Hilton Khartoum

... and I speaking in German, the family using Arabic – there is no lack of communication. Having satisfied herself that we will sleep well despite our funny set-up (we were of course invited to sleep in their home) ‘Mama’ sets off again, a gaggle of children and grown ups following her lead. The next day one of the daughters, Galia, comes over and communicates that we MUST come visit her house. There is no room for argumentation as she stands next ...

... cm of road width to good use and we could go on, some ten trucks could not. At lunchtime we reached the real border. A fixer attached himself to us as a Remora to a shark, hoping for bits to fall off. He was of help and some bits fell off. You have to have your passport stamped at the Ethiopian side, have the carnet done as well, go over the bridge, like hundreds of people are doing. Only five or six of them were having anything stamped, the others just ...

I was tasked with driving down the fairly new section of road from Abu Dom towards Khartoum. No great hardship, in fact a doddle after the last 2 days. It was wonderful knowing we were actually putting some real distance on the clock. My concerns on the tight timescale were getting worse. Previously I was working in days until we had to be at Bahir Dar to meet Jo and Sean. Now I was counting hours and realising that we could only make the deadline by driving ...

... needed a permanent fix once and for all. The Landy shop was closed but a guy nearby managed to do a decent job. Car mechanics are such lovely friendly people no matter where you are in the world. It's wonderful. Start: National Campsite, Khartoum, SUDAN. End: World Food Programme guesthouse, Khartoum, SUDAN. Distance Traveled: 0 Road Conditions: - Temperature: like yesterday, and probably what it will be like tomorrow

... involves a lot of eye-talk; isn't it amazing what eyes can reveal? The girls are all wearing headscarves and no part of their body is showing except their beautiful face, hands, and for those wearing sandals, feet. Some are wearing make-up, mostly eyeliner, eye-shadow and a bit of lip gloss. They are all elegantly dressed and they all exude an air of absolute confidence in the way they walk, sit, eat. These are the cosmopolitan women of Khartoum, of the whole of Sudan ...

... Embassy. Walking anywhere in Khartoum is difficult. There are few sidewalks and we usually have to climb over or around piles of rubble or take our chances walking on the roadway. When we get to the Ethiopian Embassy at 11:30 AM the visa section has closed for the day. Our Bradt guidebook for Sudan tells us it is open until noon. It is instead only open from 9-11 AM. We get a SIM card for our cell phone and try to call Mubarak, the Sudanese man we met at the ...

... s greed but he refused to accept payment for his services. Same story again: greedy guy, good guy. So with the light fading I zoomed (well, more of a zum) off to try and get to Wad Medani, the next big town, by night fall. No such luck. I was flagged down as the sun was setting by what I assumed was another police checkpoint (that don't just look at your passport but write down every little detail, slowly, requiring translation at ...

As a quick re-cap of our trip so far: After selling our house and quitting our jobs, we left Toronto, Canada on January 8th, 2007. Our 1st stop was Budapest, Hungary, followed by Germany. Then we spent 3 months in India. Currently we are part of an Overland Trip from Istanbul to Cape Town, and have visited Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and at the moment are in "The Sudan".

... accepter de quitter le Soudan après un an de mission. Ma date de fin de mission est donc le 2 juillet, officiellement, de retour à Montréal vers le 10 ... définitivement là le 12! En attendant, j'ai beaucoup de travail, mais je dois avouer qu'avec le nouveau CdM ultra compétent, je n'ai pas beaucoup de choses passionantes à faire. J'espère donc, en 80 quelques jours, compléter les dossiers, retourner sur le terrain et enfin voir toutes les bases, finir la mission en beaut ...

... we ask?  Well  perhaps a nice cold beer, but that would just be pedantry.  Our first stop in Sudan was Gedaref , a very pleasant agricultural town  in the south.  We bumped into a couple of Medicin Sans Frontier volunteers: Theo from Canada, and Merial from England.  When we 'bumped' into Theo he nearly fell off his bike.  After 4 months in Gedaref we were the first 'hawaja' (white people) he had seen, apart from his fellow MSF workers.  We have well and truely ...