The short road....

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So one lunch time the truck just turns up out of the blue from the project in the south, the driver has a list of stuff the project needs including 4000 litres of diesel in drums and doesn want to drive the truck back because of "the crossing"
Although I knew the convoy had arrived at the camp down near Kajo Keji, I had no idea what conditions were like or the road between Juba and there, we had reports that a hired truck had been stuck in the mud for 3 days trying to get down there, but the MAN had come up a road that hadn been used for a while and basically a good 30 kms of it ran through minefields, it had been dozed and graded, both passes had found mines, but fortunately there had been no detonations, which is why MTI was to be working down there, to clear the road and the strip either side for the areas deemed as DAs (Demining Areas)
There was a bit of a convoy to head back down, the truck and two Toyotas, so I said I would drive the truck down and we would head off the day after at 6, so duly loaded up and ready with a whole load of spares and stuff to help the guys get up to speed with operations off we went.
Creating a bush camp for 70+ people to live in from a bare patch of bush is a bit of a mission and the guys were struggling with sorting out generators and vehicles, the communications were causing problems, so the IT guy from the UK HQ was coming down along with an acting Project Manager. We would be back after 2 days down there, so would be a lot of bush driving, but at least would get to know the roads and the conditions out in the field.
Things didn start off well, the 2 drivers who were supposed to come along had gone to town the night before, rather than stay at camp, so knowing we were to set off at 6, we found them on the road heading to camp at after 7, we had waited and in the end just left, finding them both close to town, they should have been left behind and should have constituted a warning for them both, but I was over-ruled on that, one of the biggest problems with trying to run a commercial operation is people "feel sorry" for the employees, stuff that is the norm out here for whatever reason, would never be tolerated, it would be instant dismissal, it isn like there is a shortage of labour and people eager to work!
Then after getting lost in the market area we had to drive through as a road had been randomly closed by the SPLA (Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army) for whatever reason they choose, the Land Cruiser decided it would throw its toys and start running on its own engine oil, so leaving a driver there and cross loading the stuff in the back of it into the MAN truck we carried on, now seriously delayed.
Very soon we had left behind any form of regular habitation, in fact until we reached the Kaya river there were only 2 Dinka cattle settlements and a Norwegian People Aid Demining camp on the 80kms of bulldozed road.
The two Dinka settlements were sited on top of ridges, with small rivers flowing either side, they are a people characterized by the pastoralist nature, they grow very little, relying on cattle much as the better know Massai of Kenya and Tanzania to the south. The Dinka are usually easily recognised by the horizontal scars acroos there foreheads, 4 or 5 lines sliced into the skin (I believe it is some sort of coming of age process, but am not 100% sure) they are traditionally aggressive people, they kids and younger males could be seen to be looking like they live in a flour mill, when seen they are always dusted in white, which I discovered is actually dried cattle urine, in which they wash themselves... they are very close to their livestock, literally, they sleep and shelter from the rain under the same roof, I suppose the livestock is the most precious commodity so it makes sense to have it close, but maybe not that close!
The NPA camp is located where the road passes through a rocky ridge, to many rocks to use machines to remove the mines, so they are doing it by hand, lying on thier bellies probing the soil 10 cms at a time, they are moving well, with a large pile of scrap metal and shells to show results, the mines are burned or destroyed when they find them, leaving almost no trace.
The road wound on through basically untouched bush, some stunning landscape, yet we saw almost nothing, there must be game still out here, but I found no trace of it. Mind you the army ran on bush meat for 25 years of civil war, so there may not be that much left! The IT guy only managed to get one puncture and get stuck once, but with the truck not really a problem to tow him out, did find out the winch on the Hilux was for decoration only, useful to know!
We passed only 2 other vehicles, just before we got to the Kaya river crossing, we came across 2 World Food Program Land Cruisers, all the drivers clothes and boots were tied to the roof rack to dry, we asked what it was like and the gusy said very possible, they had just been towed across by a truck identical to the one I was driving.
So we arrived at the river, spoke (well shouted) to the guys across the other side, who indicated the right line to take, I took the air filetr out of the hilux engine and plugged the intake pipe with a bottle wrapped in a plastic bag to stop any water getting in and then hooked up a towing strap to the front of the Toyota Hilux pickup. I knew the truck wasn going to float away, not with 4 tonnes of diesel and around 2 tonnes of other stuff stacked on board, but knew it would be an entertaining for the 2 guys in the Hilux.
Duly hooked up I engaged the 6x6 drive and took the plunge into the river, with every intention of trying to get some footage, within second the water was as deep as the bottom of the truck windscreen (which is about 2 meters) but there wasn going to be any turning around, I knew the truck I could see on the other side had just been across towing the WFP cruisers, so as water started to fill into the cab through the blower unit and the bottom of the doors I checked the mirror to see the Hilux fully broadside on floating on the end of the tow strap.
The video embedded with this blog is a collage of a few trips back and forth, filmed from different places (the Hilux, the back of the truck and the drivers seat) but well worth watching if you can!
Having spent 15 minutes drying out the Hilux engine area and draining as much water as possible from the footwells we carried on up the best bit of road I have yet found in Sudan, being built from the Ugandan border at Moyo up to Juba, it has stopped at the Kaya river because funds have dried up for the bridge, so the road has only really been driven on by the road contractor and now us for about 10kms of the road it is minefields both sides of the road, so one stays on the murram surface, wouldn venture off into the bush here for anything, not even an urgent call of nature! Not worth the risk!
The road winds up into some low hills with beautiful big "proper" African trees and bush, just stunning. Soon enough we arrived at the camp, still an "in progress" but at least there was a tent (even if there was no bedding or mattresses, I got floor space and at least the tent didn leak in the rainstorm that night!
Next day was have a look at the machines and issues with the guys, get one of the generators running (frustrations with the mechanics set in here, but I won digress!) and sort lots of other bits out whilst waiting for the IT guy to set up the VSat data system for the internet, in most of the rest of the world this is a very effective system, Sudan has re-done the acronym, it stands for Very Slow At Times or Very Slow All The Time!!
Success, after a full day there all was sorted as best we were going to do, the IT guy needed to catch a flight out, so at 5.30 we headed off in the Hilux, followed by the truck to tow us across the river and allow us to carry on back to Juba, we waited till daylight before attempting, the Hilux once again floating, but the river had gone down about 30 cms from the day before!
Another 4 hours and we were back in Juba, fortunately not getting stuck, as I knew the winch didn work and as always we had no sat phone or working radios, so it would have been a bit of a walk!
Certainly a lot quicker than the trip down in the truck, but not much more comfortable, the truc wins hands down on that against a Toyota in the bush!

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