Leaving Sudan from Wadi Halfa

Above: On the top deck; prayer time at sunset. Photo courtesy of Vincent Gelot.

Sleepless Night

There was plenty of snoring through the night, sharing a dorm with mature men. Cellphones kept going off too! It got really cold; I had three layers on my upper body, a rain coat and also longjohns under my pants. I don’t think I slept a wink.

Then someone’s alarm rang at 0400. A whole bunch of them got up and someone turned the lights on.The place was a hive of activity and the place cleared out before 0500, leaving Matthew and I to enjoy the quietness briefly. All the others had early buses to catch for Khartoum.

Immigration formalities in town

I got out of bed about 0700 and was ready to go at 0800. First stop was the immigration office to process my departure. I gave my passport to an officer and paid a small fee of SDG3. He put it in a stack and passed it to the photocopy room and eventually it sneaked to the main entrance without me knowing, awaiting my collection. This took about 1h30 (including the time I spent waiting thinking that my passport was still being processed).

I saw people getting jabs for Yellow Fever and paid attention to whether they were using disposable needles, and they were. Fortunately I didn’t need one as mine was still valid. I confirmed with the staff that the validity is 10 years, like I understood.

It was about 1000 when made my way back to the hotel. I tried arranging a tuktuk to the port but the driver told me to take a bus. Just my luck, there was one outside my hotel being loaded up but it took a while before we finally got going.

At the port

I got to the port about 1100 and handed my ticket over to the shipping company. The guy ripped it up and threw it into the bin. Then he realised that he shouldn’t have, and retrieved the pieces from the bin. Ooops!

I was given some forms to fill but it was another couple of hours before I could get my immigration exit finalised, ready for boarding. During that time I got talking to Erich and Ula from Germany and Vincent from France.

They have their own vehicles and have been driving around. They have a helper to assist with the formalities related to the cars and the service extends to helping the human body through the seething mass of humanity at the terminal. Their helper Mazan was kind enough to help me even though I wasn’t his paying customer.

We sat next to the drinking water fountain and noticed that the water that it dispensed looked more like hand-squeezed lemonade.  Hhmmm.  The tap water would be worse I guess, not that I had seen a tap or running water in my hotel.

I decided to rid myself of most of my Sudanese pounds. I had worked out the rate to the Egyptian pound, academically with consideration to the blackmarket vs official USD rate. My working agreed with an enquiry with a changer in town but I didn’t proceed with it in case I needed to pay for extra port taxes etc. The changer in the departure hall wasn’t as generous with his starting rate but I negotiated him upwards to get an even better deal which I thereafter completed.

Back with my Erich and Ula, they thought the rate should have been the opposite and I should have got more Egyptian pounds than Sudanese, not less like I had. We asked Mazan and didn’t want to get too involved and simply asked the changer to reverse my transaction. The reversal was done fairly amicably without too much hoohah! This wouldn’t be so easy anywhere else in the world!

As it turned out much later when I talked to various people on the boat, I was right with my rate. Erich and Ula had come over from Ethiopia and hadn’t factored in the blackmarket rate as they didn’t have any USD or EUR to to change. They only converted Ethiopian birrs.

On the ferry, finally!

We boarded about 1300 in utter chaos. I had somehow got to the front of the security queue where baggage was nominally being inspected. The crowds were pushing me from behind and the security staff were pushing me back. I made it through in one piece and breathed a sigh of relief to get to the long lonely pier that led to the ferry.

I secured some space for my newfound friends under one of the two hardshell lifeboats (as opposed to the additional inflatable ones). Mazan placed them somewhere else so we hogged both spaces briefly before having to surrender some of it to the mass that boarded after us.

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The horn sounded around 1600 and were on our way. I thought we were about an hour early. The sun was fierce as we cruised through the pearly green waters; I wouldn’t like to be swimming in it.  I continued to take refuge under the lifeboat till after a late lunch or early dinner, when it was cooler. My included meal consisted of a large piece of grilled chicken on pasta with a side of potato stew, some bread and an orange.

Once the sun had eased I moved to join the others. I had explored the boat and was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Indoors was extremely crowded but out on the deck, it was gonna be a frigid night.

At sunset, nearly the whole male population of the ship had congregated on the deck for prayer. It was quite a moving sight. Sadly, I didn’t have the best vantage point for a good photo and it wasn’t appropriate to cut across everyone in the midst of their prayers just to achieve the ideal shot!

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Some 3h30 after departure, just after sunset, we passed the temples at Abu Simbel. My simple camera couldn’t handle the low-light long-distance shot.

Abu Simbel’s famous temple as we cruised past in the dark.

Most people got ready for bed before 2000. I didn’t have a sleeping bag. It was cold on the steel floor of the deck. The weather wasn’t as cold and crisp as Wadi Halfa, but it got extremely windy. I had three layers on my upper body, a rain coat and also longjohns under my pants. I don’t think I slept a wink. That makes two nights in a row that I’ve spent looking at the nearlly full moon.

Thoughts on leaving Sudan

There isn’t much to see and do in Sudan, per se, but there is plenty to experience. This is where Arabia ends and Africa starts. Even worse, if one were coming from Egypt, one could label the historical sights as a complete non-event.

For me, I enjoyed getting a taste of that transition between Arabia and Africa. I enjoyed the friendliness and the hospitality of Sudanese. I’ve been told that it is probably the safest and friendliest country on the continent.

Sudan Spend

In my 2 weeks in Sudan, I spent a total of USD720. But let’s take out some of the big items, namely: registration, 3 nights at a resort and return domestic airfares totalling USD374.
That means I only spent USD346 over two weeks, which comes to USD25 per day. That is including accommodation, meals, transport and international ferry to Egypt.

Getting a good exchange rate is critical to economising!