sudan waiting (landstalker, Khartoum, 310107)
We spent the first day after succesfully boarding the ferry waiting for it to fill up. It quite quickly filled up with people and the last to board was the 30 so bikers, we expected after meeting of them at one of the last rooftop partys at the dahab hotel in cairo. They had mountainbiked their first country on their way to cape town while we had fooled around egypts southern villages high on Nubian (a "tribal" people with origins in sudan) hospitality and merrytime. We had raised high expectations about sudan after all good our captain Fanan (nubian) had said about it's people, traditions and goods. So it was with grand surprice we watched truck after truck, loaded to 6- 7 meters high above the ground with cardboxes and bags pull up for the dock workers brutal unloading. Anyone who carried something likely to break from a 7 meter fall to pavement had to carry it onboard themself. We could not understand what needed to be brought into the golden land. Did sunny sudan not have everything a man could possibly want? We boarded the ship with little more goods than our dicks in our hands around 10 in the morning and were actually still in good mood but slightly confused when the ferry and the 2 extra prowns, that was to be towed along, departed sometime after sundown. So far we knew little about african patience, but that was about to change...
The sudanese state made the efficiancy of their bureacracy clear from the begining. As soon as we hit sudanese water all passengers had to surrender their passports. Pirates! We thought, but figured the passports were stuck on the boat just as us. Firts after arrival did the line begin to form, every passenger (who already had to show proof of a visa to sudan to buy the ferry ticket) was to be internviewed by border officials before being let of the ship. I will not name all the occations that have taught us more and more about african patience but try to express its profound effect upon us with a few examples.
* We spent 30 hours onboard the ferry of which 17 hours was at sea (it was actually a lake but,..)
* 3 Interviews with passport surrender and official aplication forms before entering the country. Plus 1 full day containing 4 visits to the imigrations office for registration of entry (which is compulsory and should be done within 3 days of entering the country.
* The 12 hours overnight train from end stop whadi halfa to first 'town' was made in just over 2 nights and 2 days. This ride was just the first stop on what acording to national geografic was an incredible train strech. We had a great time on the train but there was little but desert outside. But since the train stod still for much more time than it traveled there was time for strolls around isolated desert villages (often 3 huts along the rail and nothingness for as far a mans eye can see) and amazing desert night skies.
* 5 minutes to departure when buying a bus ticket is more likely to be 3 hours. Only rookies buy tickets before hand here. We learned (as usual) the hard way but managed to push the departure to only 2 hours after promised time by me trying to take of with the bus and the passengers onboard while the driver was desperatly looking for more passengers on the streets. It is not of evil but of lack of efficiancy due to cultural viarity that we sometimes feel fooled to linger or tricked into what to us seems as unnessesary waiting, or to qoute our everwise feluca captain about the sudanese people "they are no liars only lazy people". The way to catch a bus is simply to wave in a already full buss that passes you by, ask for destination and pay the fare (there is always room for 1 or 5 more).
Convinced that sudan would offer us sun, beaches, pina coladas, steaks and ice creams we entered whadi halfa on foot. Whadi halfa is the northen 'gateway' between the sudanese trains endstop and the ferry from southern egypt and is best decribed as an 'post nuclear hollocaust desert ruin village' from fallout (one of my favorite computer games). Although tempted to stay and see what adventure that might arise we left with the first train since it only runs once a week. this was the '12 hour train ride'. we watched the desert 'life' pass our 'lack of window' while other passengers did what sudaneses does best, wait or pray. I am absolutely amazed that there is life in such a desolated place. Exept sand, sand and even more sand here and there is a hut, a goat or a couple of men under a small tree waiting for the weekly train. But the nile cuts through this part of the sahara and water means life. To our surprice is the desert here not rolling sand dunes like we we're expecting. Plenty of skelets of camels along the rail ads to the desolate feeling in this region. Most houses (all mudbrick) are abandoned and merely ruins. It wakes a feeling in me of this place once beeing populated but is now abandoned (maybe for citys) and the sand just sweeps in an chokes everything.
Me outside 'fallout town' (whadi halfa) with a suprisingly fast donkeycart waiting for nothing and rushing by to my left
It is never justified to feel bored or that you are waiting for something. More time for prayer. Or maybe he's praying for the engine to be fixed and the train to start moving
Once a week a steel worm provides this people with customers to the lunch resturant and corner store and the kids with something to marwel at. Suprisingly the people do not seem very dependent by the train for supplies or transportation. It passes by so seldom and unpredictable that we actually managed to kill a sheep although the train moves at no higher speed than maybe 40 km/h. While waiting for technicinas to arrive and fixe our train for the fifth time, another train (an irregular cargo transport) passed by and stopped for a chat. Among other cargo they carried 20 or so cows, of which 3 already had died of dehydration.
In Atbara where we were supposed to hunt down camels and start the caravan we found banana bancakes, do I need to say thay we were surpriced after 1 week of crackers and fuul (kind of baked beans) & bread
People in sudan are very friendly, welcoming and interested in helping each other and tourists out. In Khartuom for example people stand around waiting everythere for someone up for a chat to pass by. I've had conversations about everything between 9/11 and kant's proof of goods existance. Quite a lot of people are educated and not few speek good english. There are very few tourists here and the people who try to hassles you for money are far apart. On the contrary people offer you food, free rides or even to pay for you. for emaple did a police pay our taxi to the imigration office since we ended up at the whong place. Here are beggers like everwhere but they don't entirely go for tourists.
Khartoum (said to be the biggest waiting room in the world) is a 3 million city and the capital of sudan. It is together with entire sudan under sharia law and from here and to the north is almost everybody muslim (and strong belivers). An amusing 'button for food' system is used at al small restaurants along the roads. where you buy a button of your choice at one desk and trade it for the apropriate food if you can find it, and the one whose collects your kind of buttons. Exext the mayor streets most raod in the town are still dirt, with the heat and the draft presented here, the desert is practicaly in the desert. It is included in the local wifes jobb to keep the place nice and tidy and here and there you can see women crouching outside a house sweeping the windy desert with a broom. It is agains tradition for women to leave the country, our their home for that matter. And it death penalty to be convicted as gay.
After a couple of days of offical errants (like the imigrations registration, applying for visas to etiopia and eritrea, getting international driver licences and scouting for information to aid our further travel) we find ourself now also waiting in Khartoum. By different reasons and aiders to us disapering we have still not got our hand on any camels to call our own. This must be solved tommorow. People here do their jobb, pray and wait. We are stuck in probably one of the worlds safest big citys with no nightlife what so ever. Not a single bar, belive it or not, but people here hardly even smoke 'shisha'. unfortuanatly food is also terrible and the streets smell of shit.
We spent the first day after succesfully boarding the ferry waiting for it to fill up. It quite quickly filled up with people and the last to board was the 30 so bikers, we expected after meeting of them at one of the last rooftop partys at the dahab hotel in cairo. They had mountainbiked their first country on their way to cape town while we had fooled around egypts southern villages high on Nubian (a "tribal" people with origins in sudan) hospitality and merrytime. We had raised high expectations about sudan after all good our captain Fanan (nubian) had said about it's people, traditions and goods. So it was with grand surprice we watched truck after truck, loaded to 6- 7 meters high above the ground with cardboxes and bags pull up for the dock workers brutal unloading. Anyone who carried something likely to break from a 7 meter fall to pavement had to carry it onboard themself. We could not understand what needed to be brought into the golden land. Did sunny sudan not have everything a man could possibly want? We boarded the ship with little more goods than our dicks in our hands around 10 in the morning and were actually still in good mood but slightly confused when the ferry and the 2 extra prowns, that was to be towed along, departed sometime after sundown. So far we knew little about african patience, but that was about to change...
The sudanese state made the efficiancy of their bureacracy clear from the begining. As soon as we hit sudanese water all passengers had to surrender their passports. Pirates! We thought, but figured the passports were stuck on the boat just as us. Firts after arrival did the line begin to form, every passenger (who already had to show proof of a visa to sudan to buy the ferry ticket) was to be internviewed by border officials before being let of the ship. I will not name all the occations that have taught us more and more about african patience but try to express its profound effect upon us with a few examples.
* We spent 30 hours onboard the ferry of which 17 hours was at sea (it was actually a lake but,..)
* 3 Interviews with passport surrender and official aplication forms before entering the country. Plus 1 full day containing 4 visits to the imigrations office for registration of entry (which is compulsory and should be done within 3 days of entering the country.
* The 12 hours overnight train from end stop whadi halfa to first 'town' was made in just over 2 nights and 2 days. This ride was just the first stop on what acording to national geografic was an incredible train strech. We had a great time on the train but there was little but desert outside. But since the train stod still for much more time than it traveled there was time for strolls around isolated desert villages (often 3 huts along the rail and nothingness for as far a mans eye can see) and amazing desert night skies.
* 5 minutes to departure when buying a bus ticket is more likely to be 3 hours. Only rookies buy tickets before hand here. We learned (as usual) the hard way but managed to push the departure to only 2 hours after promised time by me trying to take of with the bus and the passengers onboard while the driver was desperatly looking for more passengers on the streets. It is not of evil but of lack of efficiancy due to cultural viarity that we sometimes feel fooled to linger or tricked into what to us seems as unnessesary waiting, or to qoute our everwise feluca captain about the sudanese people "they are no liars only lazy people". The way to catch a bus is simply to wave in a already full buss that passes you by, ask for destination and pay the fare (there is always room for 1 or 5 more).
Convinced that sudan would offer us sun, beaches, pina coladas, steaks and ice creams we entered whadi halfa on foot. Whadi halfa is the northen 'gateway' between the sudanese trains endstop and the ferry from southern egypt and is best decribed as an 'post nuclear hollocaust desert ruin village' from fallout (one of my favorite computer games). Although tempted to stay and see what adventure that might arise we left with the first train since it only runs once a week. this was the '12 hour train ride'. we watched the desert 'life' pass our 'lack of window' while other passengers did what sudaneses does best, wait or pray. I am absolutely amazed that there is life in such a desolated place. Exept sand, sand and even more sand here and there is a hut, a goat or a couple of men under a small tree waiting for the weekly train. But the nile cuts through this part of the sahara and water means life. To our surprice is the desert here not rolling sand dunes like we we're expecting. Plenty of skelets of camels along the rail ads to the desolate feeling in this region. Most houses (all mudbrick) are abandoned and merely ruins. It wakes a feeling in me of this place once beeing populated but is now abandoned (maybe for citys) and the sand just sweeps in an chokes everything.
Me outside 'fallout town' (whadi halfa) with a suprisingly fast donkeycart waiting for nothing and rushing by to my left It is never justified to feel bored or that you are waiting for something. More time for prayer. Or maybe he's praying for the engine to be fixed and the train to start movingOnce a week a steel worm provides this people with customers to the lunch resturant and corner store and the kids with something to marwel at. Suprisingly the people do not seem very dependent by the train for supplies or transportation. It passes by so seldom and unpredictable that we actually managed to kill a sheep although the train moves at no higher speed than maybe 40 km/h. While waiting for technicinas to arrive and fixe our train for the fifth time, another train (an irregular cargo transport) passed by and stopped for a chat. Among other cargo they carried 20 or so cows, of which 3 already had died of dehydration.
In Atbara where we were supposed to hunt down camels and start the caravan we found banana bancakes, do I need to say thay we were surpriced after 1 week of crackers and fuul (kind of baked beans) & bread
People in sudan are very friendly, welcoming and interested in helping each other and tourists out. In Khartuom for example people stand around waiting everythere for someone up for a chat to pass by. I've had conversations about everything between 9/11 and kant's proof of goods existance. Quite a lot of people are educated and not few speek good english. There are very few tourists here and the people who try to hassles you for money are far apart. On the contrary people offer you food, free rides or even to pay for you. for emaple did a police pay our taxi to the imigration office since we ended up at the whong place. Here are beggers like everwhere but they don't entirely go for tourists.
Khartoum (said to be the biggest waiting room in the world) is a 3 million city and the capital of sudan. It is together with entire sudan under sharia law and from here and to the north is almost everybody muslim (and strong belivers). An amusing 'button for food' system is used at al small restaurants along the roads. where you buy a button of your choice at one desk and trade it for the apropriate food if you can find it, and the one whose collects your kind of buttons. Exext the mayor streets most raod in the town are still dirt, with the heat and the draft presented here, the desert is practicaly in the desert. It is included in the local wifes jobb to keep the place nice and tidy and here and there you can see women crouching outside a house sweeping the windy desert with a broom. It is agains tradition for women to leave the country, our their home for that matter. And it death penalty to be convicted as gay.After a couple of days of offical errants (like the imigrations registration, applying for visas to etiopia and eritrea, getting international driver licences and scouting for information to aid our further travel) we find ourself now also waiting in Khartoum. By different reasons and aiders to us disapering we have still not got our hand on any camels to call our own. This must be solved tommorow. People here do their jobb, pray and wait. We are stuck in probably one of the worlds safest big citys with no nightlife what so ever. Not a single bar, belive it or not, but people here hardly even smoke 'shisha'. unfortuanatly food is also terrible and the streets smell of shit.
female camels and their littles, this means we are n the department for meat and milk camels. The big guys for riding seems to be even more expensive though (me might just have to go for rent-a-camels)
A sheep market. The sheeps here have long hanging ears and tails long enough to drag in the mud. A good one goes for about 20 dollars
Two jolly good camel caretakers
soon to become a rickshaw driver...
There is even more new pictures on my web gallery http://www.ringo.com/profile/hphawk.html (for exampel in the new archive: Sudan)
If you find my texts confusing, it might be because so much confusing things happens and I can't even sort it out myself. Even thought this might be the most boring city I have ever visited and I can't wait to leave it is still very intresting, but this is hard to put to words. It is definetly an experince to see this but I can't help to feel a bit like in cuba, but I guess calling a religion a dictator might be a bit hasty. I do miss a joyfull sauna with friends and beer and can't help but dream about snowcovered castles with flowering red trees where druids an elfs dance to the tunes of hippie singstresses. Sudan contryside however have amused me much more than Khartoum and hopefully there will be more of that. With this massive blog posted I hope you all will be satisfied for awhile. Here in Khartoum there has been little to do but it is time to leave this bizare city and venture further into the unknown of sudan. a country as exotic as the moon. I might just get caught up n the moment...
Next step is making the caravan happen and explore maybe the nuba mountains or some other tribal area. then a cold beer in gondar (or was it gondor?), first stop on etiopian soil, where the local spirit comes in 1,5 L bottles for 2 dollars
(landstalker, Khartoum, 310107)
posted by Landstalker at Tuesday, January 30, 2007
5 Comments:
jag ska dit. en dag.
You're really on your way to Ethiopia, congratulations! You can look forward to a beer in Gondar, I had one with my injera at a place with blue painted walls (accoring to the photo).
vi får se vem som fixar dreads först av oss Håkan. Tänker på dig.
shit, ser fett ghetto ut alltsaa, det daer sudan!
Jag tror det är så de flesta äventyr utspelar sig: Mycket som inte händer under en lång tid men efter en tid, kanske nåt år så har minnet sorterat in det till en 2h film eller en bok - äventyret man läser om, ser på tv eller har upplevt.
Post a Comment
<< Home