The "Road" To Sesebi

The tarmac road almost went to Dongola (gotta love the names here). In Dongola we picked up our inspector, Abir, a slender and very kind Sudanese woman. Between her and our drivers (Saif and Aimad) it seemed there were very few people along the route they didn't know.

We left the tarmac and went off road.

I was astounded to see that a lot of the time we were doing up to 85 km/h on desert sand. There are much used tracks (trucks and other four wheel drives but also the pick-up truck taxis and busses) which are very soft in places. Being in the second car we were left in huge clouds of sand sometimes. Aimad slowed down but kept a good pace going although in one case  we only managed to stop in time when a small accacia bush scraped our bumper. Makes you wonder what kind of bush would want to live in middle of the road, the Sudanese deathwish bush.

The Road To Sesebi

We left the Acropole, early in the morning. A convoy of four Landcruisers, two going  to Sesebi via the Westbank of the Nile where there is no proper road and two via the Eastbank where there is no proper road either although that "no road" seems to be easier to travel than the one on the West Bank. The first leg of the journey went over tarmac through the desert. It cuts of the big bend in the Nile to the east.

First stop was to buy some bottled water in Omdurman souq, there wouldn't be any further up north. Then dozing of in the car while accacias (only 4 of the 72 different species according to our residential (carridential?) botanist Alan), huge termite mounds of red clay, small goatherds and the occasional camel whizzed by the windows. 

A few hours later we had breakfast at a sort of truckers stop with a huge mosque (Alan's posing in front of it) with all four cars. Lemonsellers taking it easy, bowls of fuul and lentils, bread and tea later the group split up. Here the tarmac road also ended.

Khartoum City 1

While waiting for the registration and permits we had a chance to have a quick peek at Khartoum. On our way to NCAM (the National Committee for Archaeology and Museums) we wandered down the corniche and saw where the White Nile meets the Blue Nile and you can really see a smaller strip of dark to north and a wider lighter area in the south. Unfortunately no pictures were taken because of nearby bridges (a big no no when it comes to photographing in Sudan) and because I didn't bring my camera along.

Ran into some other nice things tho. The little (well it's not so little but it looks that way) blue and white building known as Gadaffi's Egg. A deluxe hotel and business place built by the Libyans, the son of Moammar to be more exact.

And a company that has numerous activities and isn't afraid to announce it.

It's a very new city and has made space for buildings and streets. everything is wide. Houses are generally low. There aren't many shops although a new mall has been built recently. There are a lot of cars but nowhere near the amounts in Cairo and they don't honk very much.

The city itself is divided. Because of the inverted Y shape there's a series of cities. In the fork of the upside down Y is Khartoum 1, 2 and 3. Not very inventive or imaginary but very clear. The airport lies in the middle of these sprawling numbers. Streets in the newer parts have numbers, not names. 

North of the fork is the northern area, usually designated industries and most likely garages etc. A few residential areas and lots of empty spaces. The area to the west/northwest is Omdurman with a large labyrinthian souq (as muslim cities should have, not the wide westernised shopping streets Luxor and Aswan now so falsely boast).

Omdurman is the part where the Ma'adi lived and is now entombed. For further reference; watch the movie "Khartoum"  with Sir Laurence Olivier as the Ma'adi.