First Day in Sudan

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After getting off the boat, minibuses took us to immigration, where all of the foreigners were fast tracked, without much searching of our bags. My original plan had been to go straight to Abri that day, but as there was quite a few other people around, I got a room in a lokanda (a Sudanese hotel, where the rooms have more in common with prison cells) with Jack an Australian guy, doing a similar trip to me and Nathan and Rien, 2 Americans on motorbikes, also doing a similar trip.

On arrival in Sudan, you are supposed to register within 3 days and we went to try and do that in the local security office. However, we were unsuccessul as the office had ran out of stickers to put in people's passports! We got some food at a busy enough restaurant serving schwarema. The ferry goes back the oppostie direction the day after it arrives in Wadi Halfa, so there were quite a few travellers in town and we got talking to some who were doing the journey in reverse.

Myself and Jack, got talking to an English guy, Darren, who told us that there were a couple of mountains worth hiking up, which we did. It was well worth it and it gave us a great view of the bottom of Lake Nasser, the town and another small village. We walked down towards the village, where all the kids came running after us. They all wanted us to take photos of them and show them. It was really enjoyable and a massive difference to Egypt. It started to feel like I was in 'real' Africa now.

Later, we met up again at one of the cafes, had some dinner, tea and shisha before going back to the lokanda for a romantic Valentine's night in Sudan, in a small room, with 3 other guys!

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