The Haboob
Trip Start
Apr 08, 2003
1
11
14
Trip End
Aug 2003
Khartoum,
Sudan
Saturday, July 12, 2003
When we headed north out of Khartoum on the 2nd, the Haboob was gathering its strength in the west and waiting to unleash.
We were heading to the Royal City of Meroe, about 4 hours north of Khartoum.
Sudan had several ancient civilisations which ran concurrent to the Egyptians. At times the Egyptians ruled Sudan, in others the Nubians ruled Egypt.
Meroe was the capital of one of these civilisations. Nestled in the desert a few kilometers from the Nile is the remains of the Royal Cemetary, a vast necropolis of pyramid tombs.
Not knowing exactly where it was, we scoured the desert from our seats in the bus, ready to yell stop when we spotted our destination.
It wasn't what I expected. I'd pictured a couple of hazy, spikey shapes in the desert near the road, obscured by dust and heat haze.
Instead we got off the bus in the middle of nowhere. In front of us on a sandstone hill rose several crumbling pyramids, sharply silhouetted against the blue sky, majestic and overpowering.
For a few minutes we just stood and watched.
It was a magnificent feeling to be in the desert again and to be looking at such a beautiful legacy of human civilisation.
We hot-footed it over the burning sand to the entrance of the complex. There we left our big bags with Mustafa, the site guard, and politely declined his offer to sell us a 3 foot long broadsword (I was tempted but couldn't see how I'd get it through customs at Heathrow).
Taking the essentials (lots of water) we climbed the sand dunes and began exploring.
Most of the pyramids were crumbling away though some had been restored. They differ from the Egyptian style - they are very steep and have a square shaped funerary chapel at the entrance.
After a few hours of looking around and an afternoon nap out of the sun, the day began to wane and evening fell.
Rob cooked up some soup on his little camp stove and everyone revelled in the cool evening breeze which had risen with the sun's fall. I'd expected the desert to be cold at night like in Egypt but it didn't even threaten to drop below 30 degrees all night.
Everyone was pretty exhausted so we walked down into the dry wadi beneath the pyramids, found a sand dune and lay down to sleep.
Almost immediately after putting down our heads the wind picked up. Within minutes we were in the middle of a mild sandstorm.
I made a shelter out of my sleeping bag to keep out the dust and dozed off to sleep watching the sand swirl above, eventually cutting off all sight of the night sky.
I woke. It was still night and the wind had died. I was covered in sweat so I unzipped my bag to cool off.
Suddenly the wind changed, switching a full 180 degrees.
"That's not a good sign. Maybe a big sandstorm coming", I thought.
Then something landed on my sleeping bag, then another, then another. At first I couldn't believe it: it was raining!
"Holy shit, its bloody raining! Whats the plan?!" I said.
"Not to be rained on!" said Rob running past me with everything tucked under his arms.
"OK, good plan."
"This is unbelievable! What are the chances of it raining out here?!" said Steve as I ran past with everything tucked under my arms.
We walked across the desert as the rain increased to into a full storm.
Our torches danced across the ghostly white sand and our laughing at how ludicrous the whole thing was was drowned out by the timpani rolls of thunder. Lightning would blast, illuminating the stage backdrop of pyramids, silhouetting them in the reds of earth and blues of air above us.
We took refuge in a restored funerary chapel. We piled up our wet gear on the floor and I lit my last candle left over from the power cuts in Ethiopia.
The small flame threw the tomb into a soft, dream-like light. On the opposing wall was a faded relief of Osiris being carried into the Underworld on a boat, surrounded by a court of animal headed gods. At the bow stood Horus, spear in hand, ready to slay Apophis, the snake god, when he attempted to steal Osiris's immortal soul.
When the rain stopped we decided to sleep outside the pyramid. There was a good possibility that the original owners were still in residence under the pile stone and sand. It seemed a little disrespectful to be turning it into a hotel.
You can imagine the quality of the bad "Return of the Mummy" jokes that were being thrown around.
The rain started again. We tried to tough it out for about an hour before the storm was back at full fury.
With no other choice we gave in and decided to sleep in the pyramids.
Steve and Mike walked off into the night in search of a dry spot while Rob and I took our original sanctuary.
I stood at the entrance watching the storm.
The vision of a line of ancient pyramids being lit up above blood red sand and nightmare black skies from the shelter of a 2000 year old tomb while rain, wind and sand tear and eat at you will stand forever in my memory as one of those few special moments you are given in your life.
In the morning we awoke, sand covered and thirsty.
We packed up and made our way down the kilometer or so to the main road.
The rain had stopped but the wind continued. A sandstorm blasted us as we sat waiting for a lift to the crossroad town of Atbara to the north. Rob curled up to sleep and Steve wandered off to take photos of the local village. I just sat back and enjoyed the wind attempting to rip us to pieces.
After an hour a truck stopped. We woke Rob from his sand covered slumber and climbed aboard. I perched myself just behind the cab, on top of a large coil of black plastic cable.
We drove through the desert as the abrasive wind tore and battered us, screaming like a deranged Arabic banshee.
The sandstorm grew to such an intensity that I was holding on to the truck for dear life with one hand, my glasses with the other and a huge psychotic smile underneath the black bandana wrapped around my face.
Fantastic stuff! It doesn't get much cooler than that.
Atbara was nothing much. A dusty junction town remeniscient of the set of Desperado minus the bullet holes and tequila (oh sweet tequila, where art thou now?).
"There's a bus going at midday," said Steve. He'd gone for a walk while the rest of us sat down and drunk Karkady, a tea made from dried Hibiscus flowers.
Six hours later the bus departed. It was an old school bus which had been migrated to the chassis of a big lorry.
I'd told the guys we'd go through the desert to get to Port Sudan. I didn't expect it literally.
We left the town and were swallowed up by a vast gravel plain which stretched to every horizon without end. The sand was marked by the tyre tracks of the day previous' passers by. There wasn't even the sniff of a road.
12 hours later we rolled into Port Sudan.
Port Sudan is hot.
I mean really, really hot. Khartoum is like Scotland in comparison.
Our hotel was an old colonial military hospital and resembled the Infimary out of Lawrence of Arabia.
The town is still in the early part of the 20th century. Old colonial buildings line the wide streets and are almost completely unchanged from when the British left. The water is on only for 2 hours in the morning and evening. The power is out most of the day.
There we did what you do in Port Sudan: lie down, read, sleep and sweat.
Later, Steve went and talked to some British dive operators.
"It was 46 degrees in the shade today," he said when he got back.
"Oh, shit. What is it now?" It was 7pm.
"38 degrees."
The next day the Haboob which had been hunting us in the desert around Meroe arrived in Port Sudan.
Furnace hot winds blew through the empty arched streets and a cloud of dust completely enveloped the town. For 3 days we didn't see the sky, only a haze of sand.
After a few days we decided to go down to the small port of Suakin an hour down the coast.
The attraction in Suakin is an island connected to the mainland by a thin causeway. On the island is an abandoned city built from coral taken from the Red Sea.
Its been derelict for decades and the fusion of British colonial and Muslim architecture is crumbling into the sea. Jagged teeth of smashed walls stand out of the waste like the survivors of a bombing raid. Formerly opulant palaces now lie as shells on the edge of the water, waiting for time to claim them.
We found a beautiful Oriental-influenced British fort on the sea edge and went swimming from the colonnaded courtyard as a respite from the burning sun.
After 5 hours in the water we wandered back into town. We'd wanted to sleep in the ghost city but the guards weren't keen on it at all.
We couldn't find a cheap place in town so I ended up asking at the police station if we could bed down there.
With the babble of Cannonball Run playing on pirated satellite TV outside the station, we lay down on a straw mat in the courtyard with the town's other vagrants and went to sleep. It was OK but I did discover that lying on concrete and sunburn don't go well together.
The next morning we headed back to Port Sudan after a swim and some breakfast.
We'd left wondering why all the flags in town were at half mast. As we passed the airport about 10kms out of town we'd been slowed to a stop by a huge traffic jam. Fire engines and police jeeps lined the roads as sandstorms continued to blast out of the desert, flailing everything in their path.
We got back to the Infirmary and lay down absolutely filthy on our beds. Mike came in a bit later.
"You guys aren't going to believe this. There's been a plane crash out of town. 115 people are dead."
A Sudan Airlines 737 had crashed the previous morning just after takeoff. The only survivor was a 2 year old boy.
Because we'd disappeared off to Suakin the previous morning, many of the locals from our haunts around town had thought we'd been aboard.
As we walked down to our usual dinner restaraunt the Ethiopian waiter who worked there ran out across the street to embrace us. He'd feared the worst and there was much thanking of Allah as we sat down to eat.
Finally the time to part had arrived.
Mike, Rob and Steve are running out of time and need to get to Cairo soon. I'm staying in Sudan for a bit longer. I needed to get back to Khartoum and Steve decided to go as well to get away from the heat. Mike and Rob decided to stay.
We left early and at 2am the next morning after a gruelling 20 hour bus ride we pulled into Khartoum.
Deciding to avoid the hassle and expense of taxis and hotels we lay down on the footpath of the station with the locals who were waiting for the early buses to leave and went to sleep.
At 6am we caught a bus back to town.
And that's about my week up north. It was pretty cool.
Steve is heading north on the train on monday morning. He's rendezvous-ing with Mike and Rob at Atbara. They'll continue by train to Wadi Halfa and then catch the ferry to Egypt across Lake Nasser.
I'm going to rest here for a few days before heading out west to the desert city of El Obeid. My plans to go further to Nyala and Jebel Marra have been abandoned to renewed fighting in the Civil War. Maybe next year.
Next post in a week or so.
ps: Jarek, the Polish guy from Ethiopia who was sick on the bus to Shire, contacted me. He's recovered somewhat and has made it back to Addis Ababa OK.
