We were up and loaded into local minivans for the drive up to the mountains from Gondar, for our morning of trekking, after an hours drive on dusty roads we arrived and were quickly surrounded by local villagers. We hiked through some spectacular scenery, clinging to the sides of mountains with little foliage to stop us should we slip. We were lucky to see some Columbus monkeys, which reminded us of the black and white ruffled lemurs in Madagascar. These monkeys were jumping down from trees to the ground, about 20 meters! Then running to the next tree! The 10 of us were soon walking with about 50 local people, many of these young kids with the sole aim of earning a tip from helping the ‘white people’ over the terrain that they were just not designed to! Honestly I was getting a bit huffy at being dragged up slopes that I could easily managed by myself, I was thinking “I am white, but I know how to walk!” We sat and watched baboons running in the distance and strolled through young kid’s herding goats and cows. The scenery was spectacular; I am still amazed at the landscape of Ethiopia, mountainous, green and rocky in some areas with incredibly abrupt cliffs and escarpments. We returned back to the vans and were surrounded by our initial ‘friends’ and then some more! On the drive back our driver seemed intent on sitting right behind the other van making us breath dust for an hour, we had thought that he didn’t speak English, but after a couple of comments between ourselves about the dust he dropped off slightly.
Spencer and I headed back to our favourite cafe for lunch, today it was fruit punch; layers of mango, avocado, papaya and strawberry juice, so thick that the straw was useless and the spoon was the instrument of choice! Followed by a soft drink (it was hot walking) followed by chips and tomato salad, this seemed incredibly light on tomato and incredibly heavy on onion and chilli. After I had put all of this into my stomach I forced a tiramisu in for good measure and waddled out, not before watching a 1990’s episode of friends which has some weird ass stuff happening to the voices!
From there he hired tuk-tuks to the Dashen brewery for our free brewery tour, we were very excited, but this didn’t last long, brewery tours don’t run on Sundays! After talking kindly to the lady we were able to meet the manager, who organised for a staff member to come out from town to conduct the tour. As the staff member had to be summoned there was a delay and time to be filled, in the bar, in the form of two 3lt beer towers between the 8 of us. When the tour started we were told that our cameras would need to be ‘minded’ by the security. As I have a huge mistrust of security guards of any description in any country I offered to stay at the bar with all the cameras, (there was some serious camera gear, too serious to be left with any security guard, especially at a brewery!) I had two beers and had acquired three Ethiopian ‘friends’ by the time everyone else returned from the tour, I was also quite on my way to being drunk. We were intent on drinking our remaining Ethiopian Birr before crossing the border into Sudan the next day, this occurred easily! We had a great night with good conversation and company in a fantastic beer garden, which you just wouldn’t expect to find anywhere outside of a capital city of a developed country!
The following morning was a world of hurt and pain for me and a few others, bendy and bumpy roads in the heat and about three hours at the border are not fun on a hang-over!
About thirty kilometres short of the Ethiopia – Sudan border we were pushed forward by the truck slowing down, then felt two bumps as the back wheels went over something. A few of the blokes stuck their heads out to see a fully grown goat and a younger goat go under the wheels of the truck, two days later they were still talking about how the mother goat’s stomach split from the impact and a baby goat popped out. I was never so glad that I didn’t look out the side of the truck, I quite like goats, but they are not so smart...as these two proved, they just didn’t move off the road even though that had a 18t truck bearing down on them with the air horn screaming!
We didn’t think that would be the end of the goat issue, we stopped for lunch just before the border as Spencer and I came back to the truck we saw Mark sitting in the cab arguing with some police officers with the crowd of locals swelling by the minute. The farmer had gone straight to the cops and they had followed us down the road. Initially they wanted $300 USD as compensation for the goats; he eventually got this down to $50 USD per goat, we were not sure if the baby goat was counted as a third goat or not. As the police were not going to let us out of Ethiopia, the fine was paid. The cops get about half of the money for their troubles and the farmer gets the rest. Mark was unable to make the police officers understand that had he smashed on the brakes that we would have been seriously hurt in the back as there are no seatbelts, he asked the police officers if the farmer would have paid him had one of us been hurt in avoiding the goats! The ‘food group’ (people cooking that nights dinner) felt that for $100 USD we should have been able to keep the carcasses, they were well tenderised!
We have no problems at all exiting Ethiopia, no forms to fill out, just a ½ hour wait in the emigration office, (which was air conditioned, much to everyone’s delight!) then we walk over the border to the Sudan side. Again a very loose border, I believe that you would have little issue in strolling through without the official documentation, however I am sure I would not want to be caught trying it! First stop over the border is the money changer, not the official one, just one in a mud and dung hut, but he was offering such a rate that there was no bartering required! We were under the impression that we had to pay for our registration in Sudan at the border; however we later found out that we now pay in the capital Khartoum (equivalent of $50 USD, so the officials can look after us whilst in the country). Next stop was a ‘bunnings’ style garden shed to get out passports bio and visa page photocopied, after waiting for this we take on the immigration office, standing by the desk in some form of line, not knowing where we need to stand, if there is a line, or what the process is! There are about 30 odd locals waiting patiently in chairs, we were served ahead of them, not sure if it was just so the official could clear away the mass of foreigners from his desk! So after making some form of a line, out passports and photocopies are requested and looked at, then a form stapled to it, we fill out the form and line up again to hand it back, then they are shuffled left, shuffled right, then left again before being stamped three times, “bang, bang, bang” (must be the most enjoyable part of the day for a border official!) And we are told to go to customs. Finding customs was not as easy as we assumed it would be, it was a hundred meters up the road, in a wire mesh building with absolutely no signage, there were hotels and shops and I think a jail between the two buildings. I tried to walk into every building between the two! Once there we wait and answer our names etc etc then we are free to go. Back in the truck we realise that we are going nowhere fast, the truck’s engine number could not be found, despite a large crowd of officials, passengers and onlookers surrounding the upturned cab! Four hours after arriving at the border and after phone calls to Tanzania, we were off, but not before I had wandered into the streets behind the border in search of bananas, a friendly local shopkeeper assigned a guide to show me where to buy them (no payment required, he wouldn’t even accept a banana!) I looked at a table and wondered what all the black lumpy stuff on it was, and then a kid waved his arm over the black mass which was moving to show that the whole table was covered in offal and meat cuts which were swarmed with flies! (I was super glad that I don’t eat land animals at this time, and there was not a fish in sight!)
It was amazing to see that after the border crossing the land changed dramatically again, we bid farewell to the hills and green scenery of Ethiopia and hello to dusty and sandy plains. We bush camped very close to the highway, I was surprised at the amount of traffic all night, many fuel tankers, busses and other trucks rolling along for most of the night and the occasional traditionally dressed man on a motorbike with robes flowing behind!. Just before dinner a local farmer herded his cattle through camp, and again the next morning after breakfast.
We all slept with the rain covers off the tents as it was very warm, I didn’t even take my sleeping bag off the truck (it’s infested with something still anyway, but more about that later) About five in the morning it started getting light, I was dozing and heard someone walk through camp, just assuming that it was one of our fellow travellers, they almost walked into our tent and I heard a ‘ohh’ sort of sound, then I noticed that there was no zipper sound of someone crawling back into a tent and realised that it must have been a local quite surprised to find a bunch of campers in his grazing area. I was telling someone else this on the truck the next day; she confirmed a strange being near out tent as she was camped next to us.
This was also the site of some of the worst ‘tentering’ (a word Spencer made up when tongue tied, whilst trying to make out that he was more experienced at putting up tents and therefore better, than I, and we all know that’s just not true!) So that night I go to crawl into bed and there is something under the tent, it’s sitting up at least 20 cm on my side of the tent (yes we have his and hers sides of the tent (now called ‘territories own”) So I ask what it is, to hear “must be grass”..hmm, there is f&*k sweet all grass around here, just thorns and those ‘bindi’ type prickles that go straight through the soles of most footwear! So I punch the object, it hurts my hand, but feels spiky and I announce that it was a hedgehog...not cool, apparently (yes, I was joking! There are about as many hedgehogs in Sudan as there are tigers in Africa!). So I get my clothes back on and get out to lift the tent to find a rock that was the size of a football under my side of the tent! This gave everyone a bit of a giggle the next morning!
The next day just got hotter and hotter, peaking, officially at 39 degrees, a thermometer on the truck broke after hitting 50 degrees, at 8pm in Khartoum it was still 31 degrees, I log onto facebook to see that Megan is in Darwin wearing a ‘slopy joe’ and is freezing her ass off! The UK people are struggling and I was feeling like I was back in Darwin, the expected low was for 28 degrees!
To take photographs in Sudan you need a photography permit, if you are caught with a camera and don’t have this permit you are arrested. The only issue is that you can only get this permit in Khartoum, two days drive! There is nothing like seeing your first fully grown man in white flowing robes riding at full pace across the desert on a DONKEY! And not being able to snap a picture!
Drinking as also prohibited in Sudan (a few of the blokes on the truck are a bit happy about this after two weeks worth of 25 cent beer indulgence in Ethiopia!), if you are caught with alcohol you are arrested, the truck can be stopped anywhere are searched. We were stopped at a number of checkpoints during the day, the first one the official was standing beside the truck shouting ‘passports’ at us, he didn’t even appear to wear a uniform, after checking these closely we were away, our passports now in the cab to speed the process up for the following checkpoints, I think we passed about 10 for the day, although they are a pain in the ass and slow you down, they are used to make sure that trucks etc get to where they are supposed to, on the west coast the police went looking for the truck after it failed to make it through the next checkpoint as they had made a bush camp for the night!
Before lunch my brand new hat (I’d literally worn it for a few hours ,seems the story of my life of late!) blew off my head and out the side of the truck, before I’d realised that it was out of the truck we were well down the road. The hat cost about 10 birr per hour of use that I had out of the thing! So disappointing though, I have been looking to buy a new hat since Cape Town, and finally found one that I liked, I’d only had it a day!
The people of Sudan are incredibly friendly, and seem truly pleased to see foreigners visiting their country. My arm is close to worn out after returning waves at adults, elderly and kids all eager to see us! Driving into Khartoum was interesting, we were hoping not for an accident to occur by one of the drivers straining to look up into the truck and not watching the road! When we stopped for falafel and spiced tea for lunch the spiced tea lady didn’t have change of a 10 pound note, the tea was one pound. A man nearby offered to pay for me (he was an old man, not a sleazy one!) saying “I pay for your tea as you are my guest in this country” As one pound is quite a bit of coin for the average Sudanese (and about 40 cents to us), I went and got some change and took it back, thanking him and shaking his hand, he laughed saying “you are very intent on paying!’. Spiced tea is delicious, so good that most of us were drinking it hot even in 40 degree heat!, I was planning a business venture for ‘iced spiced tea’ distribution, surely there is a market for it here!
Sudan has more of a Middle East feel to it than African, you see men in white flowing robes wandering through desert like surroundings, or riding on camels or on the back of a donkey that is pulling a crudely made water cart. Ladies covered from head to toe in dark coloured robes. Tuk-tuks are in abundance, and are also very abundantly decorated, I even saw one with the wheel caps like of grease (you know the ones that cut into the bodywork of the other car!) I think Sudan is going to take over from Ethiopia as my second favourite African country (Madagascar still sitting high at number one!)
We arrive in Khartoum to find that the “National Camping Residence” (who would have thought they would have such a thing?) was full and overflowing, so we move closer into the city to the Blue Nile Sailing Club, which feels like we have just pitched our tents in the Darwin Trailer Boat Club! (Instead of the ocean we have the convergence of the Blue and White Nile’s as out waterfront view!) The added bonus was a free, drinkable and COLD water fountain! Heaven! And free wifi internet, soon all laptops were out and discussion lulled as people stuck their heads into news from home, facebook, emails and other random tasks.
Khartoum is a very modern city by African standards, the outskirts of it put me in mind of how I imagine Dubai to be, lush golf courses and some flashy apartment blocks rise from desert like surroundings, having a city on the Nile means lots of irrigation water for crops. As oil was discovered about 10 years ago, there is a lot of ‘new’ money in Sudan; it will be interesting to see if the crime rate increases as the gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ increases. We have felt safer in Sudan than any other African country, it’s hard to believe that it is listed by smart traveller as a ‘do not travel’ destination, most of the problem is in the south of Sudan, which we are not going to and centres on the south of Sudan wanting to become independent of the rest of Sudan, but as the oil is in the south, it’s not really in Sudan’s best interest to let the south ‘take the oil and run’. There is a referendum planned for early 2011, and violence is expected in the lead up to that, we will be out of Sudan in nine days time, well before the referendum. You can easily walk in the city without being hassled for money, so far I have only had three people ask for money in three days in Sudan, you would have three a minute in some other countries! Everyone that we meet just seems so genuinely friendly!
We found out that our house is still empty...gurgle, gurgle, gurgle of money down the drain! Although we did hear that two different people have put in application forms, so here’s hoping someone moves in soon, we dropped the rent by $40 a week, just to get anyone in the place!
The next morning some people headed off to the ‘Alien registration office’, no s^&t, that’s it’s official name!, it’s the office where you have to register if you are a foreigner in the country, and pay $50USD! I went along with the food group to find the supermarket, a magical mystery tour in its own right. Khartoum is a city with quite obvious ‘new’ money, lots of electrical shops and mobile phone shops, but nothing that even resembled a supermarket. We asked lots and lots of people for directions, each one a contradiction of the other, until we found an American girl who was happy to walk us to a local market. Whilst the food people bartered for bread and vegetables myself and Jules sat down on mini stools with a man peeling onions, they put the vegetables on the sales stands pre-peeled, he told us that they sell better that way as they look better, it is also common practice to cut the bottoms off carrots, but not the tops. The man tells us that he has been to Australia to play football! Two white women sitting without our heads covered in the market in Khartoum attracted quite a bit of attention from the surrounding people! From there we went to source falafel, 144 pieces for 12 Sudanese pound, or around $5 AUD, after looking at the falafel through the barter process we decided to have lunch there, it was so delicious that we went back and ordered the same again! From there we took our bags of food and tried to find a taxi who knew where the Blue Nile sailing club was, we had read that the taxi drivers here didn’t know where anything was, it was spot on. With us directing him we push our way through intersections with 40 odd eggs loose on a tray balanced on Ish’s lap, with cars coming at us from all directions! Spencer and a couple of the blokes went for a swim in the ‘club’ next door to where we are staying, the man demanded to know how they knew there was a pool at the place, then charged 10 pounds and hour for swimming, so $4 each hour! Females are not allowed to swim, no even fully clothed! (Not happy Jan!) So I am sitting here in my long pants drinking copious amounts of water with all the other females.
And I’ll just finish with a Sudanese toilet story...(just for s&*ts and giggles) So I was squatting happily behind a nice small tree on the side of the road, feeling a million miles away from civilisation and about a hundred meters away from my travelling companions, just taking my time and enjoying the scenery, when I hear singing and hooves and before I can move anywhere a man rides past on his donkey, singing at the top of his lungs with his white robes flowing behind him! (Only in Sudan!)
Oops! Forgot about the bed bug infestation that has taken over the truck...the communal blankets that travel on the beach have been binned, the cushions etc were all taken out and sprayed, we have strict instructions from Mark to wash our sleeping gear and clothes whilst in Khartoum, people with down sleeping bags were just not keen for this and put them in a black plastic bag in the 40 degree sun to kill any unwanted visitors!, one casualty of the de-bugging was a sleeping bag was ‘accidentally’ thrown out by the staff here, quite ironic that is the US citizen who they were originally not going to let into Sudan! Searching high and low did not produce the sleeping bag!
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