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30th august - 7th september

Overlanding across Afica in our Land Rover Defender: Sudan

Andy Lees
2006-05-14 17:59:50

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and his colleagues. we politely refused, waving our fresh bread rolls out of the window and continued the drive, finding our way through a maze of backstreets. somehow this village felt less arabic and more african. it could have been the vegetation, the dirt streets, the multitude of kiosks, or maybe all of these things and more but suddenly we were asking ourselves 'how did we get here?'.

somehow we found our way to the river crossing at argo and took a short ride across the murky, swirling waters of the nile to the western bank. by this stage we were filthy - we had not showered properly since aswan - and the dust from the roads was everywhere. the sky was still glowing curiously.

our destination was dongola, where we hoped to find a room and a much needed shower. the road was not as bad as we had feared but in the strange light the drive became more and more surreal. at one point we found ourselves driving over dykes between dusty fields - clay ramps steep enough to test even the land rover's clearance. this confirmed our suspicions that we were not on the main road. a quick right turn took us away from the cultivated plots of land. tiny villages loomed out of the nothingness. a lone motorcyclist appeared and then disappeared. finally, a stretch of tarmac signalled our safe arrival in dongola where we checked into a hotel, reported to the police, then tucked in to what seemed to be the only food available; a plate of fried liver - the tastiest we've ever had (sorry mum).

dongola to khartoum - 4th september

the hardest stretch of the journey to khartoum lay ahead of us. we knew that there was tarmac out of dongola and then again from abu dom but somewhere in-between the road disappears altogether. we found ourselves driving through open desert, chasing tyre tracks. close to el khandaq we powered through deep sand before hitting the worst corrugations imaginable. corrugations so deep on a ...