Sudan

: The main purpose of my visit to Sudan was to do this 250km walk across a part of the Sahara known as the Bayuda Desert. This walk was to be done with a small group organized by a British company called Secret Compass, working in conjunction with a Sudanese tourism organization called Mahshansharti. The idea was to drive north from Khartoum to this little village called Al Matamma which is just on the other side of the Nile from the town of Shendi (depicted on the map; see red arrow pointing to this general area). There we’d meet the camel herder guys and the eighteen (I think?) camels that’d be carrying most of our shit throughout the hike. The hike didn’t have a definite end point, but we’d be walking for ten days and would finish somewhere around Karima, a town on a different part of the Nile (also shown on the map) some 250km NNW of our starting point.

: Mosque as seen while wandering from the Grand Hotel to Al Waha Mall for some lunch

: There really weren’t too many choices for food in Al Waha Mall, but this ice cream was pretty darn good. Think I had me one scoop of blueberry, one pistachio and one Oreo

: So everyone could get acquainted with one another, we went out for a group dinner the night before leaving on the hike. Not sure why we didn’t go to an authentic Sudanese restaurant and instead opted for this place called Syrian Castle. Just curious though…what sounds better to you – a hot dog pizza or a hot dog pie with cheese?

: This cat with the creepy eyes kept coming up to me at the table of Syrian Castle restaurant, wanting a piece of my nutritious hot dog salad

: Coffee and tea break at some roadside stand on our way from Khartoum to the town of Al Matamma, the trek starting point

: Guy selling bananas near the coffee place in the previous photo. I was interested in purchasing two bananas and the guy was like, “Two kilos?” and I was like, “Nah man, just two bananas.” And he goes, “Two bananas? That’s all? Here, just take ’em. No charge.”

: One of the four SUVs that were transporting us and all our shit was having some mechanical difficulties along the way and here’re some of the local guys trying to get that sorted out

: They eventually got the busted vehicle functioning again and we finished the rest of the ride by the early afternoon. Here in Al Matamma, the camels are being loaded up with all the stuff that’d been in the SUVs. The plan was to leave shortly after and get about 3-4 hours of walking in before reaching a campsite about ten or so kilometers away – nothing crazy, just a nice little warm-up for the full 25-30km days that lay ahead.

: This is just a still shot from a video I took and you can’t really see exactly what is going on here, but essentially what you’re looking at is a camel jailbreak. As the local team was loading up the camels, one of those fuckers just stood up and started running away, and the rest of ‘em decided to follow suit. Didn’t matter if their legs were tied up or not, they all got up and started running away in different directions, violently bucking off whatever’d already been strapped to their backs. There was nothing the local guys could do to stop it from happening as a trail of cooking supplies, camping stuff and whatever else was strewn within a hundred-meter radius of where they all decided to bolt. They might’ve been able to catch about five or six of the eighteen camels before they were able to get away, but the rest were long gone. Long story short, the camels weren’t the easiest to find and there were some major problems with communication between the local team and Becky (the team leader from Secret Compass), and we wouldn’t end up being reunited with the rest of the camels until the end of the third day. And then after this incident, since there weren’t enough camels left to carry all the gear, it was decided that instead of walking to the first campsite, we’d just drive there. Of course, even this couldn’t go right and one of the four SUVs took a wrong turn somewhere (not sure how, exactly, given we were driving through an open space in the desert) and nobody from our camp could reach them via normal phone or satellite phone and they wouldn’t end up arriving until right after the sun’d set.

: Here is a photo of Midhat, the owner of Mahshansharti – the local tourism company – showing off his whip shortly after all the camels had just escaped. As he flogged an invisible victim that’d been standing uncomfortably close to the group crowded around listening to him talk, he explained about a local tradition in which the groom, on his wedding night, takes a whip and strikes the backs of other young men attending his wedding. And the men are said to proudly take the lashings without making a peep to show how strong and courageous they are, and how deserving they will be of their chance to one day whip everybody else on the night of their own weddings.

: Local dudes loading up a couple of the camels that were too slow to get away when they had their chance the day beforehand. The guy in the white turban, Bala, I was told, is one of the most well-known camel traders/desert navigation guys in Sudan. He’s like a local celebrity. And when traversing the vast expanses of desert, he would never think to use any sort of GPS or anything like that – he himself was, for all intents and purposes, our group’s GPS system. That said, this rocky start with the missing camels and all didn’t do much to uphold his status as a local legend. Everybody was a bit doubtful and irritated during the first couple days.

: Felt good to finally get some walking in

: First lunch break. Every day the decision of where we’d end up stopping to eat was pretty much based on where we could find a big enough tree for everybody to fit under to catch some shade. In late January, midday temps would reach the lower 90s (32-33C) pretty much every day

: Obviously, this picture is shit. Nevertheless, I felt the need to include it here just to remind myself how awesome it was to sit out under the stars every night, chatting with the other members of the group before and after dinner. Definitely one of my favorite parts of being out in the desert

: Approaching a tiny village

: Another shit photo, but included because I was always impressed seeing goats standing up on their hind legs to munch on low hanging parts of trees

: I try to keep some perspective when going through small villages in foreign countries. I mean, obviously I’d like to take some photos of what I’m seeing, but at the same time can’t help but wonder how offended I’d feel if some strange group of foreigners came up to my house and were looking around inside and the only thing they know how to say in my language is “hello” as they uninvitedly snap photos of my wife and children. Kinda fucked up, right? Yeah, well…I still did it anyway. Though I tried not to be TOO rude about it

: “It’s fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A!” Oh no wait, wait, hold up…that wasn’t these folks. That was a different kind of Village People

: Me taking photos of these kids from the village who were taking photos of us foreigners on their cell phones. Wonder if they get reception on their phones out there and where in the world they recharge them. Maybe solar power? Maybe run the village Jeep for a little bit every time they need to charge stuff? No idea

: A monument commemorating British soldiers fallen at the hands of Mahdist forces during the battle of Abu Klea back in 1885. Seems kinda weird to me that there’s not a monument to the fallen Sudanese soldiers instead, this being Sudan and all

: Not too much shade under this tree, but…

: …when the rest of the terrain looks like this, you make the best of what you got.

: Enveloped by nothingness

: Male and female camel tied together. Not sure if this was in hope that they’d bang and make a baby camel or what

: Sundown, ya better take care

: And they’re off!

: Shown here, Enumclaw resident “Mr. Hands” had a very, VERY close relationship with his camel

: Post-lunch naps under a nice big tree

: Being out in the desert can bring out the creative side in some people

: Following Bala at the front of the pack

: It’s 5:39 in the morning. That glowing orb of light on the ground in the center of the photo is the local guys getting breakfast together. We’d try to eat by 6 and get walking by 7 every day

: It’s now 8:29 in the morning. Bala is upset we’re taking so long of a break. He’s saying, “Yallah! Let’s fuckin go!”

: Now it’s 10:37. We’re taking another break and Bala is pissed. He definitely wants to keep moving

: 10:53am. Bala riding way ahead of the pack

: 11:11am. Powering through sand dunes

: 4:39pm. Gettin near to quittin time

: 5:21pm. Mohammed-O the chef setting up his kitchen next to a sand dune and starting to prepare dinner

: Camp as seen at 5:31pm

: Good morning! On these rugs is where we’d eat our breakfasts. Breakfast usually consisted of some tea and coffee, hardboiled eggs, bread, jam…what else? Sometimes some Nutella. Sometimes some grapefruit. I dunno. It was alright (insert shrug emoji here)

: Me posing with Bala’s son Mohammed. Unlike his old man who was very dedicated to running a tight ship, Mohammed seemed to like to goof around quite a bit

: My new smile, courtesy of pebbles found on the desert floor

: More nothingness

: Mousa, an archaeologist, one of the local guys who’d been traveling with us, explained to me that the wind of the desert has been pushing these rocks around and blowing sand on them for so long (like, I dunno, millions of years?) that they end up perfectly spherical like this one I got here in my hand. Unless, of course, he was just punkin me and this was actually just a piece of camel shit

: A few guys on donkeys rode up to chat for a while with Bala. On the left, the two guys on one donkey kinda seemed like an excessively large load for that beast to bear

: Desert shepherd

: Insanely long camel caravan

: View of the land we crossed that day as seen from the top of some hill I climbed up next to our campsite

: The campsite from afar

: Zoomed in on the campsite

: The camels posted up at the bar, drinking ’til they get their fill

: What can I say, it’s just another day

: My feet were pretty fucked up by this point in the hike

: I love the sunsets out in the desert

: The local team cutting up a goat they just slaughtered, getting it ready for dinner

: A well from which these local people had been drawing some water

: Tryin to catch a glimpse of Timmy O’Toole at the bottom of the well

: The way these people were doing it, they’d have a rope attached to some kind of bucket or bag for collecting the water at the bottom of the well and then they’d attach the other end of the rope to a donkey and direct it to walk away from the well, pulling the water up from the bottom in the process

: These guys let me give their donkeys a break so I could try to pull up a couple buckets of water on my own

: Camel hobbled by rope just above its feet. May be a bit cruel, but not as bad as the type of hobbling dished out by Kathy Bates in the movie Misery

: Beautiful sunset behind the silhouette of a fellow hiker who’s probably walking back to camp after having taken a shit

: The snacks we were given to take with us each day were always candy bars and if you didn’t eat ’em before 9:30 in the morning they’d end up looking like this

: Well, well, well…what do we have here? Why, it’s another well!

: Where these guys were dumping the water they pulled up from the well. I think this idea might’ve worked better if they had some sort of waterproof tarp to put at the bottom of that makeshift trough. To me, watching them, it seemed like it was seeping back into the earth way faster than it ideally should’ve

: One of our camel guys bargaining with these guys around the well to buy one of their goats for our dinner

: Mohammed-O, the cook. He told me when he’s not working as a cook on trips like this, he works as an electrician in people’s houses in Khartoum

: Groovy sand patterns

: Shit + head = shithead

: Nazar and fellow hiker Hasib. Nazar is the only local guy that walked the whole route. Not once did he hop up and ride on the back of a camel

: Here’s Mousa, the aforementioned archaeologist, enjoying a smoke as he sits atop his camel

: On one of the last nights, Mousa had been wearing this t-shirt with pandas on it and I mentioned that I liked it just before bringing up the fact that pandas in zoos are generally pretty unenthusiastic about mating and to combat this, are shown panda pornography in hopes that they’ll start banging enough to save themselves from extinction. The next day, Mousa gave this t-shirt to me as a gift. Literally gave me the shirt off his back. It was a very kind gesture

: Nazar and Mousa held dinner down while Bala did the honors

: Packing up for our last day of hiking

: The last pre-hike breakfast

: The last time I spend all day trying to keep up with Bala

: Interesting rocks found along the way

: Last under-a-tree lunch

: Non-alcoholic chocolate drinks brought to our group by Midhat for the last lunch

: That thing is literally rock hard

: The posse’s a comin’

: Darren and me, the only two group members who opted not to ride camels at all and walked the whole thing (photo by group leader, Becky, from atop a camel)

: Some of the gang at the arbitrary finish line where we were about to get picked up by SUVs

: Road outside Karima

: Nile River

: Market in Karima

: Around the market

: Livestock strapped to the roof of a van for transport

: That depiction of Eeyore on Winnie the Pooh is pretty accurate. Donkeys really are the most depressed/depressing animals I’ve ever seen

: Lunch stop somewhere between Karima and the pyramids of Meroë. I was interested how things work at this place because we brought our own food. So, like, I wonder how much the proprietor charges per person to just let you come up during the hottest time of the day to use their shade and their tables and chairs and stuff without buying any of their food and drinks

: Rather bare shelves at a gas station shop not too far from Meroë

: First glimpse of the pyramids

: We pulled up to this spot here to take some photos of the pyramids from afar and when these kids saw us approaching they started running over from like a kilometer away to try and start selling us pyramid souvenirs

: Dudes trying to sell us camel rides as we got closer to the pyramids. Little did they know we’d just spent the last ten days crossing the desert with a big pack of camels that we had the option of riding anytime and we were not the least bit impressed with their offer here

: Some Italian asshole named Giuseppe Ferlini blew the tops off these pyramids in the 1800s looking for treasure. That’s why they look the way they do

: As we were walking around the complex, Nazar asked me how I felt. It was my 35th birthday. I couldn’t believe how old I was already and how fast the first half of my life had already gone. I was wondering how fast the second half of my life would go. Or maybe I won’t even live to see old age. Who knows? In response to his question, I said, “These pyramids make me feel really small.” And he said, “You think these pyramids are small? Have you visited the ones in Egypt?” “No, no, no,” I said. “I mean, yeah, I have visited the ones in Egypt, but I didn’t mean that these ones are small. They’re fine. I meant that the kings buried here were once the most important people in the world, but just like everyone else they’ve died and have been forgotten.” And Nazar said, “There are still kings today. Saudi Arabia still has a king.” And…I took a deep breath. “You’re right,” I said. “Yeah, they do. You’re totally right.”

: Pretty much every one of these pyramids that I walked past had a door with a glory hole on it leading to the inside. Who knew dead kings were so into getting fellated by strangers?

: Pretty pyramid

: Pay no attention to the idiot in the photo

: Paintings on the wall at the Meroë pyramids visitor center

: Coffee/tea break on the ride back to Khartoum

: I hadn’t smoked a hookah in several years before hitting this one hard and, oh boy, did it give me a MASSIVE headache that lasted several hours. Never again

: Another coffee/tea break, this time in Khartoum. There’s me on the right, happy to be wearing a clean t-shirt (photo taken by Nazar)

: As I was sitting where I was sitting in the photo previous, I noticed this empty pack of cigarettes on the ground with a health warning on it showing some sort of deformed foot. Since my own foot was pretty deformed at the time with that hideous blister on the side of it, I decided to take a photo for a side-by-side comparison

: Chris Brown on the back of Abu Rawan’s rickshaw

: And then there’s Rihanna sandwiched between a pair of 2Pacs

: Sheikh Hamad An-Nil Tomb in Omdurman to witness the weekly dancing Sufi ceremony held there every Friday. Here people get in touch with their faith by fervently banging drums, singing and dancing until they reach a state of ecstasy

: I’d read on several older travel blogs from ten or more years ago that after all the drum-beating and dancing that’s done every Friday at this Sufi event, they’d sacrifice a camel by cutting its head off and feeding the meat to the poor. Based on my own experience and what I’d been told by our local guides, this is no longer done

: Looking out over the merrymaking

: The action on the ground

: These two guys were gettin really into it

: The lady with the pink headscarf in the center of the photo was also getting really into it and dancing all crazy and the tourist woman standing nearby was simply appalled by her behavior (see the YouTube video at the bottom of the page for a better understanding)

: No water!? This empty pool at the Grand Hotel in Khartoum looks like the start to a Schmit’s Gay beer commercial

: Bob, Che and Ariana Grande kickin it not too far away from the Grand Hotel in Khartoum

: Wings of the angel

: Fellow hiker Hasib was not very happy to be taking this photo for me, but I made him take it several different times to make sure it turned out right

: Omdurman Camel Market

: Here we reunited with Bala who apparently just sold the eighteen camels of his we’d used on the hike to someone in Egypt that was supposedly going to turn them all into food, and I guess he made a bunch of money in doing so – money that he used to buy a bunch of younger camels from someone else. Needless to say, some of our group members were very upset about the fate of the camels after they’d just spent the past ten days in the desert bonding with them. Bala, on the other hand, couldn’t have been happier.

: Dude pulling on the teats of this mother camel to show me how the milk comes squirting out. On this day I learned that some people in Sudan believe that drinking camel urine is good for helping with stomach upsets and that camel piss is also really good for your hair if applied directly

: Konooz sunflower oil – interesting choice for the centerpiece of a roundabout

: Market somewhere in Khartoum

: View of the Corinthia Hotel in Khartoum

: Boat ride towards the confluence of the Blue Nile and the White Nile

: Chairs along the side of the Nile where people come put their feet in and chill while sippin on somethin good

: A big college graduation celebration next to the Grand Hotel in Khartoum where two other people from the group and I ended up on my final night in the country

: Old habits die hard. Right before I checked out of the hotel, I drew a cartoon penis in the middle of the notepad on the nightstand next to my bed and then closed the notepad so some guest in the distant future will stumble on it and either be offended, confused or amused

: At midnight Nazar and Midhat gave me a ride to the airport and when saying our goodbyes, Nazar offered this halwa to me as a gift. Thanks bud, much appreciated

: The guy going through security in front of me at the airport in Khartoum. How you gonna rep 69 and think you ain’t gonna get photographed?

Khartoum

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Karima

Meroë

Return to Khartoum/Omdurman