After a fuel-up in Khartoum we grabbed a quick Star Box coffee and headed off north again. The plan was to catch a ferry at Wadi Halfa that would take us 400km down the Nile, into Egypt, to the town of Aswan. The passenger ferry completes the trip in roughly 24hrs. A separate “vehicle only” barge would transport Bubbles the same distance over a period of 2-3 days, so we would have a bit of time to explore the town of Aswan before being re-united. It was a great plan.
Shea stuck his head up as we were driving along the hot, featureless roads of Sudan. “That looks interesting”, he noted as he pointed to a misplaced set of stone structures. It was 30km later that we realized what we had passed. It was the pyramids of Meroe, the capital of the old Nubian Kingdom of Kush. This site contains 50 pyramids, the highest density in the world. It took about 2 minutes of skim reading on the pamphlet we received from the Sudanese tourism board to convince ourselves to spin the car around and retrace our steps. It was totally worth it.
Our first night out of Khartoum was spent in the remote town of Karima where we camped at the foot of Jebel Barkal Mountain. Most historical sites in Sudan are not particularly well managed, something we realized when we awoke the next morning and noticed that we had parked in the middle of an ancient temple site / burial ground.
We headed off from Karima nice and early, to avoid too much fuss with the locals, and had a good run until around 80km short of Wadi Halfa. It was at this point that Bubbles started whining for attention with the distinct sound of a high-pressure leak. Our hearts sank as we watched the engine temperature go up and up and up until we hit the redline. Good old faithful had finally seized. We were stuck, in desperate need of a mechanic, in a country in the midst of global sanctions.
Shea and I attempted to “relax” in the plus 40-degree temperatures as we waited for another car to pass by on the desolate desert road. It took a while, but eventually a dump truck came along. We convinced the driver to give us a tow after a confusing exchange of sign language and broken Arabic. There was an incredible sense of relief when the small town of Wadi Halfa appeared on the horizon. We had only been 50% confident that the driver’s understanding of our agreement was the same as our own. We pulled up to the docks triumphant. Now only a ferry ride away from Aswan, the land of milk and honey (a.k.a. car mechanics and spare parts).
Joburg to Scotland 