Crossing to Khartoum

Previous border crossings had taken some finesse and patience. It seems those crossings were just the warm up for Sudan. We arrived at 7AM and had to fend of money changers and beggars on the Ethiopian side for two hours until Ethiopian customs showed up for work around 9:00. Once out of Ethiopia, the real fun started. We had photocopies of passports, but not photocopies of Sudan visas and so the immigration officials set us up with a “fixer” to go make copies. Unfortunately, there was no power anywhere on the Sudan side so the fixer had to find a shop with a generator, and then we assume bribe the shop owner to start the generator so that copies could be made. With this finally sorted and having exchanged some remaining Ethiopian Burr for Sudanese pounds (at what we thought was a great exchange rate; ie: above the official rate) we returned to customs. Next step was convincing customs that our visas had already been paid for and we didn’t need to pay again. They asked us for registration and we told them the visa counted as registration. True story: visa does not equal registration, just ask the police in Khartoum! Finally our passports were stamped and we only needed to process Bubbles paperwork. Unfortunately, the man with the power (ie: the official stamp) was on lunch break. Let me remind you it was 10:30 in the morning at this point. We sat. And sat. And waited. And then waited some more. We were served complimentary Sudanese tea but this did not speed up the process at all. Finally on the road in the early afternoon, we aimed for Wadi Madani which was the ½ way point between the border and Khartoum.

Only upon arriving and discovering the challenge of financial transactions in a sanctioned country did the issues start to pile up. Our dollars were limited and so the choice was food + hotel or gasoline and hope to make a plan in Khartoum. My appetite has been taking an oversized leadership role in my life lately, but fortunately Ross’s cool logic prevailed and we drove to the gas station to fill up. Here is where Bubbles gave us her first signal that she is getting tired of this little adventure. The cover for the gas tank cap did not want to release and we ended up having to use a screw driver to pry it loose in order to top off with our remaining 200 Sudanese pounds. With the top off we estimated we could make Khartoum, just barely, before 10PM and so we were off. The nice part about driving in Sudan at night is that the police seem to go home and no longer operate road blocks in the dark. The less pleasant part is the large passenger busses driven by maniacs at reckless speeds. We were able to get the flow of traffic eventually, but by then were arriving to Khartoum. We had extremely limited data connection heading into Khartoum and would have been lost without the iOverlander app on our phone. Fortunately it directed us to the German Guest House and we were able to arrange a “stay now, pay later” agreement with Norbert the owner. It had been a long day but we were thrilled to find dinner still available and cold bottles of water in the fridge. Masha’Allah we were out of Ethiopia and safe in Khartoum!! (said no one ever before!!!)