OverlandSphere
Overland Travel, Expedition & Adventure Information for 4x4, motorcycle and truck overlanders
Nicky, Sahara crossing Aswan ferry goods Goods on the dock Nic on boardd Leaving the port Sahara crossing Nicky Lily ferry Abandoned Old Carriage The Sahara Camal Bones SUDAN Wadi Halfa – our Nubian experience 2nd- 7th April We are told by Magdi our cars would not get off the car barge for for another 5 days as the jetty…
Sunrise over our own private beach!…
Hot, hot & double-hot. What more is there to say? It’s about as hot as the bowels of Erta Ale volcano… You know you’re acclimatised when, at 7 o’clock in the evening, you look up at the thermometer with a feeling of relief that the day is finally cooling down, to find that it is still reading 33˚C. The rest…
Rudely awakened by the burning sun, we pressed on. We watched the kilometres slide past, the landscape intermittently punctuated by ancient pyramids. Even with a solid road it took three full days to cross the desert, North to South. We arrived into central Khartoum almost unexpectedly. In the dead of night the suburbs gave way to the deserted streets, ramshackle…
It was with nervous excitement that we made our way from the village of Wadi Halfa, Sudan’s northern frontier town to the port, although we had come to the conclusion that this was a rather grand title for what was in fact a single jetty and crumbling customs building. Wedged into the back of a tuk tuk we watched Africa’s…
Wadi Halfa is a Nubian town on the Sudanese shores of Lake Nasser. This huge man-made lake has divided the Nubian people and displaced them into southern Egypt and Northern Sudan. The deliberate inundation of the old city of Wadi Halfa is still a source of resentment and a favourite topic of nostalgic lamentation amongst the older tea drinkers of…
Sudan declared its independence from the UK in 1956, but now a new kind of (semi) colonialism is kicking in, in the form of the Chinese. In return for a stake in the countries rich oil resources, the Chinese have deployed foremen to every corner of Sudan to build the most beautiful tar roads, even to the most remote areas.…
Saturday 17th to Sunday 18th November 2012. Karima, Dongola. In the light of day we could see that the air was coming into the fuel line from a join in the pipe. Without being able to get a new ‘fuel gauge sender unit’ we had to keep improvising. The best we could do was patch it up with silicone and…
Thursday 15th to Friday 16th November 2012. Meroe, Atbara. The next morning was a gorgeous one at our wild camp. The air was so still and the land so quiet. The long shadows from the small hills shaded us, so the temperature was a lovely cool. It was a nice contrast to the heat of the days here. We had…
Wednesday 14th November 2012. Naga Temple, Maswwarat. The following morning we chatted to Jessica for a little while before setting about leaving Khartoum. She recommended that we apply for the ‘Travel and Photo Permit’ issued by the Department of Tourism, Antiquities and Wildlife. She had the forms there, made the copies we’d need of our Sudanese visas and passport photo…
Tuesday 13th November 2012. Khartoum. The next morning a few large herds of goats passed through our camp. Our alarm didn’t go off, so we didn’t set off as early as we’d planned. The sky was clear, vast and pale. The only clouds in the sky were dust clouds stirred up by passing vehicles in the villages. We stopped in…
Monday 12th November 2012. Gallabat, Wad Medani The crowd of men at the Gallabat border post were unfriendly and abrupt. One tried to rifle through the documents in my hands rather than tell me what he wished to see. It turned out they just wanted to check our carnet before they waved us through to the offices for our stamps.…
The road we drive on disapears in the far distance into the sky and around us there is nothing buts and. We are on our way to Wadi Halfa. All of the sudden, the road is surrounded by water, we see a soccer field flooded, everything changed into one big swimming pool. Too much water and flooded fields in the…
8/8/12 Wadi Halfa Sudan Temperature in shade: 49*C Total KMS travelled so far: 26,328 Wherethefukawe? Well, at last we were about to test all the views from just about anybody with an opinion and who has listened to the Media, that travelling to Sudan was “on the edge”! Also the fact that the Australian Govt. DFAT has a “do not…
Sudan 06 – 11/07/2012 Sunt locuri in lume unde, din cauza climatului extrem, masuratorile meteo pot fi facute numai cu sateliti NASA. Asa arata topul celor mai ridicate temperaturi terestre inregistrate vreodata de acestia (Fahrenheit) si (Celsius): In climatically harsh corners of the world, access for routine measurements and maintenance of a weather station is impractical, so the infrared energy…
Our time with the Nubians on the West Bank of the Nile River in Aswan is coming to an end. The Nubians are an interesting people: they withstood the forces of Islam for hundreds of years, have a strong cultural identity and had to relocate after the creation of Lake Nasser. They have retained their Christian family names, but have…
Voor de overtocht naar Sudan hebben wij gebruik gemaakt van een zogenaamde fixer. Dit is iemand die doet wat zijn titel al zegt; hij fixt dingen voor je. Bij de verscheping van een onze auto en bij het verlaten van Egypte zijn er namelijk nogal wat bureaucratische processen te doorlopen die niet altijd volledig duidelijk zijn. Daarnaast zijn alle bordjes,…
The people here are indeed very warm and friendly, this is evident as you drive through the country. Not only do most of them all wave at you when you drive passed, but each car, bus or truck that you cross will hoot and flash their lights just to say hello. Our first day on the road from Wadi Halfa…
Bush Camp number 3 and we hooked up with a Dutch couple, Daan & Cynthia who are doing roughly the same trip. Meroe…
If you thought tyre theft in SA was bad, welcome to Sudan!!! Stolen Tyres…
After a painful week of getting from Aswan onto the Ferry, waiting for the cars on the barge in Wadi Halfa we finally headed South. We found this fantastic place to camp on the first night and spent the afternoon chilling out on the Nile. Due to Sharia law, beers are illegal, so B [...]…
With the exception of having to wait for almost a week for our bikes in bloody Wadi Halfa, the rest of Sudan was more of a fast paced exercise to catch up on lost time. We clocked up a record 530km in the last day across the desert and that included a border crossing over into Ethiopia as well. Not…
I feel inspiration to write a blog again. The lack of enthusiasm in Egypt has been reversed by the sudden and refreshing change entering Sudan. What a breath of fresh air. The people here are so generous, even though money must be a struggle. I am generalizing here, because we are stuck in in Wadi Halfa so I have only…