to sneak up on us with lightning ease. Another thing came to mind though: Khartoum had been the very first city that we visited in Africa that never seemed to have either water or electricity problems…

Day 283:

Waking up early in the dark apartment was not as easy as what I had thought it would be. In fact, the only two things enticing the rise were another fabulous hot shower and the ease of making morning Buna using an electric kettle. I carried another 20kg of water to Maggie and started up the purifier which we had been using since Ethiopia. Back in the apartment Catt was gathering our belongings and indulging in hot shower bliss. It took us a shameful two hours to get going!

Once Maggie was started up the water tanks were full and we headed back towards the massive Souk in Omdurman. The traffic was fairly light and we made good time and found the market as easily as the day before. We found a suitable place to park close to a bus station and started our exploration. At first I thought I found myself in absolute male hell! The massive market under the huge roof we had seen the day before contained nothing by clothes! When we finally managed to fight our way through that section we found the curtain section which took another twenty minutes to walk through. When we left that we found the material section and the sewing section… And then… The shoe section! It took an hour to find something different and that was only represented by a tiny hardware store on the edge of the craziness. I was not impressed and ready to leave! Once outside we decided to venture across another road towards yet another buys station and it was there where we hit pay dirt!

That was more the kind of market I had in mind. There was fruit and vegetables and although all the micro businesses had identical things on offer, it was great to see that you could actually obtain fresh produce there! With those stores stocked up we walked a wide arc back to where we had left Maggie and found the recycling market. We saw some incredibly ingenious ways to re-use old tins and the watering cans they sold were all made from US aid sunflower oil tins. The sight was priceless! We bought a traditional coffee pot and pan for roasting the beans, just because we could. The people seemed friendly and happy and I was even asked to take their photograph! I laughed with the men and smiled with the woman and learnt a little of the culture and the language. I took photos of butcheries and fruit sellers and found donkeys and carts moving the most bizarre things around and was not only allowed, but encouraged to photograph it all. There was no request for reward or money and every time I showed my models their image on the camera screen it was handing a small child a massive gift at Christmas. They were truly ecstatic to see themselves like that and I loved every second of it!

Our time was up too soon and I could have easily spent another day or two walking around that place. However, we had places to go and people to see, so we left around mid day. We drove across half the town to find Jayson’s office to hand back the apartment keys. We said our good byes and thanks to his recommendation had a fantastic lunch in a place called “Pizza Mac”. We stopped for fuel and found a man who could check and adjust the tyre pressure for us. While doing that I found not one, but two nails in two different tyres. It took a pair of pliers and two of us to yank them out and I had to use my last two repair plugs to mend them. I felt a little ridiculous and quite suspicious of our new rubber. It was punctures no 8 and 9 for us, but also numbers 3 and 4 on the new set which was only a couple of thousand kilometres old. Fortunately the fixes were easy and did not even require us taking the wheels off. The man who helped also stocked more plugs, so I could replenish my supply. When all was said and done I handed him SDG 10 ($3.33) for his items and trouble. He indicated that it was all good, so we set off towards the north.

The phone rang as we were leaving the city. That had become such a rare occurrence that it surprised us both. It was Lucy telling us that they were stranded at a fuel station next to the main road. They were trying to reach the ancient ruins of the Naqa Lion Temple which was about 20km into the desert. We figured that we as long as we were driving of road, we could make a plan, so agreed to pick them up when we reached them. One thing the country of Sudan had was decent tar roads. There was not a single pot hole in sight and apart from delivery trucks it was as if we were the only vehicle on the road. We set the speed at 90km/h and maintained that without any trouble until we reached our friends. We stacked their bags on the roof, adopted our various bizarre positions across the front of the Cruiser and headed off into the desert.

It was quite late in the afternoon by the time we found the temple. The sand stone was glowing a bright yellow with the incredible royal blue sky behind it. The hills had an almost red hue and the horizons seemed light-years away. It was an awe inspiring thing to experience and we were the only people around. Well, there was a man who collected the money for the entrance tickets, but not another soul. Security was a three foot high wire fence with a gate that did not close. We paid our SDG 20 ($6.66) each, walked through the gate that dd not close and started exploring again. It was very “Indiana Jones” and for a few minutes I tried to think where I could get a hat and a whip from. The temple itself was slowly being reclaimed by the desert sands. We found 8 almost complete Lion statues on ancient pillars and a passage framed by four doors in a row. There were some more structures inside and crumbling walls forming rooms and halls around the outside. In the centre of the furthest part was a stone altar which made for fantastic photographic opportunity.

We spent half an hour interacting and photographing some camel herders at a nearby well before entering the site of the Temple of Amun, built in the 1st century by a certain King Natakamani. It followed a traditional Egyptian temple style with an outer wall and inner sanctum and was just incredibly well preserved. It was fairly obvious that UNESCO had not been there as there was no massive metal roof over the top. The ticket seller met us there and showed us around. I could actually not believe what I was seeing. There was ancient figures carved into ancient rock and there were not even other footprints around us. We had paid a pittance to be allowed to experience it and we were the only people there! We walked around and took our photos and stood in absolute amazement just staring at the place until the sun was almost on the horizon.

With darkness imminent we decided to move on to the Musawwarat site, some 20km away to find a place to sleep for the night. It was said to be the largest Meroitic remains in Sudan covering some 55 000m2 and as with the Naqa, its purpose was still largely unclear. There was also a Lion temple there which had been totally restored. The drive across the desert was entertaining and fun on the sandy tracks and even required some 4 wheel drive action for the first time since the Lake Turkana route some months before. The sun was low and the colours incredible and as we started crossing a dry and very sandy river bed the inevitable happened…. We got stuck. To be honest, it was pure laziness on my part. I had deflated the tyres and I was still driving in high range and the engine was just not strong enough to power us through. So we came to a stop, I engaged Low Range and then could just not take off again. So we got out, got the spade off the roof for the very first time on our trip and deflated the tyres some. It took less than ten minutes and with the first attempt after that I simply drove out and met the rest of the gang on the other side.

We arrived at the site just as the sun was down. A security officer pointed into the desert and told us that we could camp “somewhere over there”. With the tyres deflated and the 4 wheel drive engaged we picked a fairly straight line route to the closest hill we could see and tucked in behind it to make camp. It was fantastic! It was bare and barren and isolated in the total openness of the massive desert around us. We pitched out tents and made a fire for cooking dinner. The moon was bright and the stars unbelievable! It was very windy and actually quite cold, contrary to what we had been told to expect, but not unpleasant in any way. Catt and I had removed our tent’s rain cover, so there was nothing to flap in the breeze and we were really not expecting any rain… We stared at our environment with great big goofy smiles on our faces and eventually decided to crawl into our beds just before midnight.

Day 284:

There were no birds to wake us up in the morning. It was bitterly cold outside and even though leaving bed was met with some reluctance, we still managed to witness one of those incredible desert sunrises where the perfectly round and orange sun illuminated everything in a light pink around you. Andrew and Lucy and decided to climb the rocky hill we were hidden behind and made it to the summit at magic time. By the time they were with us again the coffee was ready and the luggage packed away. We were ready for exploring the next ancient site! We drove towards the police post we had seen the previous day and found a well used track we decided to follow. That led us around the site and past a village where a man in white robes tried to indicate something to us. We did not understand, so drove on.

The friendly policeman pointed us in the direction of the small gate in the low fence and he told us to park there, which we obediently did. The site itself was, to be honest, quite a disappointment. It resembled a modern building site with bricks and rubbish strewn all over the place rather and something ancient and impressive. There were a few columns we could see in the rubble, but the best view we could think of was from the car. The man in robes caught up to us at that time and we suddenly understood that he was the ticket seller. A quick debate amongst us had a decision not to pay an entrance fee though. Andrew said he wanted to walk around the site and I was happy with a snap shot r two from where we had parked Maggie. I was designated bearer of news, so stopped the man from writing the ticket and told him our plan. He in turn was not having any of it! He blatantly said that if we took photos, we had to pay. He even trotted off to the top of a small dune to call Andrew back to the car. Our plan was foiled! It didn’t matter that much though. I still managed a sneaky picture or two and as none of us were archaeologists, we were more than happy to give it a miss.

The drive back to the main road was fairly uneventful. The dry river bed was met with enough momentum and less laziness and proved to be a doddle. We stopped back at the fuel station next to the road by 9:30 and after a brew of the local tea agreed to meet our friends that afternoon at the next adventurous place. It was to be the Meroe Pyramids, a mere 80km away and apparently the most impressive ancient site in the country. Catt and I ventured into the small market town of Shendi in search of more green leafy vegetables. We found tomatoes, onions and aubergine and a few carrots… By mid day we were parked at the Meroe ticket office in between the big DAF truck owned by Hank and Maureen with Boris the Rottweiler, and a slightly eccentric German couple in an equally big Mercedes Truck. They were off exploring the pyramids while we used their vehicles as a wind break.

Although the pyramids were absolutely clearly visible from about 20km away we had decided not to enter the compound until the late afternoon. We were also waiting for our friends to catch up using whatever transport they could find. The wind was blowing fairly strong and the skies were hazy with sand which was not something that deterred the curio sellers one little bit. There were only about four of them displaying their wares on low wooden crates but they insisted that we had a look. After making it clear that we were not buying anything, but were still interested to take a peak we wondered over. They had incredible little trinkets and jewellery made from stone, bone and even ivory. They had small knives and bigger daggers which apparently you tied to your upper arm to conceal it from your enemies. They also had a 1.5m long sword which they were very keen on showing me. It was all very impressive, but I was just not in a buying mood. When we completed our tour of the tiny market and returned to Maggie, the sellers left us alone… That was a bit strange and unexpected, but I did not complain too much. We spent the rest of the afternoon hiding from the sun and the heat. The owners of the trucks finished their exploration of the ancient site by mid afternoon and after a quick chat set off into the desert to make camp. They told us the direction they chose and invited us to follow their tracks when it came to camping time.

By 16:00 I started getting a little worried about our friends. We had their rucksacks and had left them with only a tent and day sacks. There did not seem to be that much public transport happening and we were about 2km off the road. Just as I started thinking about launching a search I spotted two figures in the mirage, drifting over the hot sand. At first I could not make out any features, but when I saw four local men springing up from their relaxed position and race over to the two figures by Camel, I guessed that the tourists had arrived. And they did, in style! As they came closer I could clearly see Andrew and Lucy, each on a Camel and each of them wearing a freshly purchased Arabic head scarf. It was very “Arabian Nights” with the late afternoon sun illumination the animals and riders with Pyramids in the background. Even before dismounting Andrew proclaimed that he had just managed to achieve a life long dream: Arriving at Pyramids by Camel. I could see the attraction!

After a short account of our respective days we walked straight into the office, paid our expected SDG 20 ($6.66) each and started climbing the first dune. It was absolutely perfect! The wind had made perfectly uniform shapes on the sand, wiping out every footprint of every person that had been there before. We were the only visitors to the site and the sun was low and soft enough to turn the sand into a pastel reddish colour. The shadows were longer than the structures were high and the direction we were looking into had only desert for as far as the eye could see. The pyramids themselves were unbelievable and you could somehow sense, or feel the age of them. Most of the structures were crumbling as the winds and sands f the desert was reclaiming them while some had been fully restored to give the visitor an idea of what they had looked like before some idiot Italian treasure hunter by the name of Guiseppe Ferlini started tearing them apart in the 1830’s The worst thing was that he actually found some gold in the first one which only added fuel to his flame for destruction. After that he found nothing but some workman’s tools and while the fruits of his destrucit8on eventually made it into the Egyptian Museums in Belgium and Munich, the incredible Sudanese deserts were left with nothing but a series of smashed pyramids. Nice!

The northern Cemetery, the one we were walking around in contained about 30 pyramids in different stages of decay or reconstruction. Originally the tombs were carved into the rock and the pyramids were built on top of the rocks. They had a 70 degree angle making them much steeper than their Egyptian counter parts, but also a quite a bit smaller. This however did not make them any less impressive. The restored ones had been covered in a smooth lime mortar as they had been originally. This gave them a strangely smooth façade, hiding the big sand stone blocks they were actually made of. Although not an incredible amount was known about any of Sudan’s ancient sites, these were said to have dated back as far as the 8th century BC and the Kushi kings and queens were reportedly buried there up to the fall of their rule around the 4th century AD. We stayed in the compound until the sun threw its very last rays on the top of the very last structure before we left. It had been an unbelievable afternoon of discovery and I could not believe that we actually ahd the whole place to ourselves. Neither the curio sellers nor the Camel owners seemed to keep any interest in our adventures and by the time we walked through the small gate they had all gone home. The entrances to all the tombs were facing the east, so making the decision to return in the morning fairly obvious.

We found the tracks of the big DAF truck and followed them around a few dunes until we saw Borris the dog. The chosen camp site was perfect! We were hidden in a small valley and only a 50m walk from a place overlooking the whole cemetery and all the pyramids. The wind was still very strong and the heat of the day had disappeared with the sun. We made a charcoal fire for cooking and that turned into a furnace in the wind. It was very handy for getting the coals ready, but they were so incredibly hot that actually cooking on them proved immensely challenging. Still, we managed somehow to prepare a feast for four and even Borris approved as he came to sit right next to me with him puppy eyes asking for a “little something”. Hank and Maureen came by for a chat later… and to get their dog back and by the time they left us it was almost midnight again. It was surprisingly cold again and the wind had a real bite to it. We employed the sleeping bags and an extra blanket to keep comfortable and thanks to the absence of the rain cover over our tent, we managed to fall asleep quite quickly, without any flapping noise.

Day 285:

We got up before the sun and the long before the warmth had a chance to return to the desert sands. Packing up camp took very little time and making coffee in the still blowing wind was challenging, but not impossible. We started Maggie’s engine within half an hour of getting up and rolled down the sand dunes back towards the gate. Sunrise was late, at 7:30 and by 8:30 when we arrived back at the office there was not a soul in sight. We hopped over the almost invisible boom gate and carefully planned our assault on the photographic marvel before us. The winds of the night had erased all traces of our visit before and as the light was from the other side. The ripples in the sand were fresh and high and the contrast and shadows were just unbelievable and utterly impossible to describe in words. If it wasn’t for the restored pyramids around us we could have been forgiven for believing that we were the first modern people to discover the site.

With the golden morning light flowing into the tombs we also had a chance to see the ancient writings on the walls. The hieroglyphics were in absolute perfect condition and there was not a single rope or sign prohibiting us from doing anything we wanted. Knowing about the sensitivity of those things we did not use a flash in the photography, but we still managed to crawl inside the structures and explore every angle of them. It took another two hours before our inner explorers were satisfied with the morning’s achievements. By the time we had finished our photographs and walked back to Maggie we were still the only people on Planet Meroe. We saddled up and drove past the empty curio stands and the camel tying stakes and as we got to the tar road again we saw one security guard who greeted us with a massive smile on his face.

We were a little unsure of the “overloading” culture in Sudan and didn’t really want to drive down the massive main tar road with four people on two seats in the front of the Land Cruiser. The concept of public transport from where we were was also a little sketchy to our friends, so we did the only thing that made sense… We kept hold of their luggage while they started hitching. The very first car that came down the road was a brand new and very shiny Hummer H3 and that stopped, offering them a lift, so before we could even get onto the road, Andrew and Lucy were off at great speed. We had however remembered that we had an extra cell phone sim card and gave that to them as a method of communication and we had agreed to meet in the town of Karima that afternoon.

It took us less than one hour to reach Atbara, a big town at a massive curve in the Nile. Our maps and GPS’s were slightly outdated and took us on a tour through the centre of town rather than across the brand new two lane bridge across the river. We found another brand new and perfectly smooth tar road instead of the desert track that our maps indicated and made the journey to Karima, some 250km at a perfect 90km/h average, stopping only once for some well deserved lunch. In Karima we found the main market and found a suitable place to park. We had a walk around without getting a single bit of hassle from anyone and managed to get our hands on some really nice looking fruit and vegetables without getting ripped off. We were just about to put the stuff in the car when we were greeted by a Nubian man with the deepest voice I had ever herd!

Hasmed, the 2m tall giant stood out almost as much as we did in the local market. He told us that he had studied in Mumbai in India where he had learnt English and was very proud of the fact that he was the only fluent speaker of the queen’s in the whole of Karima. He told us that he made a point of having a conversation with every traveller he saw in town because that was the only time he could actually practice his English. He explained how happy he was to chat to us and proceeded in telling us all about his town and culture. He told us about how there used to be steam boats on the Nile to transport produce from Karima to Dongola, the next big town along the river, but explained that since the Chinese came to build a brand new tar road straight through the desert, the boats had been pulled out of the water and left to rust away. That sounded pretty interesting to me, so I asked hi to direct us to the site. I thanked him for his conversation and told him to keep a lookout for Andrew and Lucy while we went to see the boats.

As we locked Maggie after putting our newly purchased produce inside and grabbing some cameras though, Lucy arrived. They had spotted Maggie as they drove into town, but their bus had dropped them off a couple of blocks away. They had taken only half an hour longer to get there than we had and I was amazed! They did tell us that their driver was averaging about 160km/h which explained it all a little better. They dumped their bags and we set off towards the river the find the boats.

They were exactly where Hashmed had said they would be and they were massive! I guessed they were about the same size and age and the Ilala we had sailed on in Malawi. They still had their steam engines and massive chimneys though and the doors into the cabins and the solid wood stairs were still perfectly in tact. It actually looked like you could just drag them back into the river and use them as they were, but no one was really that interested. We explored the yard and found a machine shop with a ridiculously impressive array of lathes and machinery for mending boats and manufacturing metal objects. We even found a huge crane, used to dry dock the rotting giants with a “Product f Ipswich” mark on it. You could see that that had to be the centre of town and all its attractions while the steamers were in operation. The train tracks led straight up to the yard and the market stalls and massive Mango trees where people could hide from the heat was still all there, but totally deserted. Instead, the market had moved and the fruit sellers were using the train tracks to sit on and balance their stands on. The children were playing in the dust in front of the gate and even the village dogs did not venture inside any longer.

That concluded our bit of culture for the day and we set off into the deserts to find a place to camp. Sudan was incredible like that! We had established that it was perfectly legal and also perfectly acceptable to do that. In fact, local travellers had been doing that for centuries and as long as foreigners were discreet about it, no one seemed to care. We were not quite brave enough to ask the police where a suitable place was, but we found a small sandy hill about 10km outside of town and tucked in behind that. It was perfect. We sat in awe as we watched one of those perfect desert sunsets with the massive sun as only the Japanese flag had manage to describe. Long after the actual round shape of it was below our horizon we were still speechless about the incredible colour it had left behind. The bright orange and pink in the clouds kept us mesmerized for another hour before finally darkness set in and the cold came again.

It started confusing us a little. We knew that one could expect cold weather in the desert at night, but all other travellers we had spoken to had been complaining about how incredibly hot Sudan was. They had told us that the nights were uncomfortably warm and explained how they used only the netting parts of their tents to keep the bugs at bay. Yet there we were a mere three weeks after the last ones we had spoken to, wrapped in North Face jackets and sleeping under multiple blankets and sleeping bags. Still, we did not complain. The winds were light and the air was sweet with freshness and in our desert hide away we were, once again, the only people in our universe and loved every second of it!

Day 286:

We had decided that we deserved a lie in that day. No alarms were set and the wind had disappeared in the night, so it was well after 8:00 by the time we dragged ourselves out from under our warm and comfortable bedding. The sun was just peering over the closest hills and the first warmth of it was fantastic! We chatted away while making coffee and feasting on some fruit and formulating a plan of action for the day. The two sites we wanted to visit that day were the Tombs of el Kurru and the Jebel Barkal Mountain in Karima. As tombs required flashlights and not golden sunshine for good photography, we decided to embark on that adventure first…

No knowing the lay of the land the location of the roadblocks we dropped our friends off in town so that they could get some public transport to the closest village. We started driving in that direction when we spotted other overland vehicles, so detoured past the base of Jebel Barkal to say “Hallo”. That ended up being a little stroke of luck as we also established that we had to purchase our tickets for tomb raiding as well as mountain walking at the office where they had parked. Not being able to get hold of Andrew and Lucy we decided to pay all our fees while we could in the hope that they did not discover the same phenomena. So with ticket in hand we simply started following the Nile towards the place where the tombs were set to be. We drove through a fantastically impressive Nubian village made almost entirely from mud and straw. Some houses were perched high on rocky outcrops while others had cleverly used two sides of cracks in massive sand stone as two walls for their houses. The doors were small and amazingly colourful and every single person we passed had the time to stop and greet us. It was almost as if we were inside a fairy tale. We were told how friendly the people of Sudan was, but neither of us every expected them to be that fantastic! At a shop by the roadside we invested in what we referred to as a “desert rug”. This was a 2 x 3 meter carpet made from something resembling plastic straws. It had all the colours and patters of an authentic Persian rug, but it was not anywhere near as expensive or sensitive to direct sunlight and sand as the real deal. We paid SDG 30 ($10) for the prise and moved on happy.

It took half an hour of interesting meandering through mud house villages and waving at friendly people before we found the right area and before we could ask the first person for directions we were approached by an elderly man who said only one word to us: “Ticket”. I showed him our ticket and he immediately pulled a set of keys and a flashlight from his pockets. He was the elusive “Ghaffer” or “Key Holder” we were supposed to try and find to gain access to the tombs, but he had found us. With the guidebook in my lap I found enough words in Arabic to explain that we were “be” (with) “saahim” (male friend) and “sahba” (female friend). I could not find the word for wait, so indicated with fingers that we had one saahim and one shaba and that we would find “gahwa” (coffee) in the mean time. He understood perfectly and showed us to the tea lady’s store. We walked in with a smiley “salam alaykum” and sat down on a welded bed with bright red and blue woven nylon ropes as a mattress/hammock. I held up two fingers as I said “Gahwa” and within seconds two glasses of strong and ridiculously sweet coffee appeared before us. The lady was brimming from ear to ear and invited all the friends that walked past to join us in conversation. By the time our coffee was consumed there was seven of us in the shop and Catt and I were not only the only two who could speak English, but also the only two who could not speak Arabic. That did not deter anyone from any conversation and I even managed to establish that we could buy some “aysh” (bread) from the shop next door.

So bread in hand we rolled out our newly purchased desert rug in the shade of the local bus stop and preceeded in feasting on fresh, warm bread rolls and big juicy tomatoes. The villagers walked past and arrived and left by bus and the man with the key checked up on us every once a while, but no one actually bothered us. No one asked for money. No one insisted on entertainment and every single person that walked past us greeted us, as we greeted them back. I was finally starting to realize that the part of the world we found ourselves in was full of very polite, highly moral and impressively honest human beings and I finally started to accept that instead of question the motives of every friendly soul. I was still contemplating all this when a small child came by with great excitement and indicated that we should follow him. Next the Gaffer came by with the same request and I was convinced that he misunderstood our explanation about waiting for friends. He was pretty adamant and it took a few minutes of hand signals to get to the bottom of it all. The kids had found Andrew and Lucy on the other side of the village and they had run down to get us as Lucy and Andrew did not follow them. The whole community started working together and within minutes we were re-united with the other “khawaja” (Mzungu/Farenji). It was all done with perfect military precision and I was highly impressed.

The gaffer, with key and flashlight in hand pointed us up the narrow road in between the fantastic Numbian houses and kind of indicated that we should park at the end. Directions from there was fairly easy as we spotted no less than two big signs pointing towards structures that were shaped like tunnels you would grow vegetables in. They were however made form mud and straw and on closer inspection is seemed like they formed the gateway into the ancient tombs of El Kurru. The gaffer met us at a small locked metal door and once he managed to open the rusted lock and the door we saw the uneven staircase leading into a dark cave protected by a massive iron gate. I was very happy to have the awesome Fenix Flashlight in hand and descended into the cave like tomb with the light on full strength.

Once inside we were absolutely mesmerised by the incredibly well preserved wall paintings depicting the inhabitants that used to be laid to rest there. The first one was obviously the tomb of a king, apparently named “Tanwetamani” who apparently decided to move the royal cemetery back to El Kuru from the nearby Nuri pyramids. However, once again there was little known about the site. It was believed that the existence of a royal graveyard by the little village on the Nile indicated that it may have been an early capitol city of Kush and the oldest one dated as far back as the 9th century BC. What was very interesting indeed was the fact that the paintings and hieroglyphics were entirely Egyptian. It was believed that the young Tanwetamani took over the rule from his uncle, Taharqa who died around 653 BC and wanted to somehow disassociate himself from the old man who apparently managed to loose Egypt to the Assyrians. The second tomb we visited looked similar to the first, but once inside it was blatantly obvious that it belonged to a woman. It was in fact the tomb of Qalhata, young Tanwetamani’s mother. The paintings on her tomb walls were even better than his and the gaffer even pointed at the ceiling and explained that the sky had been painted on it. He was right. You could make out a few constellations and the deep blue of the desert sky was perfectly matched by the ancient painters. It was incredibly hard to believe that the place we were looking at was painted so ridiculously long ago and managed to stay to incredibly well preserved. The gaffer kind of let it slip that the barbarians (British in that case) stole her mummified corpse at some point. I wasn’t too surprised…

It was mid afternoon by the time we tetarused ourselves into the front seats of the Maggie and headed out the village. It was fairly quiet in the car as everyone seemed to compute the impact of the sites on us as a civilized world. I had incredible trouble dealing with the age of the sites as in the country I came from the oldest building was the Castle in Cape Town. This village we were driving through with the windows open while waving at every person we came across was probably ten times older than that and the people still happily lived in the same houses. Our route took us along the Nile and though the mud houses until we got spat out onto the tar road once again. After we slowed down to drive over the speed bump by the police station and all four of us waved at the police man, we found ourselves at the pyramids by the base of Jebel Barkal again. The 20 structures towering over the massive desert plains were mostly in tact and immensely impressive in the late afternoon sun. We parked Maggie by their base and brewed some coffee with a plan to ceremoniously watch the sunset from the top of the holy mountain. Apparently the ancient Egyptians and Nubians believed that the mountain was the home of their god Amun.

It took us about 20 minutes to get to the top. It would have been much quicker but we were stopped by a few local guys who insisted on taking our pictures using their cell phones. One of them found it hilarious to hit the “record” button on the cell phone’s video camera and just point it all our faces. The top of the mountain was flat and rocky with not a single bit of plant life on it. It did however provide an absolutely stunning perch from which to survey the land around us. The village at its foot was bathed in golden afternoon light and we saw the remains of an ancient temple which was dedicated to Amun on the other side. The temple itself was originally built in the 15th century BC, but kings and pharaohs, including Rameses II expanded it over time. In its hey day it was about 150m long and was the single largest Kushite building ever built. With a little imagination we could make out the “cobra” that was usually seen in carvings of Amun. It was always a small figure that stuck out at the front of his helmet. Spotting the incredible structure from the summit, back dropped by the Nile lined with Date Palm groves was an almost spiritual experience. I could understand why the ancients saw that mountain as holy and sacred. While taking my last photographs in the fading light I saw two local men walking across the vast open expanse of sand about 300ft below us. Their shadows were a few dozen meters long making an incredible image! I also saw what looked like an entrance to another tomb and decided to investigate before it got too dark. We finished our ghawa and headed down the mountain.

On the western side was a partial sand dune which made fro great fun and a very quick descent. We skidded down to the bottom, walked around the tip of the cobra and were greeted by a man swinging a key around his hand holding a flashlight. He was the key holder and we just happened to randomly bump into him… He explained that we were about to enter the Temple of Mut which was dedicated to the Egyptian sky goddess who was in fact the bride of Amun… It started feeling like a cheap American soap operah, but my interest was definitely tickled! Once he opened the door and shone his flashlight on the carvings on the ancient walls I could not believ my eyes! There were life sized figures etched deep into the ancient sand stone and were perfectloy preserved. The h9lder of the keys could speak a little English and explained to us that one of the carvings was of Bes, the protector of all women and Mut was referred to as the “divine mother”. That meant that the queens of the land and other important woman actually used the place to give birth. By that time it was dark outside and I did not have my trusty Fenix light with me, so we made an appointment to see the temple again the next day. I asked for 8:00, but the man with the keys told that it was too cold so early in the morning and that he would be there at 9:00. That seemed fair, so we agreed.

The only thing left for the day was to find a place to camp. There was a very nice Boutique Hotel on the other side of the mountain, but at $150 a night we decided to decline. Instead we drove back past the pyramids and crossed a new shiny tar road. We drove over the first set of sand dunes and found a place that looked like a natural amphitheatre. The wind had carved the dune in a half moon shape and on that particular day it was blowing from a different direction. We parked Maggie close to the bank and made camp. We were totally sheltered from weather and eyes even though we were within 100m from the road. It was almost too strange to believe. After another fantastic feast of a dinner we heard loud music coming from the town, but could not figure out what it was all about. We were only about a kilometre away and was contemplating sending an investigation delegation when I suddenly heard sirens blaring. It was a little strange at first, but then I noticed that the music had stopped. The sirens passed us, made a turn through the town and returned past our dune… and the music started again. We decided it would probably be best if we settled in our magic hide away for the night without venturing into the town.

Day 287:

It was to be another day of driving long distance across the desert, so we got up fairly early. The sun was just over the far away horizon and although the wind was calm, the temperature was very low indeed! With jackets and head scarves we drank our coffee, packed up our camp and hopped over the dunes back to the tar road and the pyramids beyond. We spent an hour walking around the ancient holy temple at the base of Jebel Barkal before the man with the key to the temple of Mut magically appeared at exactly 9:00, as promised.

With the sun still very low over the land the temple’s sandstone interior reflected all available light with made it turn in an eerie place. It was as if someone had installed spot lights the night before and you hardly even needed a flashlight to see the ancient engravings and paintings on the walls. We saw an image of the goddess Hathor as explained by the man and another carving actually outlining Jebel Barkal itself. We stood around with jaws on the dusty floor marvelling at the incredible place for a long time. The temple was protected by a modern metal door and a shaky tin roof over the entrance, but turning your back on all that you could be forgiven, once again, for believing that your name was in fact Indiana Jones and that you had just discovered something of uncalculatable value.

Leaving the holy mountain, the temple of Amun and the temple of Mut was not so easy. It was a spiritual place with an incredible amount to offer and even the town was so friendly that departing felt like leaving your family behind. Yet Sudan had many more treasures to explore and we had learnt from our friends that public transport was best organised in the AM. We dropped them off in front of Hashmed who had already booked them on the first minibus to Dongola, our next destination of choice. They were listed as Mr and Mrs Khawaja and were assured to get there in the shortest possible time. Catt and I drove back to the ticket office where we had spotted some taps and filled some water containers once again. In Sudan’s deserts water was obviously fairly important. However, the locals not only seemed to have taps and hosepipes all over the place, but they had massive clay pots on metal stands which contained drinking water fro anyone who was thirsty. I found that incredibly civil and very much in contrast to the image we were indoctrinated to.

With full water supply and keen interest in what the country could offer next we set off in a westerly direction. As with so many of the other parts of Sudan we had encountered, we found a brand new and very smooth tar road through the desert. We did have to pass through a police road block to gain access though. The man in uniform, who was obviously not in charge, had a look at our passports and then beckoned me into a small marquee tent by the roadside. There I greeted a man who was not in uniform. He had a pair of Top Gun sunglasses and the latest in mobile phone technology seemingly glued to his ear. He was obviously the man in charge. The unformed one told him that we were heading to Dongola and without making eye contact or missing a single word of his in depth cell phone discussion he simply waved me away. That apparently was a good sign as the unformed one then told me that I was “free to go”.

Within three kilometres of the most bizarre road block of the trip we spotted some fellow Khawaja. There were five people having a cup of tea in the desert next to their transport. At first I thought they were motorbikes as they seemed fairly big, but on closer inspection I saw five of the heaviest loaded bicycles I had ever seen, including those ones in Uganda with the bananas on. It was ridiculous what these guys carried and I could see nothing but intense hardship ahead of them. One guy told me that his bike, including gear weighed 120kg. I explained the Blue Nile Gorge to them in the briefest terms I could and told them how another cyclist reminisced about walking down the pass as he kept over heating his brakes when riding. I wasn’t trying to scare them, but they were definitely in for a few surprises.

Catt and I had more important things to do though, so we left them to their tea and 40 litres of water on their bikes. Our journey was quick and easy on perfect roads that were not even mapped yet. We reached the town of Dongola right at the moment of receiving a message from Andrew and Lucy. They had beaten us there on public transport! Admittedly their driver was going at warp speed again, but I was still quite impressed. It took us a while to figure out which bus stop by which market our friends were. Their directions said something about a blue and white mosque, only we saw five of those in town. They said they were at the man market, but we found three big markets and when eventually we found them they had already had lunch and we were starving! They marched us into a local restaurant and promptly ordered us a plate of Fuul. Being Sudan’s staple it was obvious that we should at least sample it and I was pleasantly surprised! It basically consists of a bowl of stewed brown beans with some green pepper and onion in. It’s served with some fresh bread rolls which you use as scoop to get the stuff in your mouth. It is phenomenally tasty and incredibly filling!

With full bellies we could think again and discussed our day’s mission over a fantastic cup of ghawa (Coffee) on the roadside. Catt had managed to totally wear out two of her pairs of trousers and was in desperate need of replenishing her wardrobe. We needed some fruit and vegetables and some bread to take with us as well. So we headed back to what we thought was the main market. The fresh produce section was at least a hectare in size and had everything we needed and wanted. We even bought some beef from a butcher who had hunks of the stuff hanging from meat hooks in his shop. It was quite different to other local butcheries we had seen in other countries. Sudan didn’t seem to have any flies so even though the shop was not cooled, there was no need for mesh windows and doors and there was almost no smell to the stuff. The meat looked healthy and tasty and tender and the price was good too. I tracked Catt down in the two hectare sized clothes market. No one sold trousers for woman and most dresses were about twenty centimetres too long for her. She did manage to find one skirt that fitted her and that was not so bizarre that no on in their right mind would wear it. In fat, it actually really suited her and it only cost about $10.

We loaded ourselves, our newly purchased wares and produce and our friends into Maggie and headed out of town towards our afternoon’s perceived adventure. We crossed back over the Nile by the new fancy bridge and headed south for a few kilometres before heading off into the desert. The sand was hot and soft and 4 x 4 was most definitely required to get us to where we wanted to go. We arrived at a low fence with a small gate and a sign that informed us that it was the Temple of Kawa. It was a 40 hectare site on the banks of the Nile of which we could not see a single thing. We parked up, got out and walked in. It took about ten minutes of walking around before we saw the first sign of ruins. Apparently the site was totally excavated by archaeologists in the 1930’s, but the desert had since reclaimed it again and basically covered everything with sand. What we could see was actually the outlines of the roof structures instead of the remains of foundations as we first thought. To the untrained eye and the not so keep historian r archaeologist, the place seemed a little decollate and slightly boring compared to the sites we had visited, so we did not linger long at all. Instead we drove slightly deeper into the desert. We found a suitable sickle shaped dune to hide behind and made camp early.

The setting was incredible! The definition in the ridges in the sand was amazingly pronounced and in the very late afternoon the small ripples in the sand even made their own shadows. There were no footprints of tyre marks instead for ours and by the time the sun was tickling the western horizon, the wind had even erased our approach. Our chosen camp was secluded for weather though and we spent the remaining hours of the day lazing on our newly purchased desert rug. We read some books and chatted about our travels and eventually prepared a dinner that was fir for a Pharaoh. We skewered the meat we acquired in the market and stacked some vegetables in between the hunks. That was all grilled on the coals and was accompanied by a massive fresh tomato salad. It was not only a meal, but an event and it occupied us deep into the night. The clock was sneaking towards midnight by the time we had surrendered to the food and decided to retire to our respective tents.

Day 288:

Due to the lack in huge pillars and visible structures we decided to give the getting up with the sun approach a miss that day. It was cold and dark when I first opened my eyes so I simply closed them again without saying a word. All four of us had been quite surprised by the low temperatures in the desert. We expected the days to push the mercury high into the 30 degree C’s and the nights not to be much cooler. However I ventured a guess of about 20 Degrees at the hottest part of the day and probably very close to freezing at night. Sunrise was creeping later to about 7:45 and the desert winds seemed to come straight over the North Pole.

Only once the inside of the tent was warmed up by the late rising sun did we deem it necessary to brave the world outside. The sand was still freezing under foot, but the wind had subsided. We had our desert rug rolled out next Maggie in the sun. We sat cross legged there, made our coffee and pretended that we had nowhere better in the world to be. The defrosting of the fantastic four carried on well into the morning and the laziness took over as soon as the temperatures rose to a comfortable height. Packing up camp seemed like a magnificent chore that day and it took ages before we completed the task and set of out of the desert and back to the new tar road. We dropped our friends in town, finding the correct bus station for their next trip and Catt and I went in search of water again. By then I had worked out that if we all used the magnificent bush shower every day we were using about 35 litres of aqua every day, so skipping a refill was not possible. We had the 55l built in tank with purified Nile water for drinking, but I didn’t really want to waste that on other things. The 20l plastic drum we bought in Khartoum was great for shower water and we had obtained three 5l plastic bottles which we also filled every day. The cleanliness of that water was much less important, so we filled it from the first tap we found at a fuel station.

We left town once again and after crossing the new bridge over the Nile turned north towards the town of Kerma. We had heard about an ancient Nubian mud brick building. It was named Deffufa, which literally meant “mud brick building”. We found the Kerma market, according our GPS without much trouble and had a bite to eat while waiting for the rest of the gang. The minibus they had been travelling in arrived as a man who introduced himself as “security” asked for our passports. He was friendly enough and chatted away after making sure that we were not in his country illegally. Andrew and Lucy saw us handing over paperwork and avoided the man by ducking into a restaurant. We were “welcome in Kerma” and “free to go” within minutes though, so we joined them in the eating establishment.

It had become a little bit of a tradition to find suitable fresh produce on a daily basis, and this day was no different. We walked around the market and established that we were in fact not in Kerma yet, but in the village next to it. That did not make the market any less impressive. The citrus was unbelievable and we manage to find a pumpkin, which was a first for us in Sudan. We were also approached by the same “security” man who asked to see Andrew and Lucy’s passports. He painstakingly took down the details of each of them and asked for ours. I did tell him that we had already met, but he still insisted on seeing our paperwork again. Nothing happened quickly in the desert, so it took half an hour for the man to read, translate and copy our passport details on onto a scrap piece of paper. I really did not understand the reasoning.

We escaped bureaucracy as soon as we could and piled into Maggie while the police was watching us. It was evident that putting four people on two seats was just not a problem in Nubia. We followed the GPS to a point which was marked as our Mud Brick Building of choice. Once we reached that point though we started looking for the correct place. We found the river and a place where a ferry was supposed to be, but no sign of the building we were searching for. We asked directions and followed a pointed finger back to town, where we asked for more directions. We followed another pointed finger through another village, which we thought may have been Kerma, but were unsure. Finally we stopped by a corner shop and could actually see a rather high ruined building through the palm trees. We knew it was the one we had been looking for, but could not figure out how to actually get to it. The friendly shopkeeper and his friend knew exactly where we were heading to without sharing a single word in communal language and pointed back towards where we had come from. Less than one kilometre back we were waved at my a man in white Nubian robes and once we stopped he explained that he was the man, the gaffer, for the ticket office to Deffufa. He just happened to be on his way to his house for an afternoon coffee and siesta, but directed us back past some modern ruins and around some newer buildings to the car park to the site. We were driving past tracks and roads that were not on any of the four maps we were consulting at the time, but they all seemed to lead to one place. It was all very strange indeed!

At the car park we had a policeman, this time in uniform, check our passports before we were actually allowed to pay our entrance fee. We pulled out the desert rug and made some coffee ourselves and explained that the sun was high and the temperature too hot for us to move into the compound. That made the locals smile as the temperature was actually cold enough for us all to wear jackets. I had another one of those strange and bizarrely frequent conversations where a policeman refused to believe that I was from South Africa. “But you are white” he said with great concern and confusion. I wrote 16 000 000 on a piece of paper and told him that that was roughly the number represented by my fellow pale skinned individuals in my home country. He couldn’t read my numbers though. So I wrote it in Arabic and he just plainly refused to believe me. Before long we were joined by another group of travellers. There were two Japanese film makers with their Nubian translator, Egyptian guide and South African driver. That was fairly random and mildly interesting and we even got some handy advice on where to find a camp for the night.

The Nubina asked me how I found Sudan and after I totally confused him by saying that we drove right through Ethiopia and found it quite easily, I complimented him on his country and its people. He asked where we were heading to and I told him. I said that we were heading to Egypt and not really looking forward to it. I told him that other travellers had warned us about the dishonestly and expense of Egypt and its people. His Egyptian counterpart obviously took some offence and I failed miserably to lighten the mood when I asked him if we could pay our bribes with him… just to get that part out of the way. I managed to escape by paying our entrance ticket and walking through the small gate in the low mud brick wall.

Once inside the impressiveness of the place struck us like a sledge hammer. The reportedly 3 500 year old mud structures stood some 20 meters tall and had a single staircase leading to the very top. On the ground we saw shapes of structures which according to the gaffer, was there to explain the footprints of the structures around the main building. Apparently the Deffufa once stood at the very centre of Kerma and was possibly the oldest man made structure in Sub Saharan Africa. We walked up and down heaps of gravel and sand which was all left there by archaeologists who had excavated the site before. What really stood out was the insane amount of pottery and clay shards we were literally walking all over. We found marking and shapes and even handles to pots and could not really fully understand why it was just left there. It was as if someone had a massive Greek plate smashing party there a few centuries ago and never bothered to clean up. We spotted the Eastern Deffufa as well with its 30 000 odd graves, but decided to give that one a miss. The day was drawing to a close and we still had not found a place to camp for the night.

As we walked out of the gate we were however ushered to the brand new museum. That seemed really interesting until we were told to pay another fee for entrance. I pretended to be slightly confused and while using the ticket sellers table to sort my camera gear out we all had a sneak peak inside. They had three granite statues of about one meter high and some photographs without annotations inside, so we decided to skip it. Back outside our Egyptian friend suddenly told us that we had to produce our “travel permits” for another “security officer”. We didn’t have any of them and as we understood it, we didn’t need them for the trip we were doing. I played a little dumb and told the supposed man in charge that we had registered in Khartoum and that we did not need the permits he was after. He then asked for photo copies and passport photos for all our documents. I mean, did he actually expect us to carry some spares, just in case he wanted to keep them? Then he wanted to check our passports to write down the details… again.

My next reaction was to ask Andrew; whose side of the car he was on, if anyone had a gun. When he said they were armed with nothing more than pens I lost my temper. I walked around the car and before the man could speak a single word I told him in no uncertain terms that our passports had been checked three times and the details had been recorded twice that afternoon already. I told him that even the man in uniform standing right next to him had recorded our details in his ledger and that we had absolutely no intention of having our time wasted by him any longer. The Egyptian turned as white as the gaffer’s robes and the very confused official stood dumb struck. I walked back to my side, started the engine and drove off. Even my travelling companions were speechless at the way I handled the situation. Seriously though, we had handed over our passports multiple times that day and to people who had not offered us any form of identification for them and I had had enough. I even made a mental note to start asking so called officials for their identification before handing over my own.

It took twenty minutes of driving before we found the granite outcrops in the desert which the South African driver had pointed us to. No one was following and no one had taken a shot… or thrown a pen at us. We found a suitable sized one and hid Maggie behind it. The skies were crystal clear and the temperature started dropping with the setting sun. Before it got dark I had a shower using our trusty submersible pump bush shower again. The others followed suit and as the sun hit the horizon we were all clean, the fire was burning and the food was cooking.

The setting was, as we had become accustomed to, absolutely idyllic. The contrasts between the pitch black of the granite and the white and red of the desert sands were phenomenal. The wind was blowing, but we managed to escape it by huddling up against a big rock. The desert rug was essential once again and the food was fit for kings and queens. It was very cold after the sun left us, but we were suitably prepared. The moon was massive, illuminating the surroundings so much that our camp light was just not needed! We calculated that it was about a week before full moon and could not wait to see the perfect round cheese light from the ferry to Egypt.

If I had to do it again:

Sudan is a country that most people simply transit through to get to “Real Africa”. That’s a shame really. I would have liked to see the museum in Khartoum which we did not even consider. Andrew and Lucy went there and rated it incredibly high. The city has many other sites as well and I kinda wish we had spent more time exploring it.

The times we spent at the other sites were good though. I would have liked to have another little adventure on the west bank of the Nile, but crossing from one side to the other seemed quite challenging north of Dongola. Camping in the desert was something I had been looking forward to since Kenya and I was not disappointed! The temperatures were a bit of a surprise to say the least. I was glad that we had prepared for a four season expedition as Catt even pulled out the thermal underwear once or twice.

The biggest thing that had changed for us was using our won water supply to shower. Up to Sudan our fresh water tank was more than big enough at 55l, but if you’re showering and washing dishes every day I think you need to double that for two people, or carry extra containers to cope with the extra demand, as we had.