There are two parts to this page: the
Travel Facts section, and the
Diary section.
Key Travel Facts - Details that other overlanders might like to know
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Midhat XXX in Wadi Haifa is ….
The Nile Route from Wadi Haifa to Khartoum (via Dongola) is lovely, passing through friendly Nile villages and greenery. Roads are bad, and we averaged about 20-25kph for the three day drive (Wadi Haifa – Dongola).
DIARY - How we're getting on, and what we've been up to
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It’s great to be here! No, Really great. And the local buses and trucks carry sand ladders, so slightly worrying.
The boat journey passed fairly quickly. The evening was spent enjoying (?) a conversation with two Sudanese men. It was one of those conversations portrayed entirely through gesticulations (verging on mime), and lots of smiles and nods. So, it was rather a shock when the conversation turned to oral sex and proud declarations of Manhood. The route we had taken was via the explanation that he had three wives (I, so far, only had one – well, kinda) and to satisfy his needs was evidently one of the important reasons. What would I do when my wife got old, was one of his concerns. I quickly closed the conversation, and they both became rather apologetic.
The Sudanese entry formalities were completed quickly. So quickly in fact that we did not believe they were over and insisted on standing outside the port for a while just in case they wanted us back. After convincing ourselves that no-one was interested in us, we took a shared taxi into town. Of course we didn’t have Forbie with us yet.
In town we relaxed and enjoyed some char-grilled meat (delicious) served with traditional semi-leavened small round loaves. So far we had been charged fair prices for food, taxis, Sudanese currency. People were friendly without being overbearing. We were in a border town, yet it was pleasant. We both had a good feeling about Sudan.
Spotting a telephone office which also had the name “Midhat Mahir” written on it, we went over to enquire about him. The Dutch couple we had met in Luxor had recommended him as someone to help out with paperwork and the like, and maybe even some hospitality. The friendly (and very pretty) lady in the office gave him a call for us, and soon we had confirmed that not only would he be pleased to help us with our car (when it arrived) but also that we should come to his sister’s wedding that evening. The Egyptian Instincts insisted that I should say no (this apparently open display of hospitality must surely be a veil for extracting money), but something friendly and honest about the way he spoke made us accept. Yes, we would love to come.
It was a traditional Nubian wedding, and when we joined it there were three-hundred or so guests gathered around the main square. A band was playing in the centre, with dancing going on around. We were introduced to several hundred uncles, cousins, brothers and friends. The women’s dresses were beautiful, adding flourishes of colour amongst the men in their spotless flowing-white gelabba’s. The dancing was simple, and even I (Nigel) was able to keep up with the more basic steps, before being taken on a ‘circuit’ by the older Uncle – a fantastic man, with one of those unfathomably kind faces. (He told us how he was making some television programmes about the Nubian culture and civilisation to capture it, since most of it lives only in people’s memories and there is the risk that this may be lost. He speaks to the elders to capture their stories.) The circuit involved finger clicking, which sparked a high-pitched warble-like response.
As promised, at 11 O’clock sharp the music stopped and the crowd dispersed. After dinner at Midhat’s house where he was feeding the band we were taken back to our hotel. It was over dinner that we learnt about Midhat’s previous pets – a crocodile and a monkey, the latest addition was a cat somewhat unimaginatively named Catty.
Thankfully Midhat leant us a sleeping bag and blanket since our bedding was locked in the car and the hotel did not have any blankets. Even so, it was a bitterly cold night – especially for Gina who lost the fight and got the blanket.
Registration (c. 20 USD each) the following day was a slow process, clearly designed to frustrate in every way. After completing this, we got some lunch before spending some time in Midhat’s office helping (hindering?) with the task of making ribbon-flowers for the wedding. Midhat explained this was one of his talents, and he now often gets asked to make flowers for other weddings. The singer was there too, and it turned out that he was now off to Cairo before touring to France. Midhat had done a tour of Nubian Egypt with the singer some years ago, sweeping the Nubian weddings, where they had made lots of money – they hoped to repeat this some time!
Later we were off to the port to check for the car – but no sign of it as yet. We would be waiting until tomorrow. We enjoyed a cup of tea at one of the ‘coffee shops’ with the overland group, where the lady running the stall refused to let us pay. The hospitality and honesty shown by the Sudanese so far has been quite amazing.
The following day (Thursday) we made an early start down to the port. We had been told that the vehicle barge was close the previous evening, so surely it would be in by now? We were dismayed to find out that it wasn’t, and after some asking around discovered that cargo boats only travel during daylight. We headed back into Wadi Haifa. Asking Midhat later in the day, he was able to confirm that the barge had arrived so we rushed down hoping to collect the cars. We arrived to some performance as Mr Kamal (more later) was shouting and hollering at the German’s refusal to pay 10USD per car for the custom’s overtime – the port had now closed for their ‘weekend’, and any work would need paying for. Sadly we were just too late to get involved in this negotiation, as all of the customs workers had now left – we would be stuck in Wadi Haifa for a further two days.
Now, a word or two on Mr Kamal. In summary, Kamal is a …. now, let me hold back from alliteration, and instead call him Unscrupulous. From our first dealings with Mr Kamal, when he tried to snare us at the port, until the moment we left him he went out of his way to delay proceedings, ‘help overcome the problems’, and extract money for his troubles. I would gladly push to the front of any queue to knock out all his teeth, had someone not evidently jumped in with this idea several years earlier. Even the locals seem to despise him, but somehow you just can’t work round him.
So, we spent the next day relaxing around Wadi Haifa with only one false-alarm rush to the port when the seventy-two year old lone-travelling German either mis-heard or mis-communicated (with not a word of English) an opportunity for us to complete the paperwork.
Arriving on the fifth day at eight O’clock as instructed, we met up with Kamal at nine thirty. This gave us time to drain out the engine oil (which was too full) into the custom’s forecourt, and enjoy breakfast with the guards. Much time spent inventing paperwork and other hurdles, arguing again over fees, introducing new searches (for wal-cho-wol and wine) saw most of the day being eaten up, and it had gone three O’clock by the time we had got into town, said our goodbyes, and made our way over to Midhat’s house to pick up some GPS reference material. We had decided to split from the other groups since we were keen to do the Nile route, having heard good things about it. After lots of desert driving in Libya and Tunisia our thirst for sand and heat was waning – we didn’t feel we were missing out giving the desert a miss.
At last we were on the road!! And quite a road… having wound out of Wadi Haifa, we broke right into the desert and headed out towards Akasha. We were following intermittently other 4x4 tracks, and nothing, but just as we would need a reassuring signal we’d always catch a glimpse of someone else’s tracks. With that and the GPS guiding us, we powered on through the desert breaking only to make camp.
This drive over to Akasha was the most remote yet (actually on our route south), forging our own way across desert. At times the sand was very soft, and having let the tyre pressure down we made our way on often having to use low ratio gears. Gina took over for her first stretch of real sand driving, taking the opportunity to swifty get us stuck. Out came the shovel, and a quick switch of drivers soon saw us on our way. With lower tyre pressures, Gian soon got the hang of ‘going with the pull’ and the feel for being held back by the sand. Having negotiated a few narrow, soft, and very difficult sections, things were looking good. As early afternoon drew on, it was nice to spot our first vehicle in the distance, and soon we were descending into Akasha.
Now, the maps and guides for the area glamorously describe Akasha as a ‘village’. Having been there, we can confirm it is no more than a collection of ten or so buildings. Or perhaps we were never actually there. Anyway, we headed on down the Nile grumbling only slightly that our route ‘down the Nile’ seemed to be more of a route ‘down the sandy valley somewhere close to the Nile’. This would soon change.
Later, having passed through further Nile Villages, and beginning to suffer from Friendly Foreigners Wrist syndrome (there was lots of energetic waving as kids rushed out from every nook and cranny) we began to look for a camp. The spot we settled in (and are currently sat in) was a perfect spot nestled in amongst the palms on the bank of the Nile a few kilometres from Abri. Not even a mozzy in sight. An evening stroll took us past some donkeys, dogs, and farmers – so nothing out of the ordinary there, then.
The next day saw us passing through small Nile villages, winding our way south. The road was mostly rocky track, and at times felt like we were driving through quarries. At each village, the route would diverge into hundreds of different paths as we wound through the village, and again on leaving many different paths would stream out – they all seemed to converge eventually, and most of the time we would find ourselves back on track.
A short driving stint from Gina saw us taking an alternative route, and we were soon engaging 4x4 and low ratio. The sand was getting very soft, with tricky driving in amongst small boulders. Soon we were stuck. A good opportunity to use the air jack (a large plastic bean-bag sized bag, inflated using a rubber tube held over the exhaust) lifted the wheels enough to get a sand ladders under, and thankfully we were soon on our way. It was later that we discovered that we’d left our shovel behind.
As the day drew to a close we passed a couple heading up from South Africa whom we had heard about (a zebra-design car), and then in the distance we spotted two cyclists. We could not believe it was the two from Wadi Haifa, but as we drew closer it became clear that it was them – Taichi and Claudia. We agreed that four kilometres further would do for them, and headed on to set up a camp spot. Taichi and Claudia are heading down to Cape Town on bikes, which made our trip seem quite mundane. Especially on the desert sections like this where they were pushing through sand and spending days away from villages. Also quite envious of their exercise! We spent the evening camped together, hearing tales of the various pets they have adopted along the way (dogs and cats en route to India, hoping for a monkey this time).
Our final day’s drive down to Dongola continued in similar fashion. Lots of friendly villages, lots of friendly but not-too-pushy locals, and a chance for Nigel to get us stuck when pulling in for a photo opportunity of one of the many bee-hive-like buildings – we think they mark the simple cemeteries that line the way: bodies with sand heaped on top and shingle marking the grave. Fortunately locals and semi-disposable sand-mats were on hand to help dig, only slightly bemused by our lack of shovel – our Arabic was not up to explaining that we had lost it, so we had to settle for looking stupid instead.
The track from Kerma to Dongola was, as promised, quite different to the rest of the route. The route now became very sandy, with deeply rutted sand tracks winding through palm groves. Many of the routes had sand ruts that must have been close to two foot deep, and it was only by avoiding these that we stood any chance. Once we came very close to bottoming out, and it was only through momentum and Forbie’s power that we very narrowly escaped an hour or so digging.
The boat at Dongola took us across the Nile over to the West bank, and to all intents and purposes a new world. Suddenly the roads were tarmac, the cars looked newer, the drinks were half price (?) and the towns were much bigger. We enjoyed roaring out of Dongola at well over forty kph (the first time in a while) until the tarmac abruptly stopped and Gina’s semi-emergency-swerving-response ended us up on the new sand road. A pleasant night camped out in the desert thinking of Khartoum for tomorrow.
A long days drive took us through some very mixed terrain to Khartoum. The tarmac at Dongola had been little more than a tease, and we were soon back on the sand again, following tracks or making our own. Most of the route was OK, but occasionally we would find ourselves led into a thick sand field, and it would take our combined sand driving skill and engine power to pull us through the other side. Eventually we hit the tarmac again (without getting stuck), and this time it took us through to Khartoum.
We stayed at the Blue Nile Sailing club. It was a pain to find, vastly overpriced (at 11USD per night for 2 + car), averagely friendly, with basic-to-poor facilities. But, hey, it’s in the middle of Khartoum and they let you camp so who are we to complain. Also a great spot on the banks of the Nile and having eventually found it we weren’t about to look elsewhere.
So, feeling great to have made it through to Khartoum, guess the next update will be from Addis Ababa.