Waiting Game
The bureaucrats who staff the offices of embassies seem to be employed specifically for their obtuseness, dribbling out information as though too much at one time may be poisonous.
It took four days to get our transit visas for Saudi Arabia - on the first day the embassy had closed for the day: it is only open from 9 am to 10.30 am.
When we returned the next morning, we were shunted to the head of the queue by the doorman - who was really pleasant and helpful throughout our ordeal - and bumped to the head of the queue once inside, only to be told that we had to obtain our Jordanian visas first.
Getting these was a breath of fresh air - two hours after submitting the forms, with one photograph, we had visas! The bonus is that Seffricans get Jordanian visas free!
Day 3 dawned with us determined to get visas. Ho, bloody Ho, Ho! This time, the bureaucrap informed us that we needed letters of recommendation from our own embassies. No embassy, then a letter stating this from the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Why the moron couldn't have told us exactly what we needed on the first day baffles my small mind!
Getting the letter from Sudanese Foreign Affairs proved easier than we expected - after we'd found the damned place. Every other ministry has enormous boards outside proclaiming its area of interest but foreign affairs seems a little publicity shy. We found it only because Lisa went into a larney hotel to ask directions and met a really nice Ethiopian who not only showed us where to go but did all the explaining in Arabic for us.
Of course, it wasn't that simple. While these ministries have fancy office blocks, the public is apparently not allowed anywhere near them and is confined to the gatehouses! The minor official at the first office we reached insisted the Ministry of the Interior dealt with the problem but after the fruitless trudge there and back, he told us the other entrance was the place to be. Not so, said the other entrance so we headed back to confront the arsehole again.
Along the way, we met an acquaintance of Ethiopian who worked in Foreign Affairs and could help us. Once he got involved it took about 15 minutes and we had our forms. Naturally, he wanted a "small something" for his efforts - worth it I suppose to avoid the murder charge I would have faced if I'd had to deal with the imbecile on door duty.
On day 4 of our Saudi Embassy travails, we were told we now needed to pay (we'd initially been told transit visas were free) and that we needed to deposit the money into the Saudi Bank in Mumble-mumble-mumble Street. "I'm sorry, which street did you say that was?" Mumble-mumble Street, came the reply.
By now I was speechlessly livid and stomped out of the embassy. Just as well, I couldn't speak because we'd never had got the visa if I'd told the individual exactly what I thought of him and the way he treated potential visitors to his country.
Ten minutes later, once I'd calmed down, I went back to see if I could find someone else to tell me where the bank was. That was the point at which our luck changed - two of the senior officials got involved and, instead of going to the bank and returning the next day, we were told to come back immediately with the deposit slip.
When we did, even though the applications hall had closed, one of the officials was waiting for us and sent our applications straight up for processing, telling us to return at 2 pm for the news. Apparently, once all the paperwork is in order, same-day issuing is the standard process.
We now have Saudi Arabian transit visas - we just have to hope they don't take exception to the dog when we drive off the boat.
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SWELTERING SUDAN
Khartoum, 10 April 2002
The state of the road between two countries appears to be an indication of the level of trade between the two states and if that is the case, Ethiopia and Sudan don't do a lot of business at the moment but are working improving the relationship.
Travelling from the 376 km from Gonder in Ethiopia to Gedaref, the first town of any size in Sudan took us two days of dusty, bouncing, increasingly heated travel.
We left Gonder at 6 am (okay, we were late because we couldn't find the car keys - it was 6:09 am!) because we'd been warned that the road wasn't in a pleasant condition. They are busy constructing a new road so in addition to fighting with the old road, we had to deal with numerous detours and the sight of a brand new, pristinely smooth road which we weren't supposed to drive on.
We did anyway, just to get some relief from the battering and dust.
The road descends from Gonder, at about 2 000 m, to the Sudanese border which is only about 850 m above sea level and as it drops the temperature rises, and rises, and rises. Most of Ethiopia has a pleasant climate with temperatures in the mid-20s while most of Sudan, we've subsequently experienced, swelters in temperatures around the upper-30s.
Out to lunch
Typically, we'd forgotten that it was Friday - the "weekend" for most Muslim countries. We apparently had to stop at a customs post 40 km before the border on the Ethiopian side but they were all "resting" when we arrived and would only be back in an hour's time. The fact that they'd been "resting" since about noon and it was then 2.30 pm didn't seem to hassle anyone!
We chose to push on to the border and see what happened. Expecting long arguments, we arrived to find there is a customs post at the border as well and all our formalities were dealt with in the blink of an eye - hand over one piece of paper, forget about the customs declaration form and carry on!
Sudanly Hot
The Sudanese side of the border was a little different - they refused to be rushed out of their rest - 4 pm is still considered a suitable hour to be resting (and after a week in Sudan's heat, I can see why).
But we were offered cold water and a seat while we waited. The customs officers chased away the crowds of young kids, who gathered to smudge the truck, with an apology: "These are Ethiopian children. Sudanese children aren't like this."
Sudan does accept the Carnet de Passage and doesn't seem to care about third party insurance so the whole crossing cost us a princely $1 and some time. Immigration did try to squeeze us for "registration" fees, wanting 40 000 Sudanese Pounds but we told them we only had travellers' cheques and would register in Gedaref.
The official currency in Sudan is the Dinar, worth 265 dinars to the US dollar, but everyone in Sudan still talks in terms of the "old" currency, the Pound. This is worth 2650 to the dollar - go figure how they operate! The currency notes are all in dinars. Confusion reigns when trying to work out prices because you're never quite sure which figure they are quoting and, as most Sudanese are real shysters when it comes to making money, they aren't above taking advantage of the confusion!
Finished dealing with the bureaucrats - they didn't seem to give a damn about Tigger - we headed down the road for 5 km and stopped for a teabreak, which turned into a quick snack and bed by 8 pm. Ourselves, Benka the motorbiking woman and a German couple, we'd met in Addis and been crossing paths with since then, all end camped in a loose laager.
We were all so exhausted from the day's driving that we went to bed more as a matter of urgent exhaustion than because we were tired.
Going North
It was only the following morning that Lisa and I really realised that we'd entered yet another country and manage to get Tigger through another border crossing without any problems - we always expect them to start demanding forms that no-one else has heard of!
After some confusion over what time it was - it's never easy working things out when you get up before sunrise - because Lonely Planet's Africa on a Shoestring (After what we've seen, I think they should change the name to Loony Planet) says Sudan is on GMT +2 hours (making it the same time as Seffrica!) while the Sudanese haven't heard of Lonely Planet and all operate on East Africa time (GMT +3) we decided it was too early to think and a cooler (in all senses) idea to drive on.
Get a Rest
We reached Gedaref four hours later but finding your way through Sudanese towns isn't easy because all untarred roads through the desert are subject to multiple choice beginnings and endings - they split into numerous tracks near the town and you have to guess which one to take and just hope you'll find your way through whichever part of town you arrive in.
We filled up with fuel, avoided the "Aliens Registration Office" (I kid you not, that's what they called the bureaucrats that keep track of non-Sudanese people in the country) and headed north along the tar road to Khartoum.
You're supposed to stop at numerous checkpoints along the way to have your details written down but this is a time-consuming process as most of the officials don't speak much English and struggle to read Roman script. It's far easier to pretend you don't see them waving or hear their whistles chirruping frenziedly at you as you roar past.
We got to Khartoum with only one "official" stop, at which we completely forgot to use the photostats we'd made for our travel permit so that they wouldn't laboriously write out all the information again and waste even more time. Later, when we did decide to use this form, we found it wasn't much help because the official couldn't read the English information anyway and wanted to write it all out again!
Confluence
Khartoum is situated at the confluence of the White and Blue Niles but, apart from using Nile Avenue as a convenient place to put every bureaucratic office except those that we needed, the city hasn't made much real use out of such a historically and geographically significant point.
This is the town where General Gordon "walked down the steps" of the government offices to talk to the Mahdist forces and was hacked to pieces (silly bugger, what did he expect from a marauding army?!) and where Kitchener, sent by the British Government - themselves forced to action by the British public's outcry over the incident - to seek revenge (officially they called it something else, I'm sure!).
Kitchener's forces somehow managed to manhandle a rather large metal gunboat - we saw the listing hulk in the grounds of the Blue Nile Sailing Club where it now serves as the cleaning cupboards and shade for the groundskeepers - up the Nile from Egypt in its various pieces, around the cataracts before assembling it and steaming up the last section to Khartoum and Omdurman, built by the Mahdists on the western shore of the White Nile at the confluence, to bombard the crap out of the Muslim forces in the late 1890s.
Kitchener then laid out a nice town plan for Khartoum before sailing off to receive his plaudits in England and then head for Seffrica to savage that part of the world.
Merry-Go-Round
His town plan is still used in the city centre but it more cheerful aspects have been sadly neglected in the 100-odd years since he left. Fortunately he laid out a number of traffic circles which, although I'm sure he didn't have this in mind, makes it much easier for travellers like us to find our way around street name-less cities.
The traffic lights (also built subsequent to Kitchener's departure, I believe!) tend to work erratically and even when they do work, nobody is inclined to pay them much attention, preferring to play chicken with the other traffic. We've discovered that having a big truck with serious steel tubing at each corner tends to give us an advantage in such traffic conditions and I got into the swing of things quite quickly.
The only thing - and I'm peeved about this - that I haven't been able to do is hang my hand out the window and languidly wave other drivers out of the way as I saunter across three lanes of oncoming traffic, forcing them to screech from 70 km/h to a halt just because I saw a gap of more than 20 m. That's the way things are done in Khartoum and because they drive on the right and we've got a left-hand-drive vehicle, I get to miss out on the nonchalant bits of the fun.
We finally got our tyres changed - after three days of searching - and we have heard that there is somewhere that does balancing but we've given up hope of finding it.
Tomorrow we'll be leaving Isaac's Campsite, about 15 km south of the city and heading north to Atbara before crossing the desert to Port Sudan where we'll catch a ferry to Saudi Arabia.
We also registered as officially Alien in Khartoum, having ignored the instruction do so in Gedaref. Nobody at the office cared, being concerned only that we were staying at a campsite and didn't have a "proper" address. It also cost significantly less than the 40 000 Sudancese Pounds the border officials were asking - we paid only 18 000 Sudanese Pounds.
Isaac, after we'd been staying at the camp for four days, informed us that the fancy walled compound, with what looks like four separate house within the complex, which is 100 m from the campsite gate was Osama Bin Laden's home for several years when he stayed in the Sudan. Nice Neighbourhood!
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