The night in the northern Sudanese village of Wadi Halfa was very short. Dave’s alarm accidentally went off at 0300 even though we’d planned for 0400. It was another travel day! After so many days stuck in Aswan, it was a blessing to be able to move around. Plus we had all(*) of Sudan to explore!
(*) Not actually all: Darfur and Kordofan are said to be a wee bit shooty.
Minibuses in Africa are basically a minivan or people-carrier, sometimes stretched, often decorated in a very fancy way on the inside and almost always packed with twice as many people as seatbelts (that aren’t actually there anyway).
We had a pretty long ride to Dongola, where we stopped around midday for food. We were back in a minibus pretty quickly, but it wasn’t going anywhere until it had a critical mass of passengers (if you aren’t crammed in, you aren’t moving). About 90 sweaty minutes later we were off to Karima.
When we arrived mid-afternoon our hotel was nowhere near where it’s marked on Google Maps. This turned out to be really common in Africa. We actually stumbled into it and I recognized the faded name over an awning next to a large and very old truck.
In Sudan, foreigners are required to register at every hotel in which they stay. Sometimes the hotel will do this for you. Our hotel in Karima required us to go to the police station and register immediately. We had also read that foreigners are required to register with the state within 3 days of arrival in the country. Off we went to find the police station. We found it, but the police in Karima had no idea how to do the state registration and sent us to the neighboring town of Merowe to inquire there. We took a taxi over to the only police station we could find on the map of Merowe. The police seemed confused and sent for their ranking officer, who lumbered in with a very dour and serious bearing. He seemed to suspect us of something, or perhaps simply be trying to figure out why these two westerners were bothering him. All said and done, he couldn’t help us either, so we gave our thanks and started walking back.
After a few blocks a big white truck pulled up and stopped alongside us. It was the senior officer in his personal vehicle, all smiles. He offered us a ride back into town, so after a glance (“Seriously?”) at each other we accepted and hopped in.
As he drove, he eagerly invited us to his family home for dinner. We politely said “maybe” but didn’t end up going. The logistics would have been very tricky and we were rather tired from our travels of the past two days. Instead, we stayed in our hotel room.
The hotel was very basic — just a concrete room with two small beds, but it was a new home for two nights and that alone meant we were moving. Exhausted, we slept in the next morning, lazing in bed until the shameful hour of 0730.
Once we were up and about we piled into a tuk-tuk (rickshaw, whatever you want to call it). Like the minibuses, these are often made up all fancy on the inside.
It was a pretty short ride to the edge of town, where we were dropped at the foot of a very small mountain called Jebel Barkal and some adjacent ruins and pyramids. Jebel Barkal is a mesa, about 98 meters (320 feet) tall.
It’s the only mountain around, a freak of geology. One of the faces is a very walkable slope, so walk it we did.
So you reached the top. Don’t stop here, walk across the top towards the Nile, silly! The town of Karima is open in front of you. To the west, you see the desert stretching to the horizon. As you turn east, it transitions to the town suburbs and green foliage next to the river. On the other side of the river this is reversed, without the town. It’s no surprise most of the big cities and towns in Sudan are on the Nile.
You can look straight down and see some ruins, like the Temple of Amun from the 13th century BC.
There was nothing for it but to go explore them. But first, I do believe we passed some pyramids…
These are quite a bit smaller than the famous ones at Giza, and much steeper.
That didn’t stop us from trying to climb them.
Dave and I got to very close to the top of one of them, hoping nobody could see us. It wouldn’t do to be caught misbehaving.
Maybe if they’d posted better signage around the ruins, like they did on the walk back into town…
Much of the construction of the houses around the outskirts town are similar and nondescript, with fancier places having plain walls surrounding squat structures. Much like the yurts in Mongolia, the doors were painted in ornate colors and patterns to personalize them and help to pick out one from another.
It was still punishingly hot here, around 46°C (116°F). Almost nobody was out on the street, and those that were mostly kept to the shade.
We retired to our hotel room. There was a TV in the tiny cramped reception room that had a satellite package including the one channel carrying the World Cup games in Sudan. Dave was ecstatic to catch the England v. Colombia Round of 16 match, which went 1-1 in extra time and on to a penalty shootout. As you are all well aware, England won the shootout 4-3 and advanced to quarterfinals. Dave took it with the classic stoicism of the English football enthusiast.
Next time: up dark and early
P.S. Dave says “Wait — is it bad if I just drank the Nile?”