Across the Desert - Northern Sudan, 1994

Photography wasn’t allowed in Sudan without a permit, which I never bothered to get. Up north this was not a problem but it seemed unwise to show my camera around Khartoum. Thus, I can’t show you any pictures of the shot-up cars, homeless war orphans, foreign fat men in shiny white UN jeeps, or of three large mansions that Save The Children occupied in the Khartoum suburbs. It also means that I can’t show you the dishevelled and tired Oxfam volunteers returning to town in their dust-covered vehicle after a day of obvious hard work, or the numerous friendly people who somehow seemed to stay happy. This is a pity; Khartoum would have provided a good many contrasts to record.

The ferry from Aswan, Egypt to Wadi Halfa, Sudan ran overnight. The top deck crowded with men (no women allowed) and the rooms below deck filled completely. After sunset, nobody talked and it turned almost silent. The sky was as clear as any I’ve ever seen.

Does the boat landing look forbidding? As we came in to dock here we noticed the Sudanese watching us intently. After a while one couldn’t take it any more and asked “Are you staying”? When we asked why he asked, he said the week previously four tourists had come, taken one look at this dock, and then decided to stay on the boat and go back to Egypt!

The town of Wadi Halfa itself was considerably bigger, but not much more inviting. From the ground it was hard to realize the size of the place, but from the top of this hill one can see half of it. Lake Nasser is to the north, in the top of the photo. On the right side is the northern end of the train line to Khartoum.

“When does the train go?” “Some time next week, or maybe two weeks after that. One of the bridges washed out and they have to rebuild it.” The message was pretty clear, although it was hard to picture anything washing away. The fastest way to Khartoum was this bus, complete with its goat-skin water bag. The boy didn’t come along; he just posed.

Along the way we stopped in lots of small villages, all with houses made of mud-brick, like this one.

During the trip we had two or three flat tires, all of which they repaired on the spot rather than rely on spares.

The Nile varied in width as we went farther up. Here it looked almost like a creek, but in both Cairo and Khartoum it was wider again.

This ferry crossed approximately once or twice per day, depending on traffic. We arrived in the middle of the night and had to wait. Dongola, on the other side, was a fairly large town. On our way out of it we stopped at a surreal modern-looking gas station surrounded by desert. Somebody commented “I hope they have petrol to sell” and that quickly brought us back to reality.

After two days and two nights we began to feel as if we would never arrive. At moonscape rest stops like this everyone in the back half of the bus would stagger off, fall over in the sand, and fall asleep. After this we continued one more night, then noticed the lights of Khartoum glowing on the horizon while digging ourselves out of a sand trap.

On the other side of the desert was Ethiopia. People I meet always seem to think this is desert, too. Perhaps they’ve been fed too many famine pictures by TV. Really, parts of Ethiopia are green and beautiful. This is Addis Ababa (some sort of small parade was going by).