21. Desert time!

After two days of waiting for the car, we are on the move again! It’s already 4 pm but we are ready to leave Wadi Halfa.

The exciting town of Wadi Halfa

Together with Kees, Jacobien and the 3 kids, Pieter, Janne and Stijn, we are going to drive to Dongola. To reach this town you have two options: you go via the tarmac road or you drive through the desert. Option number two is the way to go for us! It is always better to do this kind of trip with at least one other car. If something happens to one of the cars in the middle of nowhere at least then you are not stuck. So we buy water and food and we set of to find the ferry that will bring us to the other side of the longest river in the world, the Nile. After having completed this first mission we spend our first night in the desert.

Waiting for the ferry to cross the Nile

Although it was a fantastic trip it is hard to put the great feeling we had down in words. We drove through different landscapes of desert, saw the stars and the Milky Way, looked at the new moon and started our evening by enjoying a beautiful sunset. We got stuck in soft sand, we followed way points on the GPS and if we didn’t have them, we looked for old tire tracks. We drove nice and smooth to bumpy and jumpy (now I know why there is an extra handle to hold on to on the passengers side LOL – to put this in words of a 90’s Belgian commercial for a family park, driving sometimes was a ‘Walibibibi, j’en suis baba experience’). The landscape changed from only sand to stones everywhere to palm trees near the Nile. This my friends was just fantastic! We have enjoyed this tremendously. Definitely the highlight of Sudan! Our trip in pix:

Getting stuck…

getting stuck…

…and getting stuck : )

Children and fun in the sand (yes, the first one is Kosta LOL)

Us having loads of fun

Hotel Desert

Landscape changing

Approaching the Nile again

Through a Nubian village

And back into the middle of nowhere, ‘Nil’ trying to hold on LOL

Finally back on tarmac

Coming out of the desert we get stopped at a check point. The entire car is search. When the officer opens the bag with our dollars I immediately think ‘here we go, bribe time’. But no, I can put away this prejudice ‘cos he closes the bag and just carries on with checking the car. In a country like Sudan, where lots of people are struggling, we could almost understand that this guy asks for some when he sees all those dollars. But this is an honest guy just doing his job. When asked for the camera we give him the one with the flat battery, the one we never use. We tell him it is broken. As we don’t have a photo permit we are not allowed to take any pictures in Sudan. I have hidden the other camera under my red jacket. : ) Not that we think we might have to delete them or something but better safe than sorry. The truck of our Dutch fellow travellers is not really search: the advantage of having kids. They see the children and they are not interested in checking the truck anymore. Maybe we should consider hiring a child for this journey?! LOL

In Dongola we say goodbye to the fantastic five and start our journey towards Karthoum. There are not that many monuments to see in Sudan but we set of to see some pyramids. First pyramids we come to: Nuri. Hmmm, to the least we can say that it is not even worth mentioning in any guide book. Even with the GPS we kind of doubt if we have arrived at the right ones. LOL We drive towards them and stop in front, there is not even a fence or anything. Standing right in front of the pyramids, our decision is quickly made: we do not want to pay to see this. But as you can imagine guards are already making their way down to us for the entrance fee. And that is when Kosta puts on his show: he gets out of the car and asks them if these are the tombs of El Kurru. They (obviously) tell us it is not. “Aaah, really? Stupid GPS”, says Kosta. “We want to go to El Kurru”. With a huge smile he innocently gets back into the car and of we go without paying

These are not the Nuri pyramids but just to give you an idea: these ones are the ones at the holy mountain Jebel Barkal and compared to the pyramids of Nuri, very impressive LOL

Our next days in Sudan consist of a lot of driving and sleeping in the desert. We do visit the ancient royal cemetery of Begrawiya, which are worth it. But other than that we are just making our way down to Ethiopia. We have enjoyed this country very much. The people are very friendly, even the officers that tried to give us a fine for not wearing the seatbelt were ok. : p You have to know that loads of people do not wear their seatbelt, but obviously the tourist Toyota gets pulled over. And what happens then is something you can not imagine happening in a European country. When they try, and we say ‘try’ to make us pay a 100 Sudanese Pound we say ‘no, no, no’. So many people don’t put it on here. The two officers make us wait on the side. When another driver arrives without wearing the seatbelt, I point to him, tell the officers he is not wearing the seatbelt and that they have to fine him. One last try to make us pay, 5 last no’s coming from us and we are able to leave. But this is something we would never do at home, no discussion when the seatbelt is not on but when we are travelling we more than once do some things we would never do at home…

Petrified wood… and oh yes, stylish young lady at 8 am in the very windy and a bit chilly desert

20. A barge, a ferry and lots of waiting: crossing from Egypt to Sudan

Finally, after two weeks of waiting we are ready to sit on deck of a ferry that will bring us to Wadi Halfa in Sudan. Kosta had put the car on the barge yesterday and so we make our way down to the port.

The Cruiser on the barge

At around 10 am we arrive at the port. The chaos is unbelievable, you would say it is the first time they have to organize this. But we can only smile at this, we are just glad to be leaving. Egypt is definitely not our favourite country. They might have wonderful pyramids and other monuments, they might have beautiful diving spots, but in all honesty they do not have the nicest people. No, not everyone is out to scam you, only the people that deal with tourists… that is 90% of all Egyptians. I understand that they are in a bad situation. Since the revolution in January things have not gone for the better for these people. Prices have gone up, tourists have stayed away. So I have no problem with paying a bit more here and there (as a tourist you always do). But prices often rise with 300% when they see a white face. So asking us 5 pounds for a drink when we know the Egyptian price is maximum 1,5, is more an insult to my intelligence than just asking a bit more to a tourist. And this is how it goes every time we want to buy something: you know the price but you have to bargain again and again and again until you think that this is a fair price for them and for you. More than once we have put the stuff back and walked away. Stupid of them to triple the prices, now they have sold nothing.

Anyway, back to the ferry. A couple of other overlanders have already secured a place under a rescue boat. We join them, and are more than happy with this spot as we have shade. Of course you can also book a cabin but we prefer to do it this way. And then the waiting starts. It is 10 am and the ferry will leave at around 5 or 6 pm. Nothing really exciting happening on this ferry (although trying to make your way down to the bathrooms is a bit of an adventure). Finally, more than 24 hours after having settle in on deck, we arrive in Sudan. And we might have had hours and hours to have absolutely nothing to do but before we can get of the boat we have some more paper work to fill in. Really, people,why not give us the forms when we get on the boat and check the passport during the long trip instead of in the morning… At about 2 pm we finally get of the boat: both of us tired, me having a mega headache and being a bit dehydrated (trying to avoid the bathroom LOL). But most of all we are happy to set foot on Sudanese ground.

Enjoy the pictures, we certainly have and have smiled at the memory of this crossing:

Under the rescue boat

Our sleeping place for the night… and a bit of a more comfy option for Roy:

Somewhere in the morning: waiting together to see Abu Simbel from the ferry