Blogs from Sudan, Africa - page 2

Our ferry from Egypt chugged in to Wadi Halfa in Sudan just before lunch. Wadi Halfa is a dusty hot border town, with not a whole lot going down. Apparently we stayed in the room that Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman used during their Long Way Down trip. The bikes hadn't arrived so we headed into town to kill a little time. A large group of young guys in green khaki came striding past us a one stage, then a few minutes later one guy in police uniform came sprinting past us, with the group in hot pursuit. They caught him, gave him a bit of a beating, and then took him away. We found out later that the police guy had arrested one of the army guys for drinking, and this had obviously backfired on ... read more

I once thought that I might lose my life back in my senior year of high school when I had a gun pointed at my head during a robbery. Saturday night was the second time. I was on a Lufthansa Air flight from Frankfurt to Addis Ababa, via Khartoum, Sudan. We made a stop in Khartoum to drop off some passengers, as planned. But about 30 minutes away from our landing in Addis, as I was in the plane bathroom, the captain suddenly came onto the loudspeaker and shouted, "Emergency descent! Emergency descent!" Just like the time I was robbed, I suddenly felt like I was in a dream and everything moved in slow motion. I rushed back to my seat. The crew told us to look at our passenger safety instruction cards and to get ... read more

Travel within Sudan is never a straightforward endeavor. For one, the distances between points A and B are often vast, with little but desolate desert between. More of an issue, as a khawaja (foreigner), is that you must procure a travel permit – EACH time you travel away from Khartoum, specifying which part of the country you are going. And then there’s the limited tourist “infrastructure” once you get to point B – your, ahem, choice of hotels, for example, may be two tops. Which in turn means you often end up having to pay an exorbitant price for not so fantastic accommodations. There’s no real possibility of bargaining. Where else are you going to go, huh? So I have not done as much domestic travel in Sudan as I would have liked over the course ... read more

We ended up spending a few more days in Khartoum than planned as there was some Nuban wrestling on Fridays that we wanted to check out. Unfortunately, in the end we didn't manage to see it, despite getting the bus out to the part of the city that it was supposedly on. We thought 2 guys had understood where we wanted to go and would tell us where to get off, but then they go off the bus and no one else could understand where we wanted to go to. It didn't help that this was the day after our one and only big night out in Khartoum. On the Thursday night, which is like their Friday night, we were brought to a Guest House by our couch surfing host. We arrived to find about 4 ... read more

Hicran Ciğdem Yorgancıoğlu ‘nun Sudan Khartoum Hartum Devr-i Alem Hicri Alem Hicran Çiğdem Seyahatnamesi’nden ..seyahat notlarından alıntılardır . Her hakkı saklıdır .. / Eserin tüm telif hakları H.Çiğdem Yorgancıoğlu’na aittir . Eserin izinsiz kopyalanması çoğaltımı ,yayını ,dağıtımı halinde 5846 sayılı Fikir ve Sanat Eserleri Kanunun hükümleri geçerli olacaktır. Nil Nehri'nin fil hortumunu andıran şeklinden Al-kartoūm yani bildiğimiz hortumdan gelmekte şehrin ismi Kara Kıta'da karalar bağladım . Gezdim gezdim ağladım. Filim ile birlikte izliyorum film değil gerçek. Ülke ikiye ayrıldı .Hartum'dayım . Üç milyonluk şu şehirde ,yaşamın kıyısında ,bu yoksulluk ve yokluk içimi acıtıyor . Ben kaça ayrıldım bilmiyorum Nil kıyısında . Burası böyle ise Somali nasıl ... Hicran Ciğdem Yorgancıoğlu ‘nun Sudan Khartoum Hartum Devr-i Alem Hicri Alem Hicran ... read more