Sudan - Part 2
We arrived to the Wadi Haifa port in the early afternoon, 4 days after we left Aswan . In the port we were welcomed by the gang from the ferry who after two days of waiting in Wadi Haifa could not wait to get into cars and start moving again. No wonder - the village is a small non-descript desert mudhouse dwelling with two dirty hotels about 450 km away from the closest tar (well at the time it was, now Chinese tarred the whole 450 km), where the only excitement is the weekly passing of the passengers from/to ferry.
First we had to clear the Sudanese immigration and customs. We knew from the travelers grapevine that customs in Wadi Haifa are manned either by a young guy who is cool and helpful or an elderly hardass Mr Ali. We got Mr Ali so Rupert let his pack loose and they did a good job on him (actually they’ve been working on him for past 2 days). But it was still a remote unhurried African border so it took us good few hours to get through. By the time we were through the sun was setting down so we have driven few km to the actual village (port is outside the village) for the overnighter.
The whole group heading for Wadi Haifa after clearing the customs - Rupert even gave Mr Ali lift, you can barely spot him holding Olivia in his arms:
At the outskirts of the village most of the cars headed for the most opportune spot and parked in the defensive circle for the overnight camp - they’ve seen enough of the hotels in Wadi Haifa to really appreciate their own roof tents and cooking.
That is except me, Ali (the Turk not the custom guy), Nando and Chris (riding with Ali) - as none of us had a roof tent. We all headed to the hotel rated by the ferry gang as somewhat more bearable - they knew they’ve been holidaying here for past 2 days. After sleeping 3 nights on the corrugated floor of the pontoon I thought any hotel surely must be better. Ali was some kind of turkish telecom marketing mogul who I think was on a personal brand building exercise (I believe to be the first Turk to drive to CT) - and that was all he was interested in. He didn’t care about the local people (he seemed to actually dislike them) or sightseeing and he didn’t care (and came prepared) for camping and always stayed in the best hotels available. This strategy backfired quite badly in WH. To be fair, he was generous to Chris (on bicycle) and Nando (on public transport) and gave them ride for the next 400 km of corrugated dirt and deep sand (would be probably very tough or unrideable on bicycle) to Dongola.
Hotel Deffinitoad (no idea), Wadi Haifa:
The hotel was very basic with dark courtyard rooms with bare walls and dirty bedding, but from my point of view still preferable to sleeping on the ground. The only real challenge were the toilets - the usual hole in the ground affair (which I prefer in the countries where hygiene is not a priority), but the whole floor was crawling like a moving carpet with thousands and thousands of cockroaches. So every visit was very crunchy event and while there you had to keep your feet constantly moving, otherwise they started to crawl up on you.
Once unpacked I headed for a dinner to the open air buffet eatery I’ve spotted close by. The food and smells were unfamiliar to me. But after tasting unsuccessfully few of the non-descript dishes on display - one of them goat tongues that I fed to the nearby cat. The food proved to be a problem throughout the whole Sudan - the restaurants were very sparse and unappetizing (and I have traveled in third world before so I’m not picky) and selection in shops very limited. I have ended up surviving whole Sudan on the diet of canned tuna and laughing cow cheese.
As a plan B, I downed the universal disinfectant Coca Cola and headed out of village to infiltrate the overlander’s defensive perimeter and scavenge on whatever they were cooking. To show my gratitude I’ve challenged and beaten few of them in the game of chess, until I found my match in Rupert and spent next three stuck in it. By that time I lost it was about 2:00 am and I headed back in the dark to the hotel being shadowed by the pack of growling half feral dogs. The hotel was locked and dark and no one responded to my banging. So I went around the block, leapt over the rear wall which for some reason did not have the usual glass shards embedded and went to bed.
I overslept a bit and when I woke up all the overlanders were gone, except Loek waiting for me in front of the hotel. I was surprised, but cool about it - at the end of the day they were not my nannies and I was on a solo trip, but Loek was pissed-off. Loek turned out to be one of those uncut diamonds - man with big heart and passion. A bit rough around the edges, but if he liked you he would do anything for you, even though he just met you. So he could not understand how the rest could have left without me.
Once I’ve packed we set-off south through the Nubian desert on the heavily corrugated dirt road intersped with deep sand sections. It took me a while to figure out that the only way to ride the corrugations is fast. After about 40 km we came upon stationery early birds gathered around the broken swedish Cruiser - some shaft got broken or loose or something. When it became clear that it’s going to take a while to sort out, the rest of the convoy set-off south again leaving the Swedes under Ali’s supervision to vultures.
Loek, one of the Swedes, Chris and Nando checking out the broken Cruiser:
Rupert and his wagon:
Bill, Claire, Loek and myself still had to go through the mandatory police registration that had to be done within the first three days after arrival. The ferry people have managed to get it Wadi Haifa - the pontoon people arrived at the beginning of weekend so couldn’t do it there. The next place to get registered was Dongola about 400 km of dirt and sand south, so we sped off to get there as soon as possible. Rupert and his Bus didn’t have a chance to keep up, so he followed at much more leisured pace flanked by John & Helen for support. John - a co-owner of specialised travel agent in Blighty, was a real british gentleman, resourceful, perfectly prepared for the trip and always willing to help the weaklings in the group - i.e. Rupert and later myself. In my group I was generally riding few kms ahead of cars, stopping regularly to wait for them and take pictures (I just remembered that lots of pictures in this and previous instalment are from Bill and Claire, so I need to give them credit here):
One more of Nile without the bike (sorry ChrisL):
We have bumped into this guy going in opposite direction - I think he was actually South African. Even though he seemed to battle a bit with the heat, I cannot tell you how much envious I was of his set-up - this is how proper bike should look like and be set-up for this type of adventure (except for the helmet, I now only use open face helmet as it makes for much better comfort and contact with locals):
Sights along the way:
Nice locals, with Bill doing the secret service guy impression:
Evening caught up with us about half way through and we bush camped on the Nile riverbank:
Loek has driven through acacia branch and ended up with two flat tyres - Bill's helping to sort it out:
Sun setting over our camp and Nile:
Next day we continued and eventually made it in the late afternoon to Dongola - the first town in Sudan. Sights along the way:
Ferry across the Nile:
My gang - Bill, Claire & Loek:
We moved in the Lord’s hotel and even scored a chicken dish in a nearby restaurant - the only respectable food we found in Sudan outside capital Khartoum.
My private room ... with en-suite bathroom - pretty cool, eh!
Next day in the morning we (and the Swedes who arrived in the late morning) managed to get the police registration - it took quite a while, but the officers were polite and courteous. Once done, Swedes headed south to Khartoum, while my gang crossed the Nile and set-off east free riding across the Nubian desert to the pyramids in Merowe and nearby town of Karima about 160 km away.
There is no road - not even dirt one - going there, but the route is marked by 2 meters high stakes every kilometer or so. This reminded me of a story in the kids book ‘Ghost of Llano Estacado’ about a desert in the Wild West which had the route staked out for the travellers to get across. Bad bandits used to move the stakes and rob the the poor souls when they got lost and died. They wouldn’t have a chance against us - none of us could see 1 km ahead so we lost the stakes pretty much within first 5 km and just headed east towards a point in GPS about 160 km away.
One more to show one of the few design problems of 1150 GSA (for the bike it is of course) - while standing my left heel always rested on the central stand lever effectively pushing the central stand half way down. On few occasions when I hit a stone or gully I got almost thrown off the bike and my heel hurt proper:
As we started relatively late, we haven’t made it all the way to Karima and slept over in the desert.
Next day we continued east to Merowe and Karima:
Occasionally we got bogged down:
But then got going again:
Eventually we made it to Merowe:
The pyramids - biggest in Sudan, are quite underwhelming:
For the night we have camped directly in Karima village.
Next day Bill, Claire and myself still wanted to continue the off-road rally further east across the desert to Atbara about 200 km away, before turning south to Khartoum. Loek didn’t feel well - we could see that he had enough of our off-road shenanigans, and he decided to turn south and hit the tar few dozen km south and head for Khartoum. Despite quite determined effort during which we crossed the local airport runway few times we didn’t find the route that was supposed to head to Atbara (we didn’t have any GPS tracks) so we eventually turned south and caught up with Loek on the way to Khartoum.
:ricky:
