Atbara, Sudan

Monday 27th August 2007 – internet cafe Atbara
In the morning, roaming around starkers, a camel man and a donkey man arrived and caught us in the nick. I had to hide while Nev dressed and brought my clothes to me. It was panic stations in this country of Islamic law!! Anyway all worked out and we drove towards Atbara after exploring the quarry and cave where they had hewn the rocks for the pyramids. The British had used the cave as an ammo store during WW2. We spotted the first wild mammal we had seen in Sudan there up a cliff. It was a red fox with a long white-tipped tail, and it disappeared into a crack in the rocks.
The first 50Km the landscape was black, topped by a thin layer of shattered volcanic lava over the sandstone. The next 50Km was flat and featureless and dry and hot 44deg.
As we neared Atbara we saw 10 X10-tower centre pivots. None had crops under them at this time, and one had been blown right upside down. There is nothing to stop the force of the wind and the road signs, although concreted in, also get blown over.
They are building huge canals through the flat, sandy land.
Small orange trees had been recently planted in a huge grove. The Nile is flooding its banks and the last tributary before the mouth, the Atbara River is 300m wide here and flowing strongly.
I still cannot get my satphone to work properly and am trying to get help from Aladin in Khartoum without much success.
It is much cooler in this internet place than outside in the hot dusty Atbara town.

Sunday 26th August 2007 Pyramids at Shendi/ Meroe
In the cool of the morning we finished exploring the ruins at Naqa and made our way towards Sheni and the Sudanese pyramids. The country was flat with inselberg (odd lava-topped mountains). The temp reached 44 deg when we got there and survival was our main aim. We squirted water onto our shirts and bodies to keep cool, and it made a huge difference.
At 5pm we went to the pyramids, and a very kind Sudanese paid for us to enter and were taken around by the guide with the Sudanese translating.
The over 100 small steep pyramids were in various states of disrepair due to the efforts of one Italian in 1834 who blew the tops off all of them looking for treasure, only finding some gold in one. The maximum height was 15m. They were very well made, 1000 years older than the famous ones at Cairo. They are made with rough sandstone blocks, filled inside with rubble, then cladded with beautifully hewn rectangular sandstone, the covered with a type of lime sealer. The sealant has now been sandblasted off by the elements and the carvings are being eroded.
We found a sand campsite nearby between two hills to catch any breeze at night, stripped naked, set up the shower and kept ourselves wet to keep cool. The water in our water tanks was at 37 deg, temp outside 40 deg (at 7pm). At 10pm it had gone down to 37deg. It is very difficult to sleep at that temp, but the breeze did help at 4am when the temp went down to 29 just before sunrise.

Saturday 25th August 2007 Naqa (Nagaa) Archeological Site.
We drove slowly north towards Naqa and arrived when it was getting cool. This was a temple that was still in good condition. It had an avenue of rams carved out of sandstone and the walls of the temple were decorated with serpents, lions, royalty etc, with much more excavation waiting to be done. They were built in the 1st century AD. They were very Egyptian looking with the wall carvings. The soft sandstone is being wind and sand eroded fast now that the outer cladding has fallen off, and we felt a sense of panic that nothing is being done to preserve these ancient fascinating buildings.
We found a campsite a couple of Km away. It was very hot, 34 deg and climbed a small mountain and came across the quarry hidden on top. There were carved stones still up there, shaped and ready to take down. The markings still very evident.
The night was hot with no breeze, temp in the morning at 7am 29deg.

Friday 24th August 2007 Nile River Sailing Club Khartoum
These are names that need to record:
Felistia de Jager, SA Attache.
Corina and Daniel, the two Swiss cyclists
Helen and Neil Cox, Rob and Viv: Auzzie overlanders going north.
Faisal Ali and Samira, kind Sudanese who fed us so well.
We got up and met Felistia and her friends at Ozone, a coffee bar in Khartoum and had a wonderful chat over breakfast. Then headed west and after 30Km Khartoum still hadn't ended. This is a huge city. We headed back and found the Omderman souq (market) where we watched the so-called Whirling Dervishes, the highlight of a visit to Khartoum. Well, we think we were lured there under false pretences because we didn't see much of what was going on, because we were the centre of attraction for the locals. Nev, with his big beard had to teach the locals to speak English under the guidance and instruction of the main Imam there. We shook hands with tens of people, I was given the name Fatima (because Lorraine was too hard for them to say). The 'show' was actually chanting and clapping by a special order of Moslems, but we interacted with the people while trying to hear them over the noise of distorted loudspeakers. We had fun, was given local sweet tea and sweet lentils to eat. No diarrhea after that, we were surprised. We headed back in the dark and had a lovely long chat with the Auzzies who have invited us to Auz after this trip.