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!
