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Published: March 7th 2003
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When we finally got to the border after a couple of very long days driving, no one there had heard anything about fighting, and our trucks had already crossed. Argh!! We crossed into Sudan on our own, very easy, the Sudanese formalities took 4 hours, 3 1/2 of those we were waiting for people, the rest was actually doing something. As soon as we got over the border and found our truck had taken off, we went into El Geneina to find an airline office. In an effort to either fly to Khartoum or catch up with our truck, we ended up on a local truck to a place called Nyala. It took the best part of three uncomfortable days, sleeping rough in the desert for two nights. Remember we hadn't brought sleeping bags or mats as we weren't planning to camp rough but stay in hotels / hostels so only had sleep sheets with us, and a tarp. It gets cold at night in the desert!
The truck rides were amazing, and hard. The first truck was old but basically solid, and I reckon at least 8 wheel drive. Colin rode in the back with 30-40 others and all
their gear, and I had a seat in the cab. We stopped on the way out of town to pick up some soldiers as protection from bandits and the like. Though all they shot were some rabbits, and even then they missed. The first night was spent in an empty market / car park under the mossie net. The next day Colin got to ride in the cab some of the way with me and the enthusiastic one-eyed driver. He seemed to love our company even though conversation was practically impossible. Once he noticed us showing an interest in the monkeys and baboons we passed, he made an effort to keep pointing them out to us. The next night was spent at a police post across the road from a truck stop. The police let us use a gazebo type structure (with walls and roof) and even gave us a bucket of water for washing. Most of the folk here are nothing but kind. The next day I ended up on the roof until the one-eyed driver caught me and kicked someone out of his cab so I could get in. I'm not sure what would have been more comfortable!
At least we had a “road” for this part of the trip.
Finally in Nyala we were able to catch a flight to Khartoum, using our tickets from Chad (we are off to the airline office tomorrow to try for a refund). Frustratingly, the flight went first to Al Geneira, the border town we were in three days before, then on to Khartoum. Still, however uncomfortable the truck was, it was an experience not to be missed, and gave us something to do while waiting for the flight. The plane was an old Russian Fokker friendship or something similar, piloted and crewed by Russians, and with bald tyres.
Khartoum is a dirty, crowded city, full of suicidal bus drivers. We had a great couple of here, filling in all manner of forms in the endless Sudanese paperchase (Alien Registration, photo permits, site permits...), going round the small but excellent National Museum, and eating our fill and more of fuul. We went to the pyramids and Royal City at Meroe. The pyramids were good, totally different from those we'd seen before in Egypt, these are much smaller and look more like tombs. It was unbelievably windy there and we
now have several sand pockmarks in our skylight filter (a good reason for having one!). The Royal City was a bit of a disappointment, not much there really, the remains of a temple of Amun and a few other random piles of stone. We met Tom, the LP guy from Chad, while getting the Meroe permits and spent time with him at some of the sites.
Theres a lot more to our adventures off the truck, but time, finger tiredness and pricey internet prevent me telling them all here. Ask us later for more if you are interested. Sudan turned out to be an awesome place. It will be nice to meet up with our truck again sometime soon, but we do love travelling independently more.
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