On our way from Gondar to the Matema/Quallabat border post, I developed a funny cough. We had a bad experience the previous night with bedbugs and I obviously had a allergic reaction although at that stage I did not know it. The further we drove the worse it became and at some stage I started taking Celestemine. This sort of spoiled the excitement of crossing the border into our next country. On top of this, we had a difficult border crossing on the Ethiopian side with a Customs officer who wanted a bribe….something that we NEVER did on our trip. When we finally got to the Sudan border post, it took them 3 hours to stamp our Carnet de Passage. We were tired and I ill when we finally drove into Sudan in a hot 45 degrees.
We were amazed to found that the landscape between Ethiopia and Sudan changed from green and high mountains to desert within a few kilometers after entering Sudan. It is as if there has been a line drawn on the border post…..from high to low, green to desert. My post on our trip from Qualabat to Wad Medani told you that it was an extremely difficult day with 2 cloudbursts, a desert wind storm, not finding a hotel in Gedaref in pouring rain and arriving after dark in Wad Medani in a cloudburst nearly having to overnight in the Hilux next to a flooded Nile. The first few days in Sudan were traumatic for both of us. I developed Bronchitis and we were both travel weary. Everything was very foreign, we could not sleep because of the immense heat and the Mullah’s calling for prayer every few hours. Travel fatigue set in and it was the hardest time of our whole trip. We had to stay longer in Khartoum for me to get better but when we finally drove out of the city we were excited and both looking forward to our desert experience. Sudan was at the end the part of the trip that we found we keep on talking about….it was fantastic and a life changing experience that made us find characteristics in ourselves and in each other that we did not even know we had. We are proud about our Sudan experience and proud about each other and ourselves by coming stronger out of it and being able to get back on track and enjoy our trip to the utmost! Sudan was the cherry on our Overland trip’s cake.
This is where I nearly broke my neck slipping on the wet tiles. This exact moment was sort of the last straw mentally and physically for us.
Very ill and sorry for myself.
To see the desert in flood!
Camping in Mazar’s garden in Wadi Halfa, tired but excited about our Nubian desert adventure!
Lake Nasser where we turned finally south again. Sad that because of the unrest the ferry weren’t running to Aswan.
Where two deserts meet. The Libyan desert on the eastern side of the Nile is part of the Sahara desert while the Nubian desert is on the western side of the Nile. The people that inhabits borth deserts are mostly Berber.
Because there is no official border crossing into Ethiopia from Lake Turkana, we were already in Ethiopia but still on our way to Omorate. We were stamped out of Kenya in Nairobi and had 10 days to reach Omorate where there is a border post. We drove right pass the lonely Police Post where we were supposed to stop. After waiting about 10 minutes for Fanie who was driving behind us, we decided to turn back. Only on arriving at the Police office seeing Fanie’s vehicle, we remembered we were supposed to show our Passports there.It caused a bit of explaining and calming the Policeman before we were allowed to drive on. On reaching Omorate late afternoon, we were quickly stamped into Ethiopia but had to come back the next morning for the Carne de Passage to be stamped by Customs. Ethiopia was a real eye opener country. Beautiful and diverse. First the Omo valley and then the huge mountains in the highlands, the Nile, the Rift valley lakes, people on the roads with their animals, hardworking woman and little girls, little boys playing with their whips or doing tricks next to the road, rock hewn churches, castles, historic routes, bad roads, never ending mountain passes, driving short distances that takes a whole day, staying in hotels very cheap, coffee ceremonies, nice Ethiopian red wine, the way the people dress, the Coptic Christian churches, the contours right through the country, ……everything made us feel that we were wandering through the Old Testament of the Bible. It is a tiring country but so much worthwhile to spent time in. In Addis Ababa, we decided to drive to through the Nile valley towards Bahir Dar and on to Gondar and Sudan. These are some of the moments on our northbound trip.