Danah Hotel Khartoum

... is that bush-camping is allowed and nobody will come and bother you if you pitch up camp in the middle of the desert or under some palm trees along the Nile. Each evening as the sun sets and the air cools to a semi-activity inducing temperature we look around for a good camp. Slowly God lowers a black velvet quilt in front of us, embroidered with the most exquisite pattern of silver sparkling stars. Marvin and I shrink in the vastness of the desert and the ...

... of another bumpy ride. In this case the Koreans were building a new road. Sudan and Ethiopia signed a bilateral agreement on trade and one of the stipulations was the improvement of the road. To improve, you first have to exprove. The construction of culverts requires trenches dug across the road. This necessitates detours through the surrounding fields. The truck sometimes bucked like a bronco, felt like a kayak on the Colorado and rattled like a ...

... which sounds posher than it is, but at least they had a (not very) cold shower and Jenny and I cleaned the worst of the dust out of our car. We were very impressed by the amount of development work in terms of infrastucture and irrigated agriculture going on in Sudan after having very low expectations. Most people seem to attribute this to Chinese money pouring in for whatever reason, but creating lots of jobs, supplying modern means and making people ...

... Union some over. Luckily we didn't need to resort to that. I've grown up ;) Anyway, we will spend two more nights in our lovely little cool room and depart for Sudan's northern deserts and pyramids on Thursday morning. Start: Lisamin Safari Hotel, Khartoum, SUDAN. End: Lisamin Safari Hotel, Khartoum, SUDAN. Distance Traveled: 0 Road Conditions: - Temperature: hot outside, but nice and COOL in here

... some bread and told to "Eat Eat! You MUST eat!" A couple of them had decent English so we were able to get the basics across, like where I was from ("Oh do you know Jackie Chan from Hong Kong?"), what I was doing here ("We hope you enjoy our country"), and how hot it was today ("This time of year is the hottest in Sudan, why you travelling now?" Hmph, good question.) For the rest of the morning while I caught up on a bit of blog writing under the shade of the trees, Matt ...

... here spending money, our own money; so we decide to stay at the Taka and now feel much better about paying $60/nite rather than $230. There are lots of foreigners here making money. There are 20,000 Chinese here building infrastructure and extracting oil. There are many foreign experts under contracts with the Sudanese government as well as UN and international aid agencies. This infusion of foreign money may be the reason that the cost of food and lodging ...

... Cruising. I could potentially reach Khartoum the same day. I had planned on three days! Sadly it was not to be. The temperature soared and I was very hot, bothered and dehydrated. I had not packed the suncream in an accessible location so was getting crisped slowly. But at 100kmph it was not so unpleasant. Until my brand-new-bought-in-Addis-no-more-than- 2000km-on-it chain snapped. In the middle of nowhere. Now, I have spare ...

... hours.) The Sudanese people we met in the small desert towns were incredibly friendly. One shop owner paid for a taxi for us to an Internet cafe (too bad there was no electricity once we got there); another invited us over to his house for lunch when we asked him where we could get some good Sudanese food; a truck stopped at our camp site and the driver got out, brought to us 2 large bottles of water, put in down, smiled and left. We (the boys ...

... Sudan, perhaps even, somehow, contribute to the end of the conflict and usher in a new, brighter, era. Insha' allah. And I would like to say a big thank you to all those I've come to meet on this mission ... it's never black and white, it's always very intense, but honestly, I feel blessed to have been here with you. We'll meet again, the better for having on this mission. Until then, take care everyone! Edith ... ready to wrap it up! www.actioncontrelafaim.org www.actioncontrelafaim.ca

Sudan here we are!   We crossed the border a week and a half ago.   This had potential to be one of our more challenging journeys.   The British Foreign Office do not recommend the journey because of  the current civil war in Sudan.  But the confidence of the Sudanese  embassy in Addis Ababa about the safety of the route, and the handful  of travellers that we had met who had travelled this way without problems  gave us the confidence to continue on regardless. We ...