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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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a road so wide that there was no comfortable travelling speed. we endured this for an hour or so before meeting with the tarmac again and a truck stop where we stopped for falafel. setting off again we were faced with a hazard of a different sort - a sand storm blew in, limiting visibility on a fast and busy road. finally, we passed through the chaotic market streets of omdurman before crossing the nile again to khartoum.

we made our way to the blue nile sailing club where we stayed for three nights. the 'club' is an institution in khartoum and in the evenings there is a steady stream of 4x4s that park up, the owners sitting by the river, sharing conversation over a coffee or fruit juice. for us it provided somewhere safe to camp for the night and by day to sort the inside of the land rover after its wearing journey across the desert - nothing had escaped the dust. khartoum itself seemed pleasant enough but after getting caught out by the one-way systems and getting stuck in the rush hour traffic we limited our excursions; our stomachs determining when we left the sailing club.

gallabat - 7th september

after two days of repairs and repacking, we were ready to move onto ethiopia. the sudanese heat was proving to be just too much - a paralysing 42 degrees in the shade, no breeze and no detectable relief, even when the sun set. we were keen to reach the milder and potentially wetter climate of ethiopia.

travelling south from khartoum, organised, arabic sudan begins to slowly disintegrate. as the landscape opens out into savanna, the solid walls and defensive islam architecture gives way to scattered collections of circular straw huts. and eventually the road too degenerates, bumping us over pot-holes and though muddy ruts. the other traffic having disappeared, we made our way past the slow moving oil tankers into a countryside becoming greener by the mile.

we were not too keen on the idea of bush camping on the way to the border, so we drove flat out to reach gallabat before dusk. this we did, however, upon our arrival we quickly assessed that gallabat had all the charm that you would expect of a remote border post. we were undecided as to whether we should cross the border, hide in the bush or stay put and sleep in the front of the land rover for the night. staying put seemed the safest option but we would need the toilet at some point so we drove out the way we had come in.

as dusk fell, lightning lit the horizon below dark clouds, erupting above a suddenly very african landscape. we watched the storm for a short while but the quickening darkness made us uneasy, so we headed back to gallabat. we parked up next to the truck drivers who were sleeping under their vehicles - if it was safe for them it should be safe for us too, though we were certainly more of an attraction. it wasn't long before a crowd had gathered around the front windows and for the next hour or so a steady stream of people peered in and spoke what little english they knew, intrigued by the game of scrabble we were trying to continue. our last visitor was a policeman who suggested that perhaps it would be better for us to sleep outside the customs house. this we did and from that point we were not disturbed at all.