“Walk like an Egyptian”.....errr, more like "Push and Shove like an Egyptian"!

After a ‘mission’ to buy a hat and some dinner from the supermarket which went less smoothly than expected, I am possibly not in the best mood to be typing this....however it may make for more amusing reading for you lot!

So I find myself, after four days in the country amazed by the amount of pushing and shoving that occurs every moment of the day, both on the roads, on the foot paths and in the shops. Unbelievable, it’s worse than a public school canteen line when the teacher ‘forgets’ their yard duty!

So how is it that you handle yourself in a country where ‘pushing in’ is not just culture, not just a pastime, not a national obsession, not even a way of life, it’s just NORMAL? Honestly, lining up is as foreign to Egypt as 10mm of rainfall! I even witnessed our driver pushing his bus in to get in front of the bus ahead of us whilst we were in an armed convoy! Like we were going to get anywhere faster! Tonight at the supermarket I ended up with two boxes of biscuits being thrust almost up my nose and imbedded into my brain by a lady wanting to be served before us, and our groceries were half way scanned! She did manage to push well in front of the 20 other people with outstretched goods, a respectable effort some would say!
Walking down the footpath is a slower version of what occurs on the roads, there is no noticeable side to drive or walk on, just the side that looks the best at any given moment. Foot traffic has a habit of stopping still, halting traffic flow or veering wildly without indication, just like on the roads. Kids are a law onto themselves (well that’s true in every country!) But I cannot resist telling you of the kid who couldn’t see me in my bright yellow t-shirt with bright green zebras on it, like six of the stripy animals, wearing my bright red crocs and carrying my bloody huge yellow and black bumblebee looking camera bag and crashed right into my hip, yeah collected straight onto the hip bone with his skull bone making a thud, now it hurt me, but he must have concussion! I just dread the day when he starts driving...possibly in two years!

So for anyone travelling to Egypt soon, here is the benefit of my experience of pushing with the best of them (I have accumulated three bruises in learning the following)-

1. Sharpen your elbows, seriously, if you are spending more than one month here, you may want to consider a surgical procedure to make the point of your elbow sharper
2. Get a big bag, preferably with sharp edges, and a handle which allows maximum control for swinging wildly at people
3. Aim for the parts that hurt; kidneys, ribs and the neither regions on males are the only areas to bother landing an elbow, suitcases are ideal for shins and thighs and work remarkably on ribs and heads; although be wary of taking out anyone who has their head at a height where you can easily smash it with a suitcase, either they are a midget and you will be accused of discrimination, or someone else has hit them before you and you may get accused of laying injuries that you just didn’t dish out
4. “Cant beat them join them”... this is the pure reason why Egypt has adopted a national sport of pushing and shoving. No one person will ever change how things are, not even you! You can stand back and be civilised, but you will die of starvation or old age right there! Get your elbows out and get ready if you want to see anything in this country!

After you have pushed and shoved your way into the country (yep, customs at the border was still the worst ‘shove-fest’ that I have been a part of, I’m still cleaning the man sweat from my arms!) you then need to contend with the millions of sleazy men in this country. I am not sure if the sleaze is due to the excitement over a white female who is showing more than her eyes to the world, or if it is the erotically shaped coke bottles in these parts (I know that coke bottles are designed to look like a woman’s torso, but these are just unbelievable, closer to Barbies proportions than a normal coke bottle! AND only hold 191ml, now what use is 191ml when it’s 40 degrees?) It is common practice for men to hit on females, I wonder if they are surprised when foreigners actually say ‘no’! Just be careful not to stand in the back of a shop as most shop keeps are males and the shops always seem to have a small entry and exit area where the shop keeper tends to stand in, blocking you in!

I am missing the relative peace and quiet of Sudan, Egypt being a tourist country has perfected all the tourist trap tricks like over inflated prices and the old “where are you from?” Like you really give a s&*t where I am from? You didn’t even listen when I said I was from China and you just told me you were from China too! You just want to get my money out of me quickly! So far today we have been asked if we were from Slovakia, Ireland, South Africa, China, Australia, Ireland again, and Slovakia again, People didn’t flinch when I said I was from Slovakia and New Zealand, but I’m not sure what the bloke who asked if I was from Ireland was on, way to tanned for that!

Yesterday Morning we were up at 2.30am to board a bus at 3am for Abu Simbel The twin temples were originally carved out of the mountainside during the 13th century, the complex was relocated in its entirety in the 1960s it was cut into blocks and removed and placed back together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. The relocation of the temples was necessary to avoid their being submerged during the creation of Lake Nasser, which is the lake we took the overnight ferry from Sudan to Egypt on. It is a massive artificial water reservoir formed after the building of the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River. Still amazed that you have to take a ferry from Sudan to Egypt, I did hear the conspiracy theory that the ferry company was paying off the roads authority to NOT build a road connecting the two countries to protect their earnings!

So we get on the bus to be told “sometimes I drive left, I drive right, I drive left, but don’t worry” by our driver….way too early in the morning for such statements! Besides after four months in Africa, I don’t really need to be told that we are going to be careening from one side of the road to the other, it’s a given! We follow seemingly hundreds of buses of every colour more suited to an haawain shirt than a bus, into a parking lot. Before we are able to enter the underside of our bus is checked with the torch and mirror set-up, we are then allowed in and start to form up our convoy for the three hour drive to Abu Simbel. The buses travel in convoy through the desert for protection from hijackers or terrorists. Sitting in one of over one hundred buses, I figure the odds of something happening to our bus were less than 1%, with 24 people on our bus, odds of us getting hurt approximately .02%, with this peace of mind I fell asleep in my basic “fly catcher position” for most of the journey, waking up just to watch the sunrise over the desert. An African sunrise still fails to disappoint me, just how do they make the sun look so bloody big in the sky? Surely it’s the same sun that we watch in Australia at, like half the size! Yeah, Yeah, I know it’s something to do with the dust in the atmosphere, the best sunrise that I have ever seen was the one at Johannesburg and I recon that had something to do with the pollution!

So we arrive at Abu Simbel to check out the temples and stand in awe that these giant structures could have ever been relocated! I was also very amused at some graffiti on the walls, dated 1879! That’s a hundred years older than I am, but still recent history in these parts! After tripping over camera wielding tourists in some of the worst attire ever sewn (seriously there must have been a convention of bad fashion and unfortunate looking people on in Abu Simbel that night; whoever was waving ‘the ugly stick’ had been really busy!) we make our way inside the temples, disappointed that I couldn’t take any photos, but super impressed with the hieroglyphics and the good lighting illuminating the insides. The day just got hotter and hotter, and inside the temples was surprisingly hot, but that may have had something to do with the ridiculous amount of people dressed in terrible fashion crammed into a small space! (and you all know that I am not one to speak of fashion, or care about it much, or know much about it, lets face it I have survived in the same three t-shirts for the past 4 months…..but, these people were dressed sooo badly, that even I noticed!) After trying to get photos outside whilst dodging tourists we headed up to have a cool drink on the grass before getting back on the bus and leaving with the convoy. If you ever get to Abu Simbel, stay at Abu Simbel and check the place out in the afternoon, all the tourists who come from Aswan all spend the same hours there and leave in the same convoy, it’s deserted for the rest of the day!

That night was Sonya’s 30th birthday, we adjourned to the roof top pool dressed as Arabs to celebrate over beer and pizza. Well just Pizza and one beer for me as I am still off the booze. Even Spencer dressed up, which I calculate to be the second time in the almost 9 years I have know him to dress up. He wore the traditional Arab white flowing gown, I wore a dark blue with red embroidery frock with an aqua and silver scarf covering up any hint that I was a female. Now these head coverings are darn hot, and I still had my face out! Not to mention dangerous, they are held together with pins, and not of the safety variety! Whilst in the shop, where the man said I could have the scarf cheaper if I gave him a kiss, sleaze! He tied and pinned it to my head, over my other head covering (it’s way too taboo for a man to take off a woman’s head cover!) and then got me to look into the mirror, as though it was a dress, not a scarf that was taking away my identity! He then got me to try my sunglasses on with it! I guess looks are important!

The Arab night went really well, we have decided to have an Arab day out in the western desert on one of our ‘driving days’, although I will leave the headwear in the locker and just wear my frock which resembles a grannies bed wear!, but useful in the heat. I was even considering that it would make a good Darwin dress, sweat could just roll down to your ankles without hitting a hint of material!

Tomorrow morning we board a felucca (boat) to cruise up the Nile for three days, stopping to check out temples etc arriving in Luxor, after five days in Luxor we are off into the Western Desert, more sand!
(Don't get too used to regular blogs, just taking advantage of great internet connections lately!)

Swinging Elbows, Out of Control Luggage and the "Dodgy Red Shirted Creepy bloke" on the Overnight Ferry

So I’m going on a different tangent with this blog, it’s the ‘how to’ approach from Wadi Halifa in Sudan to Aswan in Egypt, hopefully someone follows in my footsteps and finds this useful!

How to S&*t in a Sudanese Toilet

Yeah, we all think we know exactly how to s#%t in a toilet, but we all have to admit that we could improve our toileting routine, especially whilst in Sudan. Here are the steps I found most effective for disaster prevention in this area-

1. Before leaving your hotel room, tent or entering the toilet roll the legs of your pants up and gather toilet paper, ensure that you have eaten before this stage as the following steps will kill any appetite that you may develop in the next five to eight years
2. Start a seek and find mission for the water tank or water tub (sometimes in the form of a 44 gallon drum), and full your ‘poo pourer’, which is basically a little watering can which most likely has poo on the handle, take this poo pourer into the ‘toilet’ with you
3. Upon entering the ‘toilet’ you will see my use of the ‘, calling some of these concrete enclosures a ‘toilet’ is abuse of the word ‘toilet’, in my book a ‘toilet’ has certain qualities, like ventilation
4. Don’t ever, ever, ever close the door fully, you put yourself at risk of two things; 1. Suffocation from the fumes laying in that concrete enclosure. 2. Being forever entombed in the concrete enclosure as it’s a rare door latch that works in this part of the world! Basically, the best thing that can happen is that someone sees your ass mid squat! Worst, death by poo fume suffocation....leave the door open!
5. Enter carefully, checking the walls for smears, the floor for coils of poo and puddles of urine waiting to cling onto your clothes that will possibly not be washed for weeks and possibly trip you over in the worst place to fall, the poo pile!
6. The next step is the solving of a dilemma; to face forwards or backwards. Many people feel better about being sighted whilst over the hole facing away from their sighter, where no eye contact is made, whilst others prefer to face the door, and their possible sighter! With the door open, I believe that facing the said door offers more air flow than facing the back will, which is usually covered in shit splatters anyhow
7. Spread your feet wide, and then wider still, something about Sudanese ‘toilets’ (or just a hole in the floor) causes way too much splashback for feet to be too close to the hole
8. I am not going to go into exactly how to shit, if you can read this, hopefully you have worked it out by now, what I will say is that scientific research has found that squat toilets are much better on the human insides than the pedestal (otherwise known as European toilets). And that you need to make sure you ass hole is over the hole, and this is vital for everyone else who uses the hole after you!
9. After you finish your ‘business’ ensure you drop your paper in the right place, this could be one of two options. If the toilet smells really, really bad, then the plumbing is shit (pardon the pun) and toilet paper is not to go down the hole, there will be a basket for the used toilet paper, it will look like a brown and white smashed up cat in a poo covered basket!, if the plumbing is OK, drop the paper right near the hole, this will minimise the amount of water needed to flush away your ‘job’ and reduce the time spent in the concrete enclosure and so reduce the amount of poo particles that you inhale into your lungs
10. After leaving,  roll your pants legs down and check your feet for telling ‘splatters’ and find some form of water to wash your hands as well as possible, but always follow up with an antibacterial hand wash or savlon type rinse; honestly our bodies were just not designed to take in the germs that you will find in some of these s^*t houses
11. Return to travelling companions and talk about the details of your poo house visit, compare with their recent poo house visits and look forward to the next instalment of the poo house story.

How to ‘shower’

Regardless of how many showers you may have undergone in developed countries and underdeveloped countries, you will find that you need to adopt a different method of showering in Sudan. A lack of water and shonky pipes means that you will find yourself in a concrete enclosure with a decrepit shower head that hasn’t worked for the best part of a century and a few buckets, what to do-

1. Prepare yourself as much as possible before leaving your room, if the distance to the shower is not great and if there are few people around you may wish to ‘towel it’ to the shower, this will depend on the size of your ass and the size of your towel, me, being a prude, does not ‘towel it’ to the shower. Watches, hair bands, hair coverings all need to be left in the room, along with moisturisers, deodorants etc; there is time for these later!
2. Choose your concrete enclosure carefully, if they are in a line with the toilets, choose the one furthest from the toilet to hopefully minimise the poo fumes coming up from the drain, in choosing your enclosure, you want to make sure that there is a door lock of some  description, a clean floor and adequate drainage.
3. Hunt down the water tank, use a smaller jug to bucket water to fill the buckets up, carry into your enclosure. Ensure you have a smaller jug to use to rinse yourself.
4. Take off your clothes and hang them strategically ie; in order of what you will put back on first, make sure your towel is easy to access.
5. Think very, very carefully about your order of events from here. What is not acceptable is to wash the poo from the toilet from your feet into the water that you are about to wash your hair, you need to be smart about this. I usually wash my hands first, ensuring that I do not spill any water back in with the clean water, then I wash my face, then dunking my head into the bucket, shampoo and condition my hair, then lather the grime of the rest of the body, rinse off with small jug, then wash the feet last.
6. Before dressing, roll up the legs of your pants so as not to drag them in the water, get dressed and complete the finer details of moisturizer and deodorant in your room.
7. Enjoy the clean feeling until you have to touch anything, walk anywhere or get covered in dust by a rogue wisp of wind! (this is about 5 minutes at most!)

How to come to attention of the Authorities by photography

Most of you would have read my previous blog posts about photography in Sudan, it’s a touchy subject. To ensure that you draw maximum attention to your photography, try the following-

1. Make sure you are carrying your photo permit at all times in Sudan
2. Climb up a small knoll (hill) in the middle of a small town on dusk
3. Set up a 100-400mm lens on a full frame camera body on a seriously sturdy Manfrotto tripod (not mine, but I sure wish it was!), for the full effect, put a hood on the 100-400mm lens so that it really looks like a bazooka!
4. Aim the said lens in the direction of the military base, but don’t take photos, they are prohibited, instead snap a few photos of a kid playing soccer in the street in front of the military base
5. Ensure you aim the lens at many local people in the street and take their picture, just so they feel the lens ‘drilling’ through them
6. Make sure you stay on the hill for sunset, so that you are silhouetted with the bazooka set-up (it helps if you have another photographer with their own bazooka set-up for the full effect
7. After the sun has gone down, turn on your torch and climb down the knoll without an injury
8. Look surprised the next day when word filters back to you that your driver was told to pass on the message of ‘no photos in town’ to the people on the hill the night before taking photos of the military base!

Once you have the above ‘mission’ completed successfully you are qualified to travel on the ferry between Sudan and Egypt, instead of a step by step guide to this I will let you benefit from my experiences whilst on the ferry...

The bus came and picked us up from our ‘hotel’, use of the ‘, due to a place of rope beds, stray cats and concrete floors really not being a ‘hotel’. After attempting to fit about 30 people in a mini van, with all our luggage, someone eventually decides (but not before we had all crammed in and were sitting on laps, the floor, bags) that the bus would make two trips to the ferry terminal. Mark had employed a ‘fixer’ a local man that sorts out odds and ends, like buying cheap water, ferry tickets, buses and getting us through customs. We make our way into the ferry terminal; it looks like a bloody huge train station with 90% of the worlds biggest suitcases jammed into it! We fight our way to a seat, arrange our luggage near us to be told to move down the end, we move down the end, arrange our luggage and then ourselves onto the floor, to be told to move away from our luggage “no f&*king way!” I keep my camera bag on me, leave my sleeping gear and sit in a seat reading the Da Vinci code and trying to block out the conversations around me that had to be at yelling volume instead of talking volume and the endless announcements in Arabic. There is not a bin In the place so I am forced to litter intentionally for the first time in my life. Eventually Mark arrives with our passports and tickets and three other sheets of documentation which we filled in that morning. The ‘fixer’ heads over to the customs desks, and sorts our way through easily..or so I thought. Airports are relatively easy to manage if there is no English, let’s face it, a check in counter looks like a check in counter wherever you are in the world; from there you go through the scanner, which always looks the same, etc etc. Now this ferry terminal was something else, a dead end row of desks with officials on one side and people elbowing their way with passports held out waving to get them stamped, after you got through the different desks, there was no order, and no set combination of events and everyone did the process differently...you had to fight your way back through all the happy elbowers.

Egyptian men are very different from the Sudanese in looks and behaviour, they have a much sharper face, but you will only notice that after you have seen their suitcase, because their suitcase will have smashed into a part of your body as they pass. Being an Egyptian male they are much more important than any female, especially a white female, and especially a white female who has any skin showing! After the first elbow struggle, I am permitted some more quite time with Da Vinci and the Arabic announcements distracting me from the storyline! Eventually we have all fought our way up the dead end passage way and back through the throng of elbowing, sharp faced, suitcase wielding arrogant men and are ready to go through to the baggage search. Now the inside of the baggage search area is the closest thing to a human washing machine without water or soap as you can get. You can be polite and let people pass, but you will stand there until after the ferry has left, unfortunately, there is not a civilised bone in some of these bodies, and if you don’t join then they will beat you (well lets face it, you will be beaten, literally in the process, but get a few elbows back at the bastards in the process!) Thank god (or Allah) that I was blessed with sharp ass elbows that are just the right height for an arrogant mans ribs, after collecting the corner of a suitcase in the left ribs and two suitcases in the right shin, I get my elbows out and a man yells something at me in Arabic....too bad, I don’t speak it so it has no effect on the manner in which I am wielding my elbows. The next day Spencer looks at my legs and asks what the bruises were from; having to cover my body so I don’t resemble a female means that I haven’t seen the bruises myself! So we push our way through the bag check, without even getting our bags checked, what chance have the officials got against hundreds of unruly people surging at them?, so they just stick a ‘safety’ sticker on the bag as we pass, without checking the contents and send us on our way....but not Spencer, the official neglected to stick the sticker on his bag, and the next checkpoint made him go back and get the sticker, Spencer walked off swearing his ass off, got the sticker and came back through the gates still without having his bag checked! Thank (allah) that Islamic extremists are not going to blow up one of their own ferries I say! As anyone could have has a tonne of explosives, undetected in their jocks! So we figure that walking down the wharf to the ferry is the better option that waiting for a bus and having a repeat of the earlier performance (or another elbow fracas!), I get to the ferry and realise that my ‘safety’ sticker has fallen off my bag, ho hum...not an issue! The ‘safety’ sticker system seems to be in meltdown, no one at the boat even cares if you have the sticker, as lets face it, it’s a rort anyway, no bags are checked, a fantastic waste of stickers and a cash cow client for the sticker factories!

We finally board the ferry, two and a half hours after arriving at the terminal and about two and a half hours before the ferry left. We got there early as it is usually standing room only, African Style, so we laid our thermarests out on the deck to reserve our place. We had the heads up as to which side to stake out, it was in the sun waiting for the ferry to leave, but once we departed and turned around we were in the shade. We had soon gathered a curious crowd near us. At one stage I was sitting next to Kerry and this man came over and asked to take our photo, hmm, Ok we guessed, next minute he was in between us with his arms around us as his friend was taking the photo, then they swap spots and ‘creepy red shirt man’ is between us and his friend is taking the photo, he decides that I am no good in the photo (well no s*@t Sherlock, that why I usually take the photos!) and waves his finger at me to get out of the photo and gets me to take the photo of just him and Kerry, Kerry is a New Zealander who just the previous day I had told that I thought she attracted strange men! Now ‘red shirt creepy man’ starts a love affair with Kerry from 10meters that lasted the whole night and even to the train station platform in Aswan. By 6pm we was professing his love fore Kerry to another of our travelling companions, this is despite the fact that Kerry and Matt told this man they were married! By 8pm Kerry and Matt had gone for tea and had left their gear with us, the top deck of the boat had not a single scrap of light on it at this stage, Spencer notices that ‘strange creepy red shirt man’ has sat really close to Matts bag and says to me to keep an eye on it. I sit up and aim my head torch right at the ‘freaky creepy red shirted pervert’ to see him sitting with his arm innocently on the railing behind the bag, I keep a close eye on him until he moves off 20 seconds later. When Kerry and Matt return I tell them to check the contents of their bags to make sure everything is still in there, well yes it is, and more....the ‘red shirt pervert’ has left his phone number in the bag!

We are all summoned down to ‘immigration’, females in the dining area and males outside the window of the dining hall, to have our passports stamped. Mark had purchased out Egyptian visas for us, at the grand price of $15 USD, much cheaper than we anticipated, we just had to take the sticker and the forms over to the man to stick them in our passports and stamp it. He opened my passport, flicked past 23 empty pages, to land the sticker, slap bang, in the middle of page 34! Whallah!

A little while on we are all laying in our sleeping bags, the wind on the lake is pretty cool, and I become aware of 8 or so men standing looking in our direction, starting to get a bit pis&%d off, I start telling Spencer about there freaky people around, he points out that just out of my line of vision some of our fellow travellers are watching their photos on the computer, these men were joining in! After ‘safety Sam’ has tied my camera bag to the railing three times and tied Spencers bag to my bag, and my other bag to both of these bags and tied this all to my sleeping bag AND after hiding my passport in my sleeping bag pocket (I am exhausted!) I settle down on solid steel on my thermarest between Spencer and Ish for a good nights sleep, my only real complaint was fly away hair being ruffled by the wind and tickling my face so much that I wore my head torch as a head band. Spencer wakes up the following morning, looks at me and says “you wore your headtorch to bed last night, you looser!” Loving husband that he is!

Actually, that was not my only complaint; call to prayer belts out of every speaker in the boat at 4.40am! “allah, allah, allah....” crickey, then we have a prayer session of white robed men facing mecca happening on the deck around us!

Opening my eyes that morning was an image I doubt I’ll ever forget, many, many robed man staring at us, all sleeping in a line on the deck. Granted they have possibly not seen sleeping bags before, or white people sleep, or women with their heads uncovered sleeping. I then looked around to see the ‘red shirted freaky man’ standing a couple of meters away from Kerry, who was still asleep watching her and then checking his phone and shaking his head (obviously waiting for her to call him!), I just roll over put my sunglasses on and try to get a little more shut eye!

Kaye tells me the next morning about her experience whilst she was in a cabin, (you could pay a little extra for a cabin with two bunk beds in it, only Jules and Jen, Kaye and Mark chose to do this). None of the cabin doors had locks on them, so you could not lock your gear in, or lock others out. Kaye is a 50 year old Aussie who has done the entire west coast and is going to Istanbul on the truck, was in the cabin by herself that morning, lying on the bottom bunk, when this 30 year old Egyptian man rolls into the cabin without knocking, kisses her on her recently shaved head (she has shaved her head for Movember and in memory of her late mother who passed away from cancer) and then proceeded to attempt a kiss her on the lips! She said that he respected her decline of the offer and sent him on his way!

Now I know that Mohammed is the most common name in the world, but there was either a Mohammed on the boat that didn’t farking listen or a whole bunch of Mohammad’s who didn’t listen as there were announcements every five minutes, always preceded by a blowing sound in the microphone!

Once we arrive we sit on the boat for about two hours and witness African organisation at it’s finest! I was certain that I could have organised the same amount of teenagers to clean their cabins, do a cabin inspection, get them off the boat and assembled in lines AND call the roll in half the time as it took to even get the gear off the boat! The porters were pushing and shoving to get on the boat before anyone could get off, and barging into cabins to acquire portering jobs! We eventually think that the throng of people must have subsided enough to risk the corridor, wrong! After several more run in’s with suitcases and some fat, pushy bastard plows past me and up the stairs, inadvertently catching my tripod holder on my camera bag on his bag and attempting to pull me up the stairs! I elbow my way off! Relief!, but not for long, we arrive at the ‘arrival hole’, no s&*t, that’s what two signs called it the ‘arrival hole’ (the translator for that deserves a kick up the butt) but they weren’t wrong, it is a hole, more elbowing and pushing and after accumulating way too much Egyptian man sweat on my elbows and forearms we get through into the hall, get our bags x-rayed and are waved straight through the baggage search! I was so glad to see that the pushy little s&*t who had released half a gallon of his sweat onto my arms was thoroughly searched whilst we went straight through!

From there we are loaded into dodgy old Peugeot station wagons for our trip to the Hathor Hotel...I know, I know, Hat Hore? What the? The station wagons are not in great shape, at one stage we think that we have conked out, no, the driver was just stopping to close the back door, it had flipped open, and lucky we didn’t drop any gear out on the road! The hotel seems more wondrous than the Hilton or Empire, we have been so long in the dust and crap that a clean floor and our own toilet and working shower are almost too much to bear, along with WiFi internet, a window and McDonalds three minutes down the road, we are in heaven! Putting off a shower for a few hours we wander down to McDonalds, on the way finding an ATM machine that does money conversions, yep, chuck your $20USD note in and it will spit back the equivalent in Egyptian Pounds less a service fee! Brilliant! Only it was out on money! He he

So we arrive at the Golden Arches, wow, not usually a huge McDonalds fan, it has been a long time between drinks and I want some of it! I get in the door and order a cheeseburger without the meat (don’t knock it until you try it!), large fries with sweet and sour sauce, large coke, apple pie and caramel sundae. The big killer on this feed was the sizing’s, they are American sizes here, so my coke was 779ml, my fries were 262g!, the burger had a diameter much larger than a normal one! After a discussion of the additives and preservatives I decide that McDonalds could be like a medicine, if you had eaten dodgy food, you could smash a feed of McDonalds into your gut and the preservatives would kill off any dodgy’s that me be lurking in your digestive system!

From there Spencer followed the boys on a ‘beer mission’ (Everything is called a ‘mission’, even a ‘toilet mission’) And I walk back, stopping at a convenience store to announce “Oh look they have ice cream freezers, with ice cream!” before realising what a looser I sounded like! I had a similar moment in McDonalds when I asked what the toilets were like and rushed to use them after being told that they had soap AND toilet paper AND were free!

Have done a stock take on my camera gear, it’s all terribly dirty, but no amount of cleaning will get rid of the dust, not sure if it’s static electricity but it seems to be attracting dirt like a magnet attracts metal! My 24-105mm lens is suffering the worst, it’s been the workhorse and is making all sorts of gritty, scratching sounds when it’s zoomed or manually focused, The lens on the little camera is making sounds similar to nails on a blackboard when it is turned on or off. The 100-400mm is starting to show that the push- pull zoom does bring in dust, but honestly, no more than the standard one. The LCD screen on the other camera has almost given up the ghost and the 5D one seems a little funky too. Just hoping that it holds out another 2 months (yep, that’s all that’s left!) and once I get home it can all head off to Canon for some TLC!

And I am missing school, I am constantly looking for a bloody pen!

Sudan, Pyramids, Sand, Sand and more Donkeys!

We were up reasonably early as it was far too hot to stay long in a tent, after chocolate and banana buns for breakfast we headed off for a walking tour of Khartoum’s streets. Took a couple of sneaky photos off bridges, but there were always security guards in close proximity. After drinks in a local falafel house we headed back to the sailing club. I wandered down the street to buy a head covering of some description and noticed a very different reaction from people to a single, white woman, with no wedding band and no head covering. Whilst in the back of the only shawl shop that I could find, which had no lighting and was incredibly dark, the shop assistant (male) asked me ‘where is your friend” dodgy!

Cut up some watermelon for everyone for lunch then attempted to have a shower before leaving Khartoum at 3pm. I was very keen for a good shower as we have six nights of bush camping, so seven days without a shower. The shower was usually a dribble of six drops, but this day it was like two drops, then, just after I had lathered up, the water stopped completely! I waited and turned tap off, then on, then off, then on, to no avail. I eventually got a small amount of water out of the basin tap to get a little of the soap off, but just had to towel off. An hour later the water was back on, but by that stage I had become one with the soap and couldn’t be bothered to hassle with attempting another shower.

We were glad to be in the moving truck, as the breeze was slightly cooling, the day was well over 40 degrees and I was fully understanding why African Trails still make their trucks with the canvas sides, we would have died behind glass windows! We were stopped at many military checkpoints, our photos permit documentation is also out registration to travel north documentation was collected back from us at one checkpoint, from there onwards copies of these were kept with out passports in the cab, making the process quicker. I still find it funny that all this documentation is checked closely, but the numbers of people on the truck is not actually counted! Some checkpoints are very quick and some are very slow, the one constant thing is that there will be ladies selling nuts of chick peas at the checkpoints!

We watched the sun set from the truck with the hot wind still blowing in our faces; the sun looked like a huge orange fireball hanging over the horizon. We passed a military convoy heading south, with many tanks of varying size and shape, not long afterward we were overtaken by two trucks with machine guns mounted on the tray, they were the largest machine guns that I have ever sighted, the first sight of these vehicles beside us put my heart into my mouth as you read quite a bit about bandits in these parts. And in many countries the military and police are worse than the bandits!

We pulled off the road in darkness, but could just make out the outline of the pyramids in the skyline. We camped in the car park and sat around the charcoal burners still discussing the heat, there was a slightly warm breeze, but is was still bloody hot and many people from cooler climates were suffering a lot more than us. After we had set up tents and eaten dinner the police arrived, due to the language barrier we were unable to fully understand the problem, at one stage we though we were going to have to pack up and leave, however we settled the problem by turning the side light off.

Slept OK, but the sand was so hot that I kept waking up with every part of me that was in contact with the ground lathered in sweat. We were up at 6am to catch sunrise on the pyramids, after waiting until 6.30 for someone to show up and take our money we just entered. The pyramids were really good, no one else there bar us, and I don’t think this will happen at Giza! We arrived back at the truck to find lots of curio stalls set up right around out tents and in our dining room.

On the way into town we were stopped at a checkpoint near the river and saffa (south African) Robert, not to be confused with the other Robert, took a photo of a MTN sign (mobile phone company) as it had a world cup picture on it, one of the officials saw him and shouted some word up at him, then a sting of instructions that no one knew what the words were, but we all understood his massage! Then he took his camera and walked off, still holding his conversation to the person on the other end of his mobile phone. At this stage I thought that the camera was gone for good, but Robert managed to jump out of the truck and convince the man that he was no threat to security and got his camera back, complete with big greasy thumbprint on the lens. I think there is still a hangover effect from the civil war in Sudan, and possibly in preparation for the upcoming referendum in January 2011, there is a lot of secrecy surrounding bridges, fuel depots and military and police people and equipment. Our photo permits very clearly state not to photograph any of these things or anything defamatory of slums....the only problem, is a cow dung hut considered as a slum? Or does it have to have some corrugated iron on it?

We stopped for four hours in a town called Atbara, long enough for falafel, drinks and a chocolate, so I thought. At 11am when I wasn’t hungry there were falafel sellers on every corner, at 12, when I was hungry, not a falafel in sight! the call for prayer is at 1pm on a Friday so all the men pack up early in preparation. Sonya, Adam, saffa Robert and I went on a mission for spiced tea. I know that your thinking ‘who wants hot spicy tea in 40 degree heat?’, but it’s seriously refreshing!, We sat on a street corner with about 15 bemused local men drinking our tea out of glasses (you see very few females on the street and even less females actually eating or drinking). It was amusing to sit on a plastic stool with a donkey right behind me having a Pidgin English conversation about eating donkeys and weather the meat was chewy. He defiantly said that they eat donkey, not so sure if it was chewy...not willing to try it myself!

After lunch we had to drop back to the checkpoint to give them copies of our documentation, out photo permits/ registration to travel north, not sure why they thought that it was essential to have this information on us, when they could get it all from the Aliens registration centre, it’s not like they have a great number of tourist through every day! After a few hours of driving through harsh, unforgiving country, scattered with square mud huts and blown truck tyres (yep, I counted 7 in 100m today!) we pulled up a bush camp just off the highway. I went on a photo mission after putting up ‘territory’s own’ (our tent), Falafel for tea, glad that I had missed out on it for lunch! Some of the west coasters pulled the sheesha (possibly spelt wrong, like a bong) out and smoked some fruit tobacco.

My feet are getting hammered, three stubbed toes, all from the same campsite, different rocks! I think I have another jigger happening, but have been unable to wash my feet properly to confirm it, and my little toenail is starting to fall off again, looking forward to getting back to civilisation and away from acacia thorns that constantly jab through my thongs and into my feet!

The following day we were up to take some photos of the sun rising across the desert, stopped at the Merewa pyramids. Some enterprising locals tried to get 25 pounds each out of us to visit the pyramids, one man pointed out “he is my manager, see he has a briefcase!” needless to say, and they didn’t receive their 25 pound from anyone! We walked the 500odd meters over to the 7 pyramids than climbed up the hill to overlook the Nile, pyramids and ruins. It is amazing to see the Nile snaking across the desert, lined with green trees and grass and then see how the land turns to desert about 1km from the river. From there we walked down and around the other ruins and cemetery before loading ourselves back onto the truck. From there we drove into town for lunch, the Sudanese people just get more and more friendly the further north we come. Kerry and I went to find a toilet, initially we were not understood, but were soon taken to a man who spoke very good English who took us to his house to use his toilet, just a hole in the floor in a shed out the back, he told us he was a dentist from Khartoum and even gave us instructions of how to ‘flush’ the toilet with a jug of water and ‘lock’ the door with an old piece of fencing wire! After a couple of hours driving we made a bus camp in the middle of nowhere, literally, nowhere, the only things visible was a mobile phone tower and a radio tower! The conversation that night revolved around food, ice cream, icy poles, zooper dopers seem to be the most sought after items..hmm, may have something to do with the 40 degree temperatures! After rechecking the guide book, Kyle announces that there is ice cream available in Gondola the next day. When we went to bed it was still darn hot, however by about 3am I had to wake Spencer up to get his sleeping bag from underneath him to sleep in as my Maasai blanket just wasn’t keeping me warm, he was happy with the blanket, the following night I made sure that I didn’t leave my sleeping bag in the truck, it had been so long since I had used it!

The following day I sat in the cab with Mark and Burbs, the ant bites on my butt have been rubbed raw from sitting on my undies elastic (darn, cheap Mr Price undies!) Lying in the sleeper compartment in the cab reading the Da Vinci Code and sitting up occasionally to check if there were any trees, animals or oncoming traffic....nope, none, lay back down! We stopped at Gondola for four hours, Ish, Jen, Jules, Son and I went on our ‘ice cream’ mission whilst Spencer battled out a game of travel scrabble with Pat, Hendrick, Robert (saffa) and Kaye, discussion over rules almost descended to squabbling at times whilst debate rages over wether words like ‘fag’ and ‘ya’ should be allowed! Our ice cream mission took us to many shops and had us lifting the lids on all freezers, to find a random array of items, after a few shops we found a tub of vanilla ice cream for 10 pounds, we also found a bakery with cakes and pastries and at another shop a tube of nutella! (Well the local brand which was just as good!) We went back to the ice cream shop, made the purchase, and back to the bakery to combine all ingredients for the feast of a lifetime!  I was dealing with the mystery of my lost five pounds (2 bucks!), couldn’t find it anywhere, searched high and low and high and emptied all my pockets out and assumed someone had pick pocketed it, to find it later that night whilst washing my shorts!, I am losing everything at the moment!

Still on our sugar high we left Gondola, driving for another few hours before making camp on the banks of the Nile, we could see a few Nile crocodiles over the other side of the river so were not really compelled to collect water for washing (all kitchen water is on the truck, but if you want to wash clothes or yourself, you have to source your own water). Kim had me in stitches by saying that she wasn’t going to go to the waters edge to collect water, but that she would make one of the locals do it) I nearly wet myself, what she meant was that the locals knew the river and knew how to collect water without getting a crocodile wrapped around their ears! She ended up finding an irrigation channel that was too small and shallow for any croc, so I got some water from there to wash my clothes as I had run out of clean underwear, unable to find my one decent pair of bonds undies! And then walked back over to collect another ten litres to wash myself in as I was stinking! Turns out that the large washing tubs are a great bath. But I did almost fall out at one stage! For the first time since Nairobi I actually felt clean (and it only took a plastic tub behind a bush and 10 litres of water to do it! (Now that’s saying something about every shower that I have encountered between that bush and Nairobi!)

Have put in an order with Pat, an Aussie, for his girlfriend to please bring the biggest jar of vegemite possible to Cairo where she is joining the truck to Istanbul, Pat tells us that he has never had vegemite, but that he know he doesn’t like it! All I can think about is my Nan, who said the same thing! Eventually after telling Pat that he is no Aussie without it and that he should have his Aussie passport confiscated (he is actually travelling on a Swiss one!) he agrees to try the vegemite when it arrives.

Travel and the desert does strange things to people, one morning we were talking about having a ‘flap off’ a contest to see who can flap their plates dry the quickest, a glance around the group showed many styles of ‘flap’ whole body swinging, freestyle swimming, mechanical flapping (that was Spencer) full range of motion flapping (me) and someone twirling with plates in outstretched arms! What the locals must think!

This morning we had a sleep in then breakfast on the banks of the Nile at 7.30am; I wandered along and found my favourite donkey, which was still tied up in the same place as the previous evening. He is the best looking donkey I have even seen and I wanted to put him in my locker to bring him home! Instead I got a few photos. We did the 200km into Wadi Haifa in good time; the roads here are in fantastic condition (better that Australia!) Once here we learned that the barge taking the truck was loaded and would leave a day earlier than planned, we had to pack gear for 6 days and say goodbye to the truck, we will be following on the passenger ferry on Wednesday. We checked into our ‘hotel’ and there was not a single person who would not prefer to be bush camping, if I had my tent, I would put it up in the room! The roof has a hole in it, and not a small one, like 2ft by 3ft!, the walls were painted, once...about 50 years ago, the floor is bare concrete and the beds are made of rope wrapped around the frame, they are all in a line which looks like stables and have bars on the windows, like a jail! Toilets are another story! Spent a couple of hours in the afternoon and evening climbing a small hill at the back of town with Kyle and Kim to take some photos, got some good ones of the town, then the sunset and a few night pics before making the ascent in the dark.

From there we ran into everyone else for tea at a small eatery then I went for a sheesha session with Kenji, the saffas, Gab, Ronald and Kaye and the south African bloke that we keep bumping into who is riding a motorbike from Cape town to Cairo, who I have met but have never caught his name! Sheesha is a big contraption which you use to smoke fruit tobacco, apple and mint were on the card tonight, I wasn’t in it for the tobacco, just the whole social aspect of sitting around two very ornate burners and a coal scoop talking crap! Waiting for the onslaught of bedbugs tonight.....bring on bush camping!

(Added the following morning...so about 2am I wake us as my bed is shaking (we are on single beds, Spencer is on the other side of the room) I say to him “what has happened?” as I thought he was waking me up as something was wrong (like a fire due to the shit electrics!) he is across the other side of the room, still asleep saying “huh?” I put my head torch on and have a look around, just to make sure no one is stealing my camera bag which I hook the bed leg through the strap, no it’s still there. After a couple of hours of being certain that there was something in the room, turn the torch on again, yup, bloody ferral cat! My bed must have shook where it dive bombed me from the hole above the window!