Wonderous Sudan

Of the twenty odd countries that we will pass through on this trip, Sudan is probably the least visited of all. It's a difficult country to get in to. The visa process is fairly involved and if you're overlanding from North to South, there really is only one entry point - the 17 hour ferry from Aswan to Wadi Halfa. But despite that, or perhaps because of it, Sudan is one of the countries I've most been looking forward to. This is where the African adventure really begins.

We awoke early on Monday morning to head down to the Aswan ferry port. Our fixer (Mr Saleh) had told us to be there at 9:30 sharp to clear customs by noon. Despite our best efforts we rolled up an hour late and frantically hurried through the border procedure. We needn't have rushed though. It took another 12 hours - till 9pm that night - before the ferry eventually set sail.

During the first few hours, we busied ourselves with paperwork and loading the bikes onto the barge. Getting the bikes on board was quite an event. With precious little room on the narrow deck we needed to navigate our way up a gangplank, manhandle the bikes over a steel girder and spin them in to a single parking space on board. Tyson went first, preferring to walk his bike up and then lift it over the girder. That seemed like the sensible strategy, but it also looked possible to ride all the way up with just a minor repositioning of the gangplank and the addition of some cushioning rags over the girder. And that's more or less the approach I took, though the cushioning rags didn't quite serve their purpose. Instead they collapsed under the weight of the bike, sending the bottom of my bike clanging in to the steel girder. No damage fortunately but Jerry sensibly opted to walk his bike up.


With our bikes on board, we whittled away the remaining hours chatting to some of the other Westerners that were making the journey with us. There were four groups in all: four Italians; a South African couple; a German; and two Canadians. By far the most organised were the Italians. They had two heavily modified KTM motorbikes (the bike of choice for most serious off-roaders) and a fully stocked support truck. We looked on enviously at the light bikes and imagined some of the luxury items that were being carried inside the truck (laptops, hammocks, cookers and most importantly of all a fully flushing WC - or so we speculated anyway). Unlike the rest of us, the Italians were so well organised they'd managed to secure a first class cabin with air conditioning.

The other groups stayed with us and slept on the packed deck with the locals. The South Africans - Debbie and Andy Descroizilles - were returning home after several years spent working in London. They were taking six months to make the journey and were driving a nice old English Land Rover kitted out with expedition gear. Stefan the German and the Canadians (Sam Millar and Peter Loewen) were doing it for fun. The Canadians were riding clapped out old KLRs while Stefan was on a twenty year old Yamaha Tenere. They were all good bikes back in their day, but you could tell this was going to be their last trip. Sitting on deck, it was interesting to hear their tales of the road. They'd all had their own adventures and challenges to overcome. But it was nice to hear that even though we were all making the same journey, each one was quite unique.

As night fell on the deck of the good ship Sinai, the searing heat of the day began to subside. By 9pm after several hours of deafening foghorn tests, the ferry finally left dock and a cooling breeze from Lake Nasser began to drift over us. Lying on the deck, gazing up at the stars, we fell asleep as the ferry passed quietly through the Tropic of Cancer.

The tranquility of night soon gave way to the scorching heat of day. Shade became a precious commodity on the crowded deck, and many hours were spent rigging makeshift awnings and moving around with the sun. It took us till 4pm Sudanese time to reach the desolate port of Wadi Halfa and another couple of hours to get off the boat. In the distance we could see the town itself - nothing more than a collection of mud huts. This is where we'd be staying until our bikes turned up? Our hotel, if it could be called that, was the Deffin Toad - the best one in town. Conditions resembled an upscale prison. Each cell-like rooms had metal shutters and metal doors which slammed loudly throughout the night. A ceiling fan was spinning frantically overhead but a powercut during the night soon saw the end to that, resulting in a suffocating heat. The South Africans smartly decided to drag their beds out in to the relatively cool courtyard. We weren't so smart, and woke up exhausted and with mouths as dry as the desert we'd soon be riding through.

The barge carrying our bikes turned up late the following day. It cant sail at night because it doesn't have radar, and so takes a day longer than the passenger ferry to make the 380km journey. With our bikes unloaded and all our gear repacked, we stocked up on water and supplies, and waited for the sun to dip. By 6pm we were back on the road and within a few miles had left the tarmac and were snaking our way along the course of the Nile. The scenery was spectacular. Sandy dunes, interspersed with jagged rocks, burnt black by the scorching sun. I've always wanted to go to the moon, but I never thought I'd get to ride my bike on it.

That night, after kicking up dust clouds for 100km, we pulled off the road and camped under the stars in the desert. With a full moon overhead and a campfire at our feet, we had a serenely lit view of the empty Nubian desert.

The following morning we rose with the sun, and made the most of the cooler early hours to put in some miles. Riding along the gravel we past through a number of Nubian villages. They seem quiet and empty now, but a few miles away a new road is being built that will link Wadi Halfa with Dongola. Within a couple of years, it will be possible to ride all the way through Sudan on smooth tarmac. There wont be any need to bring a dirtbike - a big fat Honda Goldwing will be able to make the journey. That's probably a good thing for the locals. The new road should bring prosperity and a steady flow of tourists. But it's a shame for adventure motorcyclists. The off-road stretch from Wadi Halfa is easily the most exhilarating of the trip so far.

The terrain is generally solid ground just with a few loose rocks over the top. But in places the gravel gives way to deep sandy ruts. The single or double tracks of the normal road diverge into a delta of different paths that spread out in all directions as if searching for the most accessible route. In these places the sand is particularly deep and often covered by a fine layer of dust which masks the shape of the underlying terrain. In such places it is both easy to fall off your bike and to get separated. They call this terrain - fesh-fesh.

Late in the afternoon, after a kip under some palm trees, we came to the end of the gravel road and could see two paths of fesh-fesh - one straight ahead and one to the right. I took the right hand route, plowed my way through and carried on for a couple of miles before waiting for the others. Ten minutes went by with no sign. Then another ten. What to do?

Earlier in the day, I had waited for a similar amount of time only to find out that Jerry and Tyson had taken the other route and leapfrogged in front of me. Figuring the same had happened again, I pushed on through the fesh-fesh on my own.

The riding was challenging but thrilling at the same time. Riding in sand is a lot like snowboarding - you surf over the top and try to keep your speed up, putting light pressure on the steering to stop the front end from digging in. It's brilliant fun, but as with snowboarding, occasionally you take a tumble and end up with your face in the sand/snow. One such incident, involving a hidden bump and a deep sandy rut sent a huge cloud of dust in the air and left a nice motorbike shaped imprint in the soft ground. The virtue of fesh-fesh is that it's a relatively soft place to fall over.


Pushing on through the sand with no map, no GPS and just a compass to guide me, I made my way for the Nubian ruins of Karma, some 50km as the crow flies from where we stopped for a kip. Asking for directions I was pointed towards the desert and told that Karma was about an hour's ride away. So I set off on a sandy track straight out in to the Nubian desert. What a ride. Wide open desert, with just a few rocky hills in the distance, and no-one as far as my eyes could see. It was thrilling to be there on my own. At one point I just stopped to listen to the sound of the desert. A light wind whistled the sand gently through my bike, but other than that there was nothing.

Before starting off on the desert road I had been told by one of the locals that I needed to turn off to get to Karma. After an hour or so, I headed back towards the Nile to find a settlement and ask for directions. They told me that Karma was another hour up ahead, so I pushed on. As the desert road wound its way south, it edged back towards the Nile. The sandy ground turned back in to gravel and picked up the beginnings of the new highway. No tarmac had been laid yet, but the gravel had been compacted, making for a relatively smooth ride. As the settlements began to multiply I saw another local and asked for directions again. He told me that Karma was an hour back in the other direction and Dongola was only 15km further ahead. Rather than back-tracking I thought it better to push on and find a phone in town to let Tyson and Jerry know where I was.

I arrived on the bank of the Nile at dusk, and hopped on the ferry to the west bank, and the town of Dongola. Far more vibrant than Wadi Halfa, Dongola has all the makings of a fast growing tourist town. The people that live there seemed delighted to see me and like all the other Nubians we had encountered were friendly, honest and hospitable. When searching for a phone, one friendly chap offered me his mobile. I made the expensive international call to Tyson's mobile and tried to offer some cash as payment - but the local wouldn't accept a penny. Unbelievable generosity with no strings attached. Quite a contrast from the swindlers of Egypt.

On the phone I find out that Tyson and Jerry are back in Karma, so we agree to meet up in Khartoum, Sudan's capital - the following day. That night, I rode to the outskirts of Dongola and found a secluded field to setup camp. Bathed in light from the full moon, I drifted off for a satisfied night's sleep.

Friday morning, I was up even before the Imam's started chanting. Fully fuelled, with petrol, water and some local doughnuts I set off on the desert highway to Khartoum. In fuel economy mode (i.e. travelling at 55mph keeping the revs low) I can get about 480km out of my 21 litre fuel tank. It was just over 500km to the capital, and no petrol stations were marked on Tyson's map. Fortunate then that the desert highway has been a recent point of investment. The road was as smooth as silk, recently paved and painted as if especially for my ride. With the new road have come new businesses. and among them is a brand spanking new petrol station. A welcome sight after 300km of baron desert. There I filled up and rode the remaining few hundred kilometres in to town. Along the way my odometer ticked over the 10,000km milestone - marking two-fifths of the distance from London to Cape Town.

Khartoum is a bit of an oddity. Mud huts and dusty roads line the outskirts of the city, but as you approach the centre the presence of wealth becomes obvious. Steel and glass buildings are sprouting all over the city. Oil revenues and the presence of the UN have sparked the surge in investment, and that has bid up prices, meaning Khartoum is one of the most expensive cities we've stayed of the entire trip. Despite that, we've been enjoying the good life since we arrived. We're now staying in the luxurious Bougain Villa Guesthouse - firmly back in the comfort zone after a few days well outside it. Although westerners are relatively common around town, our prescence has generated a bit of interest. So today we spent a few hours getting photographed and interviewed by AFP correspondents. Here's the write-up on AFP's website.

Tomorrow we leave for the cooling highlands of Ethiopia. I'm looking forward to it - I haven't seen a proper cloud since leaving Istanbul - and this Brit has been missing his weather. So until next time.