Khartoum to Wadi Halfa, third leg
Trip Start
Oct 11, 2008
1
28
64
Trip End
Feb 20, 2009
Where I stayed
Bush camping close to petroglyphs
Kerma, Sudan
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Tuesday 9 December Following the Nile again
The night had been very windy and quite cold, the boys closed the roof sometime during the night. Only three vehicles passed during the night, five meters from our vehicle and tent. A car at probably 140 an hour, a motorbike at 60 and a truck even slower. Travelling the Bayuda Desert, like we were doing, in December keeps the temperature during the day to acceptable levels. But then it still cools down a bit more during the night. Sleeping bags are a necessity.
We left a hole in the soft shoulder of the road at eight in the morning. Continuing on smooth asphalt we reached Dongola in about two and a half hours.
Dongola to Wadi Halfa: In Dongola we had to cross the Nile because we wanted to change some money and get diesel only to find that everything was still closed due to the Hadj holidays. However, there is always something possible in Sudan so we changed a hundred bucks in the market, had a real Sudanese breakfast (Fatour) which is Ful (beans) lentils and some tomatoes and onions with bread (Kisra) and managed to get some diesel as well. The Ferry crossings are expensive (56 SP) but they won't be operating for much longer because the new bridge at Dongola is almost finished. We continued towards Kerma, which is now just another sleepy village on the Nile but had its heydays from 1750 to 1600 BC, when its rulers extended their influence as far north as Aswan. Its claim to fame is also that it was the oldest urban settlement in sub-Saharan Africa (2400 BC).
Sander and Jasper's archaeological discovery: In Kerma (bush camp) as my brother (Jasper) and I (Sander) were trying to find hares or rabbits we had seen earlier between the rocks, I found a small engraving of what appeared to be an oryx. At first we thought that some one just carved it for fun but as we found more we started to think otherwise. We went back to mom and asked (without them knowing about our discovery) if there had been people around long time ago. She said that this was one of the oldest settlements with evidence of humans as long as 4500 years ago. With this in our minds we looked on and were completely convinced when we found pictures of Anubis and Horus. In all we found engravings of Anubis, Horus, rhino, giraffe, boats, camels, elephants, a battle (consisting of at least thirty to forty pictures), an ostrich and possibly a temple. Really awesome!
