SUDAN BOOT CAMP
Trip Start
Jul 14, 2007
1
2
12
Trip End
Ongoing
WADI HALFA,
Sudan
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Transport was slow,poorly timetabled and on bad roads.
Hotels were mostly basic lokandas with nowhere to lock baggage,and everyone sleeping out in open courtyards at night in the almost unbearably hot weather.
Flies and mosquitos were ever present.Thank goodness they don't have malaria here.I hope! At least the locals say they don't,or at least not at this time of year,and they don't use any precautions such as nets.
Showers were usually the bucket variety,often positioned over the smelly toilet hole.
Few people spoke English in most villages.My fault for not speaking Arabic of course,but it makes life difficult,all the same.
The locals had a disinterested attitude to time so that attempting a rapid or scheduled journey was a concept they could not entertain!
On Fridays,nothing moves,and I personally was stuck in the small town of Abri for a day,frustratedly watching everyone else sitting on their lazy backside while I went round the village,where I could communicate with virtually nobody,seeking a bowl to wash my clothes in.When I found one,suddenly everyone who couldn't be bothered to find one for me,wanted use of it."Fetch yer own" was my predictable reaction.
But,like all good boot camps,as I progressed southward,I was gradually rewarded with improved conditions and restoration of "priveleges".
In Karima,I even had a single room with a lock,although it was so unbearably hot that the ceiling rotor only churned round hot air and I still ended up moving out into the courtyard by the early hours of the morning,virtually naked,and too boiled to care.I usually cope with the heat very well,but northern Sudan was something else again at this time of year.
Worse still was visiting two pyramid sites in the desert here.On the first I made my own way to part of the site,but was escorted to the other part.I thought my escort had water with him,so I didn't take any.But it turned out that what he was carrying was a torch in the shape of a thermos flask,to show me inside some tombs.We were lucky to make it back alive,as a few hundred yards seemed like miles,and I realised for the first time in my life how it is that people die of thirst and dehydration in the desert.To my relief,a chair,a huge jar of water,and a bed.....in that order,were awaiting our return to the entrance under the shade of a huge and lonely tree.I eventually recovered enough to be rickshawed back to town.
Visiting a second site that afternoon,everything was going fine until I was on my way back to the rickshaw that was waiting for me.In the distance,I saw a man marching purposefully towards me,and suspected he might be wanting to charge me for entrance to this unfenced site.Hurrying to get back to the road,even running part of the way,the heat got the better of me again,and I was almost on the point of collapse by the time I reached my "getaway " vehicle.We stopped at a nearby taverna for water and a lie down,but upon continuance,I still had to lie horizontal for the rest of the ride to the hotel,having difficulty catching my breath.
Continuing the journey to Khartoum,when the public transport network finally laid on a nice bus from Karima,this broke down an hour into the journey,and after waiting an hour the replacement turned up,with it's tinted windows,making the desert sunshine outside look like cloud,and spoiling the view of the transition of the climate from the sweltering north,to the rainy season of the capital.
Upon arrival,I no longer had the desire to sit on a slow train to Darfur for three days,or even beg the Ministry for the necessary permit to travel there.
I consoled myself with the thought that next time,when I fly straight into Khartoum fresh from the cool climate and relatively relaxing life in England,I will attempt a "mission of mercy" to a war ravaged province.
For now I must prioritise my ambition to reach South Africa overland,before I get bogged down in sand for ever more.
There is no denying it had been a very worthwhile journey.Certainly different,but containing a little too much hardship to want to prolong my experience.You can certainly feel a long way from rescue in this part of the world if the shit hits the fan,and a war torn version of northern Sudan could be pretty dicey,dirty and diabolical in a worst case scenario.But there is a limit to endurance and the week reaching Khartoum had expended most of my desire to rough it any more.In fact I was still worrying weeks later,every time I arrived in a new town in Ethiopia or Kenya,if the hotels were going to be as basic again,as Sudan had been.Thank heavens they weren't,but for all it's charm,some places are just a little too raw for comfort,and the downside of this region is that it would give you "nightmares" such as this for a while afterwards.
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STANDING ROOM ONLY ON THE BOAT TO SUDAN
