|
Welcome to Sudan 18th Jan
And what a welcome it was. Its 5pm at night, having driven across the bridge from Ethiopia, the sun was beginning to set. No children or women to be seen, and the piles of bureaucratic paperwork for which this country is famous (more later) passed quite smoothly and quickly. The officials were courteous and worked efficiently and showed concern for us that we should set off in the dusk in an area known to be a bit dodgy (close to Eritrea). you must stay the night were their cries, and that is where we are now- camped outside customs in our roof top tent with an armed guard. The police even let us use their room as a kitchen- their desk is covered with gas, onions water etc. But best of all- they have left us in peace, no questions, no hassles-just welcome. A breath of fresh air.
Khartoum Monday 23rd Jan
What a difference a border post can make- 2 countries linked by land have proved already to be so contrasting. Here in Sudan the people are openly welcoming- their hospitality and enthusiasm to help goes well beyond the call of duty. We have been able to cite already many instances when we have been lost or unable to communicate our needs. And what is better is that there is no hassle, no beggars, no crime (amputation of digits is the penalty), no unattended children- but where are the women? Despite predominantly a Muslim country, women are not disregarded or overlooked- many are in high ranking positions, and the men are certainly very civil to me. So let us enjoy the social freedom of Sudan, even though there are traveling and financial restraints. We learn that Sudan is the largest African state and that there are 9 countries bordering it- hopefully one will be our exit point.
Our journey here from the border post required just 1 stop over in a small town where we booked into a shabby hotel on the banks of the Blue Nile. Eating a Turkish meal we sat there watching the sunset over the water. From there the road to Khartoum was fresh asphalt for the last 100kms which tho nice for Zebedee meant lorries and overloaded buses behaved recklessly- quite scary. The role of co-driver became an important team member as we faced our first real traffic crisis. A right sided steering wheel and driving on the right makes it difficult for the driver to see when to overtake. Of course in Ethiopia we drove on the right too, but there were no vehicles. Carcasses of camels, donkeys and goats along with crashed vehicles all littering the roadside kind of proves this point. Still we made Khartoum with only Police blocks to stop us in our tracks. Our home here is the Blue Nile Yacht Club- a dilapidated but friendly place on the banks of the Nile next to the Palace. The owner allows overlanders and travelers to camp here for a moderate fee. With basic scruffy ablutions- (tho a flushing sit down loo) and cold showers, being only a 10 min walk from the city centre, this will be our base as we explore our options to get us to the uk. About a km up from here is the confluence of the Blue and White Nile.
Friday 27th Jan Khartoum
And so to our options (in order of preference); 1) Chad, Niger Libya, Tunisia and ferry to Italy- all UN personnel and police here say no- war in Darfur and also within Chad itself. 2) Via ferry to Saudi Arabia and on to Jordan, Syria, turkey and then Europe. People here say visa v difficult to obtain 3) Egypt, Libya etc. Our carnet for the bakkie says no and its a huge rip off expense to enter via wadi halfa ferry (the only route open) 4) returning same route back to SA. NO NO NO! With the above info we have spent a week here trying to obtain necessary papers for option 2. Has been quite a hassle and we still await a visa, but all in all its been a refreshing change. We have shared this sailing club with obviously the locals, but also many different nationalities of overlanders. Independent travelers and group tours from Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, China, Ireland, Uk, Canada- they all have good stories and helpful advice- we hope that we have been able to exchange some useful tips too. An interesting distraction was the coincidence of our arrival with the 5th Annual summit of the newly formed African Union. 50 heads of state arrived here on our 2nd day, residing and conferencing next door at the palace! That gave us 3 national holidays (not good for getting visas), roads closed off our sailing club, and armed guards and police everywhere (including plain clothes inside our camp). Not to mention prettily lit up boats on the Nile and flashing fairy lights in the club grounds. We must have been the most protected and safest tourists anywhere. Without this, Khartoum claims to be the most secure and crime free capital in the world. Night and day we almost looked down the barrel of a machine gun, and then watched gun boats furtively patrol the Nile.
We cannot possible bore you with the jungle of paperwork this country requires from foreigners to travel- we have driven back and forth day after day trying to find out the necessary CORRECT info. Basic English is spoken by quite a few, but the fine technicalities that are so important are missing. To simplify it (and we may not have it correct even now!): you need an entry visa (we got ours in RSA), next -to register with the police as an alien cost $33 each + copies and copies of passport and visa and photos. Once you have chosen your traveling route, you then need to apply for a travel permit with the same copy back up and money, with each town clearly listed. Sounds straight forward- we wish. Our bakkie knows the journey from one office to the other (each inconveniently sited on opposing side of the city). Traffic and driving is beyond description, tho fortunately Khartoum is actually quite a small city and well mapped. So here we sit waiting for travel permit, Saudi visa and ticket for ferry. Cant do one before the other as our passports are at the embassy. The Saudi embassy needed proof of marriage paperwork not physical!! Also had to be over 40, and have a letter of introduction from British Embassy here+ usual insurance papers. At daily visits we are asked to return the next day. Hopefully there will be a decision at our next diary entry. Meanwhile, we sit back and enjoy the Nile and our companions, listening to the calls of prayer (5 times a day) around us and across the river. Its almost too hot to eat- about 40 degrees, so drinking is a premium (alcohol free country). Rog has serviced Zebedee. We have found posh Italian coffee shops and a glitzy shopping mall with European food. Great- have topped up our rations with fruit juices, milk and muesli ingredients to make our own. In fact we have even fine tuned our need to cool down- getting to know which buildings have air-con- banks are a good one- you can go in and sit down and no-one questions!!
1st Feb Khartoum the end is in sight!!
YES, we are the proud possessors of Saudi visas and to heck with the expense and tremendous strain. (for amazing race viewers, we wont ever make it to the final!). Perhaps we are just too old? Next comes the Syrian (we obtained a Jordanian speedily and cheaply), then well be off. Another hold up now is that its the Muslim New Year and a national holiday with everything shut. So while we wait, the locals are yachting, generally sitting around, whilst a sheep that appeared from the back of a truck this morning, chews grass unaware of his fate on the spit tonight. Our unofficial camping place seems to be a waiting place for visas- others have come and gone, and it has seemed we would wait for ever watching our fellow campers head off down south. How come no-one wants to come our way? Anyway-the UK is firmly in our sights with no more embassy hassles- ok, I realize that we are still only ½ way there, but a big hurdle has been overcome, whilst the remainder of the journey should be relatively straight forward. Gulp- did I really say that? So now we cross fingers and hope that we have all the correct paperwork and boat tickets to get us to Saudi in a weeks time.
Would like to interest you with our cultural activities, but as they extend minimally beyond the embassy and travel permit offices, our time here is of little interest to others. You wouldnt even appreciate the joy of us finding a decent coffee shop with wide screen satellite TV and wireless internet. But got you there- cos alert readers will notice that at last I have managed to load our photos onto the website direct from our laptop.----- Well, nearly complete- camera has just broken. Painful.
Driving in Khartoum deserves a mention- its more like a knitting technique- knit 1, purl 1, totally imperfected as most cars- including ours now- have been shunted up the back or side. Only a few streets are tarmaced- the majority are ankle deep in fine yellow sand and rubbish. Brake lights, traffic lights, keeping to one side of the road and signaling are certainly not part of the highway code here.
Foodwise- they make delicious fresh fruit juices- picture a glass with layers of pureed green avocado, orange mango and pink guava. Yum. Less healthy- weve enjoyed the novelty of spit-roasted chicken in buns, beans in rolls, hummus and pitta bread and to spoil it all -oodles of Cadburys chocolate. Most of all though- we shall remember the Sudanese people, ruled by a military regime, totally honest, happy with filthy ablutions, so kind, hospitable and always ready for a conversation with us. We had no idea that our embassy trail was watched by so many in the dusty streets. When we finally left the Saudi Embassy with our visas, soldiers and street people alike, came up to shake our hands to congratulate us on our success! And this is in the centre of a capital city!
Leaving Africa via the Red Sea Monday 6th Feb
We expected to feel a combination of both a sense of loss at leaving Africa, with excitement at what lies ahead in malarial free Asia. Instead we are exhausted and fraught after a 5 hour ordeal at the port. What a farce. We arrived there 7 hrs before sailing time in case there were problems. Sure enough, with our 3 worded Arabic vocabulary (excepting numbers 1-10), and the Sudanese non existent English we were unable to explain that we were trying to board a ferry to Saudi. Even showing passports and tickets did little to help matters. No one seemed to care as we drove around in circles from one police post and unmarked building to another. But at last a soldier took pity on us and escorted in the right direction. After much paperwork we were made to unload the whole bakkie-all clothes, food etc was to be searched by customs officials. The last straw was having our passports and zebedees keys taken off us- imagine our faces when we were led on to the almost empty ferry leaving her behind on the dockside! But obviously things got sorted out and along with 5 other vehicles she was driven on by a crew member just before we finally set sail 3 hrs late. So we are now 2nd class passengers on a ferry crossing the Red Sea from Port Sudan to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, scheduled to take 13 hrs. We declined the captains advice to pay extra for a cabin (I was probably the only woman amongst the 100 or so passengers), and instead found 2 wooden life raft boxes to spread our sleeping bags over. Not a brilliant nights sleep as you might imagine, but the crossing itself was smooth and uneventful.
---back to the last diary entry- we left Khartoum on a brilliant tarred road with little traffic, heading north, following the Nile. It felt so good to be the ones to leave the sailing club, saying goodbye to those left behind. Travel happily and safely were the cries of our new found friends. With such a good road the Kms flew past. We were able to take a bit of a diversion for a last look at the Nile which had been a good companion for over 2 weeks. This meant parking and walking through irrigated fields but was worth it. The Nubian houses here are flat roofed and square- though still made from mud and branches they are quite different from that in the rest of Africa. We were also able to see a few Nubian women out on the streets. Their bodies were completely swathed in bright coloured wraps from head to toe, with a large gold bangle through a nostril. Strange how Sudanese men seem to do all the work- fetching water, going to market to sell and buy. No where else we have traveled has this been the case- it is the men who stay in the shade and the women and children who do all the work. Here the children stay at home with mother and off the streets. Another observation is that everything here is white- donkeys, camels, mens clothing- floor length jelabas, even the haze and desert sands are white.
A last brief interlude found us at some pyramids (nothing as fantastic as Egypts treasures) where a local offered me a ride on his camel. Alas no time! At Atbara we turned due East across the Nubian Desert where we wanted to spend the night under the stars in the middle of nowhere on the way to the port. This route is undocumented but been recommended by a Swiss couple whod described it verbally. When we reached the bit which theyd explained as a bit dodgy we panicked somewhat. We had our views of 360 degrees of nothing but sand--- but where were the tracks?! The Chinese are here building proper roads (as well as laying an oil pipeline), and their heavy duty machinery had ploughed thru everything and taken us off to the wrong area. Fortunately we saw some workers in the distance who cheerfully pointed us in the right direction. Breathing a sigh of relief as we spied more promising tracks, dusk swiftly fell and we put up camp for the night. So we got our starry quiet night- wonderful. In fact it was so peaceful we could hear our own ears buzzing! After the sunset over the edge of the world we watched satellites pass through the Milky Way and then to bed. Much later we awoke with a shock of a rumble-earthquake? No- peering into the darkness from the height of our tent we saw a slow moving train in the distance! Wed not previously found the tracks, even though they were marked on our map (our route was a deviation from the mapped one which did show train tracks). Later we watched the sunrise from the same spot- no one and nothing in sight. The Nubian Desert is beautifully landscaped. There are so many vivid colours and textures. Sand, rock, hard silicates and limestone, granite and volcanic lava presents itself in pinks, greens, yellows, browns, black, greys, and white. Mountains, dunes, and hills gave us so much variety in the 300 kms we traversed. Although its an alternative route to take to get to the ferry and Port Sudan wed strongly recommend it- but take GPS pointers, which we foolishly didnt. Have to admit to another moment of anguish. Robert had warned us to head off northwards (even tho Port Sudan was to the east), to avoid a deep sandy track at a particular point. But heading off in the wrong direction for 75kms was a bit daunting. Just as wed given up and were tempted to turn aroundso did the track-so thank you Robert- how could we ever doubt you! Later that morning we had the fortune of finding a recently broken down dumped bus in the desert. What scavengers weve become- we both set to with hammer and pliers, taking off a number plate and various nuts n bolts for future use! We even took a piece of Perspex for a chopping board and torch lens. The Sudanese police have become a bit upset by our lack of number plate, and as weve been unable to find a place to have a new one made up- our sound option was to make one.
Reluctant as we both were to leave the desert, our Sudanese visas were running out, so we pressed on to the coast. We succeeded in spending 3 last nights wild camping without too much hassle. 1 on top of a mountain enveloped in mist (yes really), comparatively cold and surrounded by rare green vegetation made a very refreshing change. The other 2 nights were on the red sea coast on salt pans which had been reclaimed from dead coral. With only camels, osprey and a few fishermen for company we spent a lazy day or 2, cleaning up and making a new number plate from our desert spoils. Unfortunately out hopes of being able to snorkel were rather put off with lots of rubbish- even used syringes and needles that had been washed up here. Will leave it until Jeddah and Jordan. Id rather glaze over our numerous confrontations with the police who persistently pop up from everywhere preventing us from accessing this unspoilt area but we did succeed in beating them without being put in jail. So there!
Our expenses to date from departing South Africa to leaving the African continent;
81 days Km 16397 = 202 Kms daily
Fuel- R 10730 = R 132 per day
All other spending (excluding mega garage bill in Ethiopia) R 23494 = R 290 per day
For British readers thats 36 UK pounds a day for all fuel, ferry, visas and living expenses. Not bad eh?
|
