Wadi Halfa

Wadi Halfa is our last stop in Sudan! It is a small desert town where we will catch the ferry over to Aswan Egypt. Here we met up with the other trans truck who has been behind us the whole way! We bush camped with them for two nights while awaiting the ferry! We arrived here early having left tons of time in case we got bogged badly. The ferry only goes once a week and we really couldn't afford to miss it! Here, we ate lunch behind privacy curtains since it is Ramadan and used the slow dial up Internet. There isn't much to see or do here so we are catching up on blogs and relaxing in the heat!

Ferry to Egypt

Leaving Wadi Halfa was a long process! Both groups headed down to the ferry terminal around 9:00am. Once we got there we waited in a hot waiting room for about three hours until it was time to board the ferry. The boarding process was absolute chaos with people pushing in front of us and everybody was shoving at each other to get on the boat! This is because without a room booking there is limited space and almost no shade from the hot sun. Emma taught us one word in Arabic "Halas" meaning " that's enough". We were trying this out a lot at the start but finally gave in to the local way, bolted past people to the front and got a bit pushy. We all new we needed to sit on the roof under the life boats or there would be no shade for us either. Arriving on the roof of the boat, people are already under the lifeboats. We tried to join in but the people just kept piling in around us. In the end we found a spot along the railing and strung together some tarps. Like a bunch of kids in a play fort, we began waiting to set sail while playing cards, reading books and exchanging stories from the road. It was a long hot wait! The boat didn't sail until around 5:00pm! As we set sail, we got a glimpse of the Oasis trucks on the barge and some good views of lake Nasser. Just before arriving in Cairo, Andrea and I took out the braids in anticipation of the showers we were so excited for in Aswan. ( After six days bush camping). We look pretty funny but the braids really help keep the hair under control when it can't be washed for days on end!

Nubian desert

Our trip from Khartoum to Wadi Halfa took us straight through the heart of the Nubian desert. We chose to follow the train line through the desert instead of taking the highway along the Nile since the train line route takes less time. The first thing to mention is that it is HOT here! Between 39 and 44 degrees everyday and cools down to about 35 at night! We knew we were in for a long hot trip. There are ten train stations between Abu Hamed and Wadi Halfa that serve the desert communities. Before we even reached Abu Hamed one of the truck family is so sick from dehydration he needs the hospital and a saline drip! How anyone can live out here is beyond me! Station six, a small village with water and cold drinks appeared out of nowhere. This water serves all the local communities and passers-by. Although we didn't see it, apparently there is a gold mine out here in the middle of nowhere with hundreds of people living in tents! To me, traveling through the desert was one of the best experiences on the trip! We saw almost no one over the three days and nights we spent along the train line. We knew the stations were used though because everywhere we stopped there were used toothbrushes littering the ground! We stopped at station five to set up camp for a night and it was like being in a science fiction movie! All these deserted buildings and nobody but us! The stars were amazing and most of us abandoned the tents to sleep on the sand. On the second full drive day the truck got bogged in the soft sand about four times! Out came the sand mats and shovels again and everybody helped out! It was way easier to get out of the sand than it was to get out of the mud a few days before!

Sudan -Meroe Cemeteries

In June 2011, the Archeological Sites of Meroë were listed by UNESCO as World Heritage site. We stopped off at the site of the Meroë cemeteries on our way north from Khartoum. Way off in the Nubian desert about 200km north of the city sit an amazing group of pyramids near the banks of the Nile in the area commonly known as Nubia. The pyramids are an ancient burial site of the Kingdom of Kush. This Kingdom flourished for 900 hundred years from around 800 B.C. to 280 A.D. and held power over a vast area covering much of the Nile Delta and as far south as Khartoum. Egyptian artisans were used to build the Meroe Pyramids to commemorate dead royalty. The dead were buried in chambers underneath the pyramids. The first of the Meroe Pyramids were built about 800 years after the last Egyptian pyramids were completed. The Meroe pyramids were constructed from large blocks of sandstone. They're angled more steeply than the Egyptian pyramids. At the site, there are tons of pyramids to explore and a camel to hire to take you around the site. There were no other tourists to be seen and only two men working at the entrance gate! It goes without saying that there was no guide available to explain to us the significance of the site. All the above information comes from an article I found online written for "about.com" by Anouk Zijlma. We spent two hours exploring before heading further into the Nubian desert. This could possibly rate as one of the top 10 high outs of the whole trip!

Khartoum

The city of Khartoum emerged before us like a thriving modern metropolis! There are no pictures to add to this blog because photography requires a permit and it is against the rules to take photos of almost everything except each other! At one point, we were told the police were following us because someone took a photo out the truck window! The city itself was a wonderful break. We hung out in the air conditioned mall and I even accompanied Kristy to a private hospital for a malaria test. (she's fine). We went to the local market and were pleasantly surprised. Nobody hassled us to buy things! The people here are so friendly. They often yell out " Welcome to Sudan!" as we walk by. They would laugh and point at us and ask "Where are you from" or "Why are you here?" as if our presence in their market was a rather bizarre occurrence. For us this is a welcome change, we did our shopping hassle free and probably bought more than in other places! This involved lots of charades and calculators to communicate prices since none of us speak Arabic. The taxi drivers didn't rip us off either. When asked how much the ride would be one man answered " as much or as little as you would like to pay". This was super refreshing after the "give me, give me" of Ethiopia. We went out to dinner for Jo's birthday at an amazing Indian restaurant and the following night we went to Delicious restaurant with Midhat. He organizes tours in Sudan and handles all the ferry tickets and other logistics for Oasis. He invited us to dinner and then tea in the street and paid for everything! After that, some of us girls went to a hair dresser and got our hair braided for the trip through the desert! Since it is now Ramadan, the hairdresser was open late into the night and we didn't get back to camp until 2am!!!!! On the last morning, Kristy,Emma and I went to the supermarket and did a huge shop for the truck meals we'll prepare over the next six days of bush camping. We looked so out of place pushing our big carts out to the taxi!

Sudan - Border to Khartoum

Leaving Ethiopia we drove down out of the mountain range and onto the HOT plains of North-East Sudan. Crossing the border was easy but the border town left us thinking Sudan would be exactly like Ethiopia. After 8 or 9 months surrounded by poverty and filth some of us are feeling suffocated by it. Like you might go crazy if you can't get away from it for just a few minutes! Our 4 star hotel in Gondar did give us a small break but it also provided a very harsh contrast, showing us all how our lives back home compare to those of the people here. Immediately I feel guilty for feeling so suffocated by what is normal everyday life In most of Africa. Oh our first world pains... surely I can do this for another month!

We find that leaving Ethiopia we leave "Africa proper" and enter the Arab world and a more "Middle-East" feel. With this comes and immense shift. Almost immediately, we notice the power lines seem more solid, the roads are better, and the farmers actually have tractors and farming equipment rather than wooden ploughs pulled by oxen. There is a collective sigh of relief and the sense that Sudan is going to be a refreshing change!

On our first night in Sudan, we bush camped somewhere en route to Khartoum. We pulled into an absolutely beautiful bush camp and set up camp. As I sometimes do, I decided to sleep in the truck rather than setting up a tent. Shorty after 10pm, the rains came and the sky unleashed it's fury! We were later told this was the worst rainstorm in 10 years! Well, in the middle of the night people came running into the truck! Tents were flooding and being blown away! We woke up to a river that wasn't there the night before and a huge mess to clean up!

Turns out the flooded out tents are the least of our worries! It didn't take long to realize the truck was bogged and we'd need to cross the new river to get back to the highway! Down came the sand mats and shovels....

My 35th Birthday

On my 35th birthday we flew from Axum to Gondar. The day before, Josh, Emma and I had taken a nice walk up to some hilltop monasteries and then gone out to the ancient quarry where the stelae rocks were carved from. While we were up there, a small boy was trying to sell me an amethyst geode. He wanted 400 birr, about 23 dollars. It was the most beautiful rock I've seen in a long time! I knew the bank machine in Axum didn't work and I was afraid of running short of cash so I decided to leave the rock behind. When we got back to town I couldn't stop thinking about it. The rock wasn't over priced, in fact it was dirt cheap for it's size. I felt like I was supposed to pay the kid. ( 400 birr goes along way in the country) I made a joke about getting a tuc-tuc back to the quarry to get it but my friends convinced me that was stupid and that I would never find the kid again. So, I went with Andrea to a gift shop where she had seen other geodes for sale.

The next day, we arrived in Gondar to our 4 star hotel( What luck! Nicest place we've stayed on the whole trip!) Josh and Emma surprised me big time with my Geode! Turns out while I was shopping with Andrea, Emma, Josh and Garrett had gone back out to the quarry to find my rock! Sometimes, people just surprise you in the most amazing ways! How thoughtful and amazing! I think these are 4 really wonderful people! Later in the evening when the truck met us, we had cake and enjoyed the luxury and good food of our new hotel.