Ride For Africa

Welcome Sudan!

We entered Sudan with much excitement and a bit of uncertainty of what our next leg had in store for us.  With most of the headlines coming out of Sudan being inherently travel unfriendly, we had no shortage of bad press to cause a bit of concern.  Political issues, restricted travel zones and the list of advisories regarding the hazards of travel into Sudan gave us a predisposition of what our experience might be like.    

We started running into Sudan issues as early as Cairo.  While trying to obtain our Sudanese entry visas, Mike was refused reference documentation from the Canadian embassy, citing that travel into Sudan was not supported by the Canadian goverment.  On first impressions, there didn't seem to be much to look forward to and little support for travel into Africas biggest country.

At the same time, all of these negative accounts come at the complete opposite side of the spectrum from what most overland travellers have reported about their time in Sudan.  Almost as if talking about a completely different country, we read stories of friendly hospitality, polite culture and a country to explore almost on your own.  So we departed Egypt with these perspectives in mind and joined 500 others on a "high capacity" overnight ferry for the infamous port town of Wadi Halfa.  

Running once a week, the ferry is the only consistent method to enter Sudan from Egypt.  Filled to the brim with Egyptians going south for work, Sudanese returning home and a very small handful of tourists, we found whatever space was left in the chaos of the top deck and set sail.  Unfortunately, not arriving in Wadi Halfa with us were our motorcycles.  While the ferry is able to do the journey in 18 hours, the barge carrying the weekly supply of tomato paste, bubble gum and our vehicles takes twice as long; if you're lucky.  

The weekly barge south carries much of the goods entering Sudan from Egypt, so you can only imagine the amount and variety of stock accompanying our vehicles.  Everything from appliances to canned goods gets tossed loosly on board.  We watched a lifesized game of tetris being played for over 8 hours as product continued to arrive until a mountain of boxes and loose goods had formed for us to hide our bikes inside.  Maybe over there in between those palm trees and those ovens?

To our surprise, everything arrived in Wadi Halfa in much the same condition as it had left Egypt.  And while the barge had arrived in a “speedy” 36 hours, now began the process of unloading.  Acting almost like our introduction to the relaxed pace of Sudan, the unloading began one truck at a time for a period lasting three days.  Despite loading our vehicles last in Egypt, they were also the last to be unloaded.  So along with the other travellers waiting for their trip to begin, we made Wadi Halfa home for a couple more days, made some new friends and enjoyed our first taste of Sudan hospitality.

Eventually our bikes were on land, and we said goodbye to our new home of Halfa and started south.  We travelled along the Nile for much of our journey through Northern Sudan, enjoying the contrast of lush green against the desert background.  I would like to say that the Nile provided a refreshing break from the desert sun and heat, but from sun up to sun down you were at its mercy.

The desert in Egypt was hot, but from the moment we entered Sudan, the sun felt like it was right next to you.  Tempertures on the highway repeatedly reached close to 50 degrees in the afternoon.  Even riding didn't provide the repreve that it once had in more tolerable temperatures.  The only comparison you could imagine would be to step into a dry sauna with your winter gear on, holding a hair dryer close to your face and for added effect, have somebody toss sand in your direction.  

Our only aid was to start early and drink lots of water.  Even after 8 litres a day you couldn't avoid dehydration. Your craving for water continued well into the night, as your body tried to replenish the fluid used to keep cool throughout the day.  

It didn't take long to realize that Sudan was going to be a positive travel experience and not everything that we had been warned.  The people we did stumble upon in the desert and the various towns we travelled through were incredibly polite and genuinely interested to know where we were from and why we had come to Sudan.  If no other english was spoken, the words “Welcome Sudan” were heard repeately throughout our interactions with people.

Also as we were promised, we had most of the country to explore on our own.  Historic sites, river banks and desert camping were enjoyed pretty much alone.  Any scenic desertscape that you could find outside of a townsite was free to set up camp once the heat of the day had diminished.  A truly enjoyable experience to turn off the highway in the direction of your choice, find a sand dune that suites you and set up home for the night.  

We camped outside of Dongola our first night, and with no wind all night, the silence of the desert was defening.  With the exception of a distance car travelling through the desert alone in the night or a momentary light breeze, you were alone and without sound.

The only hazard we faced with out trips into the desert was stuggling to free the heavy bikes from the occasional spot of soft sand.  One morning while riding out of our camp, Axel got turned over in some sand on the back side of a dune.  Even by 8am, the suns heat beats down on you while we struggled to get the bike free for nearly an hour.

Much like Egypt, Sudan is covered in relics from ancient civilizations of the past.  With more pyramids in Sudan than any other country, it was an exciting experience to stumble upon an ancient site while on your days ride.  One could easily pretend what it might have been like to be the first to come across one of these sites sitting alone in the desert.

Even at the pyramids of Meroe, the most notable Sudanese ruins, we were able to explore them without interruption.  With our camp site set up near by, we were able to walk around these famous pyramids and the sand dunes that have surrounded them with nothing more than moonlight to expose the next pyramid faintly visable on the horizon.  Quite a surreal sight, although you couldn't help but wonder what might be hiding in that dark doorway as you explored this ancient site in the night.

We eventually made our way into Khartoum to obtain our Ethiopian visas and do minor repairs before heading further south.  A nice chance to beat the heat indoors, enjoy sites such as the convergence of the nile and recharge.  Surprisingly, Khartoum is quite a peaceful city, or at least in comparison to other cities the same size.  We can only think this is a testament to the calm manor of the Sudanese people as a whole.

As a further testament to the hospitality of Sudanese and their interest in foreign travellers, we were being interviewed by a Khartoum newspaper reporter within 30 minutes of arriving in the city.  After a couple quick questions as to what we were doing, he ran to get an english translator and inquisitively wrote down our story and our thoughts on the country.  There can't be too many capital cities in the world that your presence invites a news story, although we left before we could see if it made the final cut.

It was south of Khartoum on our way to the Ethiopian border than we both had our first feeling of riding in “Africa”.  After thousands of kilometers technically in Africa, it was at the police check point near Gedaref that the vision of African plains and mud huts really started.  In an instant, sand changed to plains, brick buildings to thatched roofs and cities fell way to sparsly settled villages.  It was remarkable moment on our journey that we stopped on the side of the road to take in and remember.

Adding to the African feel, and the thought that we had entered a new world was the sight of our first cloud in weeks.  Almost as if the weather of the south and the north were seperated by that police check point, our world had changed from desert heat to building thunderstorms almost immediately.

Night started to fall as we approached the Ethiopian border, and with our success of wild camping in the desert, we headed off road and through a field to set up camp.  On its own, this wouldn't have been of note, but with the change of landscape from sand to dirt and the growing thunderstorms building over the horizon, we were in for quite a change in camping experiences.

At first, the distant storms provided a nice background for some night photography and a quick meal.  The wind was calm, the air warm, we went to bed only putting the tents rain cover on in case we had a light sprinkle that night.

Within minutes, winds had reached well over 80km/h and the lightning exposed the hanging dark clouds that now surrounded us.  Almost as if the tent was made of string and bed sheets, the wind had crushed the tent flat to the ground within seconds.  We rushed out to grab the fly that had easily pulled from the soft farm land, grabbed every belonging we could and after repegging the tent and fly, scurried back into our flat home for cover.

The rain started and didn't stop till near the next morning.  Fell asleep holding onto the fly, the only thing keeping us from the painfully large rain drops.  At one point, we asked each other, “what are those rules if you are in the middle of a farm field in a lightning storm?”.  We agreed to lie flat on the ground and looked at the large metal bikes filled with fuel sitting next to us...  

The next morning we woke to find that a river of mud had formed around us.  A couple passing farmers had a good chuckle at us, but for the most part we had survived with not much worse than a bent tent.  After a couple hours of packing up camp, and a sloppy ride back to pavement, we eventually squeezed ourselves out of the earth and headed for Ethiopia.

To our great discovery, any fears of what Sudan might have been were very far from our experiences.  There is much of the country that cannot be visited due to ongoing conflict, but our most lasting memories of Sudan will be of the friendly people that live inside of a politically charged nation.  Their hospitality is a point of national pride and we are glad to report that much like others who have made the trip, Sudan was an absolute highlight of our trip.