In an amazing stroke of luck, we managed to get our Sudanese visas a day early. On receiving the visas, we hightailed it to the port where our fixer, Kemal, assisted us in purchasing tickets on the ferry leaving for Wadi Halfa that evening. Once we received the tickets, we breathed a collective sigh of relief. However, the fun was far from over as we still had to actually board the boat.
As in most countries, this involved paying departure tax, making our way through customs and getting stamped by passport control. Contrary to the situation in most European countries, these people do not queue (clearly British colonialism did not establish much in this area of the world). Not to be put off from boarding the only vessel for the next week, we joined the fray. This required us to bash through the melee of people attempting to make it through these separate areas. Customs was the best as people were trying to bring through a lot of consumer products to sell in Sudan and there were massive duffel bags, general luggage, prayer carpets and dudes with televisions, a/c units and all sorts of other things strapped to their backs. On top of this, the customs area was tiny and everyone tries to push through at the same time. Obviously a massive crush develops, things get trampled, everyone starts screaming, the cops go nuts and bags get ripped open in the middle of the floor. No one was bothering with the x-ray machine that was taking up about the third of the space in the passage way though. We barged on through with the best of them, climbed over the x-ray machine and screamed a bit when required. The cops took one look at us, decided that they had more pressing concerns than looking though our luggage and waved us on. Our tickets and passports were then checked by about 20 people, all seemingly separately employed to do exactly the same thing. Finally, after a very intense hour and a half (this is seriously amazing in terms of timing) we made it onto the boat about six hours ahead of when it was due to depart and settled in to wait. Given the heat, we decided to stake out an area in the dining compartment until it was okay to go outside. For the next six hours, cargo just kept coming in, until in order to walk anywhere we had to climb over boxes, bags, prayer mats (shoes off please) and people. To illustrate the tensions involved in loading this ship, an actual knife fight broke out at one point – all the Sudanese on the boat were very quick to point out that the knife wielding culprit was Egyptian. We decided that this was a good time to leave the dining area and sit ourselves down in a quiet corner on the deck. Shockingly, the boat only left about 20 minutes late. We watched the sunset as we departed the port in Aswan and spent the night sleeping on the roof above the captain’s area on deck. The next day we awoke to views of Abu Simbel in advance of our arrival in Wadi Halfa, Sudan.
One of our friends kept asking us for the past five months or so when we were getting to “real Africa”. I can confidently say, once we hit Sudan, we had arrived. Welcome to Africa. The first thing to say about Sudan is that the people are absolutely lovely. This was a massively refreshing change from Egypt where, as you will have noted from my previous posts, they were not. Everyone wants to say hello, chat, have a photo taken, offer you food, buy you tea and generally be your friend. See below a relaxing wait for a ride in the desert and love wagon that turned up eventually.
No one asks for money. When money is required, it has to be changed on the black market to get a decent rate as the government sets a ridiculously strong rate on the Sudanese currency. This is pretty much accepted, however, and our final change of Egyptian to Sudanese was undertaken in front of the police officer we were trying to register with in Wadi Halfa. Also, there are no cash machines that accept foreign credit cards, so one has to bring in all the currency one wants to use.
Accommodation took a MASSIVE dive in Sudan. This is definitely an area where you would be best overlanding it with your own vehicle and tent! To give a general example, on one of the nights in North Sudan we were paying $10 for our room, which (shock) had a fan. I maintain that this is expensive, given that it was really a store room and the lokanda was camped out in by the male population of the town from what I could gather. This meant that every ten minutes or so, someone came into our room to grab bedding or a bag that had been stored. All with a big smile though and no concern that they were totally invading your space. I will not even mention the toilets. Things not available in North Sudan included: private bathrooms, a/c, sit down toilets, toilet paper, (occasionally) showers, sheets that had been cleaned (actually this has been consistent everywhere) and beds that were not camp beds, electricity (occasionally) and internet. I just kept telling myself that, in effect, I was camping as this allowed me to be somewhat more accepting of these deficiencies. Suffice to say, not worth coming to Sudan if you cannot rough it a bit. Also, within 3 nights we were both covered in what we expected are bed bug bites (and later found out were actually sand flea bites) and ended up taking the precaution of traveling with a can of fly spray. Not sure this really did anything, but it certainly made me feel better being able to spray down the beds.
We decided to make our way down the Nile to Khartoum, stopping at towns that had tourist sites along the way. Beginning from Wadi Halfa (where the boat docked), we went to Abri, Wawa, Kerma, Dongola, Karima, Atbara and Shendi, before arriving in Khartoum. These all had some site or other from either the Egyptian rule in Nubia, or the kingdom of Kush, but the real activity was interacting with the people, checking out the scenery and surviving the ridiculous heat.
These water urns are everywhere in Sudan. No matter where you go, there will always be water and it will always be free. There is also always a single cup that everyone drinks from. No wonder it is part of the meningitis belt.
Wawa was pretty interesting in this regard. We did not have heaps of information on Sudanese sites as the Lonely Planet has a very short section on Sudan and (as noted) we had no internet, so when we read that there was a Middle Kingdom temple to see in Soleb across the river from Wawa, we went ahead and turned up. As it turns out, Wawa is just a cluster of houses. There are no shops and certainly no hotels. This did not matter much, however, as within 5 minutes of arriving in the town and miming this question to the local guys we met, they insisted that we stay with them. Given that there seemed to be no other option, we did not argue too much. Staying with them resulted in us being given beds, access to their house, being fed breakfast, lunch and dinner and having the town generally invited over to partake in mimed conversations with us. The family then refused to accept any money for having us. Ironically, this place was much nicer than most of the lokandas we have stayed in. Also, we got to take camp beds outside the house and sleep under the stars – which was basically amazing, partly because we were sleeping under the stars in Sudan and partly because it is just too damned hot to sleep inside.
Karima was worth visiting as well as they have a bunch of cool pyramid sites and the town is cute. We actually got to climb a pyramid here (scarier than anticipated) and hang out at the top until a guardian came over screaming at us in Arabic, saying what I can only assume was ‘get down!’. He did not forget to ask for baksheesh though. The restaurant we took to frequenting also did a delicious mutton soup / stew thing.
The final stop we wanted to make in North Sudan was at the pyramids of Begrawiya and this course of events resulted in a crazy couple of days. We began by leaving Karima early in the morning for Atbara. Before even getting into Atbara, a cop stopped us and wanted to take our papers from us. We insisted that we needed them. He insisted on a copy. However, he would not give them back to us in order to make a copy in the souq in town. After a fairly long battle, we finally won and it was agreed that we would send a copy back with the driver of the van when he went back through. This achieved, we then went to security in Atbara and spent a good two hours attempting to register with the police (required within three days of arrival in Sudan – for various reasons, we were doing this on day eight). This involves about three different officials signing the paper, 20 people having a good gawk at our passports, paying for stamps for the form, paying for the sticker for the passports, being entered in about three different log books, and finally receiving a nice green sticker in our passports (and a few more stamps – they do love a good stamp). On receiving this coveted goal, we hopped on a bus to Shendi where it was necessary to stay the night. I have never been run out of a town before, but I can now say that I have. On arrival in Shendi we found the only lokanda in town, which was also incredibly grotty. There was no one around, so we just took a room, locked our stuff in it and went into town. When we got back we were informed that we could stay, but that we had to go to see security. The security guy was a douche and clearly had a problem with me being there (possibly because generally women do not stay in lokandas). At any rate, he made it clear that we were to sleep and then get on the next bus out of town to Khartoum in the morning. We then received a minder for the evening. Obviously, we had no intention of listening to the guy and the next morning we got up at 5.30 and snuck out of the lokanda before anyone could stop us (easy, because while they will all tell you how hard they work and how expensive everything is, try getting anyone up to do anything pre-10am and you will be fighting a losing battle) and got on a bus to Begrawiya. These pyramids are somewhat decrepit, but very dramatic emerging between dunes of apricot colored sand. We felt like heroes hiking between the pyramids in the ridiculous heat with all our packs on (not necessary if we had not been run out of Shendi).
We were running very low on water and about to begin the process of hailing down a bus to Khartoum on the side of the desert highway when a South African saturation diver who had just finished a job in Port Sudan drove past and offered us a ride. It took us all of about a second to agree and throw our stuff in the back of his ute. This turned out to ultimately be a fantastic choice (see below), but at first it was more questionable. Having just come up from a month of saturation diving, our new friend, Johan, was basically partying his way back to Khartoum. This involved slugging bootleg Eritrean gin and smoking weed as we hurtled down the highway. Possibly not the worst activities after a month long saturation dive, but it did concern us somewhat in this strict sharia law country. Periodically we were stopped by the cops asking for bribes, at which point Johan would throw the joint out the window and Thomas would suck heavily on a cigarette he had lit up in the hope of getting rid of the smell. In any event, on chatting, we learnt that Johan was heading to Dubai that same evening, but had a ridiculously fancy room at the Rotana Hotel in Khartoum booked so he could have a shower. He then offered us the room for the night. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, we obviously jumped at the chance. The place was incredible. We went from our room from the previous night ($10 NZ and NOT worth that – it was disgusting), to this palatial place that was US$370 per night (the club suite), not including the fancy dinner and breakfasts that he insisted we make use of. Well, it would have been rude not to. That said, I am not sure I would have been as generous to two scruffy unwashed and unknown backpackers just on the basis that he too had been a young backpacker once.
Khartoum itself is not much to write home about, although it is a very green city and it is surprising how much the Nile, even right in the center, is still pretty and undeveloped. We did pay for eight students to ride a ferris wheel so we could see the place where the Blue and White Niles meet. Possibly the best thing we did in Khartoum (other than get to stay at the swanky hotel) was going to a Sufi Friday celebration where the local dervishes got going African styles with music and dancing. Apparently it is not “dancing”, but communing with Allah. I am going to admit, it looked pretty much like dancing to me. But then, I don’t think anyone would say I was a particularly enlightened individual. One guy was particularly excellent in fake fur and tribal outfit going nuts with a wooden rifle. I can say this, all the stories about African Islam being more colorful than the Arabian version are definitely true. These guys were absolutely epic.
In order to travel any further in the country from Khartoum, it is necessary to get a permit from the Ministry of Antiquities, Tourism and Wildlife. This we dutifully did. As you will have already realized from the descriptions above, we are not fans of the security guys, and notwithstanding our pretty permits, visas and registrations, they still managed to pick on us. African big man syndrome at its finest. We have taken to carrying around heaps of photocopies of every permit, passport page, visa and registration that is remotely required of us in order to avoid handing over our passports to these guys – obviously once they get these, it is game over and they can detain you as long as they feel like holding on to them. Sometimes it satisfies them, sometimes not. Regardless, whether they get the original or not, they cannot read the damned things anyway.
After Khartoum we headed to Kassala in eastern Sudan (one of the places we could get a permit for). Kassala was worth the trip and while slightly less friendly than the north, it is certainly vibrant. It is right on the Eritrean boarder and they have spicy coffee all around the place and people from various tribes in the area with some pretty sweet nose piercings (right through the middle). We spent a day going out to the Khatamiyah area and hiked up Jebel Totil from where we could see down into Eritrea. We also got chased off one area by a bunch of barking baboons – I was not a hero and boosted it out of there. Finally, there was an area with the closest item to tourism that we have seen in Sudan where a lot of cute (but amazingly tacky) huts were set up to enjoy coffee and tea served with popcorn and a bunch incense to keep the flies away.
Our final day in Sudan was pretty much indicative of the place. We met a fantastic guy that helped us and paid for two bus trips for us, we dealt with irritating security police, we ate fuul, we stayed in some the grottiest accommodation yet where Thomas had to accompany me to the toilet, stand guard and then swat bugs off of me once I came out and jumped around excitedly and fell asleep sharing the remnants of our bottle of contraband whisky for which 80 lashes is the typical punishment. A perfect ending.
And a final picture of the amazingly friendly Sudan…
June 2013