Friday, August 17, 2007

Sudan: Desert ruins - a test for sunglasses

Bad News.

The NZ$1.40 sunglasses didn't last a week. They broke. Surely there's an Ethiopian government authority I can write to about this? Sticky-tape has work for a couple of days. Replacement is inevitable. I'll keep you posted.

We took a break from Khartoum for a couple of days. Heading 300kms, there abouts, north along the Nile to the Royal Cemetery ruins. A set of pyramids in the desert, just short of Meroe. Barreling along the highway in the bus you spot them, call to stop , and get dumped on the roadside. The smallest collection of low-set mud huts (four or five), nearly sand covered, apparently a 'village' called Bajarawiya (that rolls of the tongue) stands a short way off. By the time we gather our bags, two camels and a donkey and cart, and their handlers, have appeared from nowhere to assist us make the half kilometre walk to the gate. It's not required.



















But the sufsuf (beats me?) bus is like no other we have ridden since South Africa. Air conditioned, comfortable, and constant supply of water (we stick to our bottles), soft drinks, sweets, and cakes are handed out.But stepping off, we are near flattened by the intense heat.

Swedish Sara has made the trip with us. The ruins are fantastic. Two sets of pyramids, mostly in ruin but German teams have done some nice restoration work on some. We are alone. In the desert. It's just great, in a late afternoon softening sunlight. We mooch, and discover for a couple of hours.




















The Nile is where mankid began one of their earliest attempts to lodge 'signposts of permance', and continued doing so ever since. Pyramids, monumental public architecture, extravagant burials, tablets recording the greatness of kings and queens. I guess, that means, where class societies also began. But argument rages (as told by Theroux Dark Star Safari, and Reader Africa: a biography of the continent) about Egyptian and Nubian (the former Sudan) reigns. For a long time, the Egyptian rulers were actually Nubians, but driven out by Assyrians they returned to present-day Sudan and set up all the ways now recognised as ancient Egytian culture. Present day Egyptians reflecting in the glory pisses Sudanese, they reckon after all that the Egyption royalty were Sudanese. Kind of. Anyway, that's why there are ruins at Meroe, and some others you need a 4WD, and GPS navigation. They are out in the desert.

Sara says her good-byes. She's off to Atbara, further north. We'll catch up again on the train, north and out in a couple of days. Deb and I stay the night. The gate man checks we'll be OK, tells us we will be safe, at least that's what we think he has said, packs up his donkey and heads off ... to where? We settle in. We decide not to use the tent. It would be too hot. We try to sleep on our mats, but lie there sweating like hell. A gentle breeze is warm and makes us feel fan-forced, oven baked. The breeze gets up a wee bit, and we get covered in sand. A tough night's sleep. But we wake up, in the desert, with pyramid ruins nearby. It's just something else.

We tromp back to the highway. In about 10-15 minutes a big truck from GOHI Construction & Contracting (Chinese, I think - a monument down the road a bit near something big and industrial has Chinese and Arabic writing over it) stops and offers a ride, 70-80 km to the turn off to Shendi. Picking up a mini-bus back to Khartoum from there was easy. Khartoum has settled around 40 degrees.

We never actually travelled alongside the Nile. They've built the road a distance off, because of annual flooding. But it is close by, standing out in the dry desert as a green strip for 50 metres either side. The Nile has been a bit of a feature of our travels. White Water rafting the source of the Victoria Nile, which turns into the White Nile, in Uganda. From Addis to Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, we dropped 1,500 metres down into a gorge where the Blue Nile, anything but with silt laden red-brown water, raged along. Closer to Bahir Dar we passed a small town with a sign next to a 'creek' that read 'Source of the Blue Nile'. This ran into Lake Tana, where on a boat trip checking out monastrues we were taken to the outlet that is the Blue Nile proper.

Now in Khartoum we see the confluence, where the White and Blue meet and continue their journeys as The Nile up through to Egypt.

We will be on it in a week.

Max
aka Mad

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