Sweden to Sudan

Two months on the road. Two months older. Two months smarter. Two months dirtier. Two months happier. =)

We are now in Khartoum, Sudan, recovering from 3 days of off-road driving through the deserts of northern Sudan. Since we now have a website in English as well as in Swedish we have deemed it necessary to also write a few blog posts in English.

As this is our first it will be a brief summary of our trip so far.

We took off from Karlskoga, Sweden, on June 9. What had not been properly installed in the car was simply ducttaped to its intended position or, better yet, just thrown into the mess in the trunk. We had planned to take off in an orderly fashion with the car in perfect order… but now we were in a hurry: on June 13 we were to meet Kina’s parents and aunt and uncle in Venice, Italy.

We took the long way through Sweden, starting with a stop in Örebro where we got a GPS. Wouldn’t want to go away without one… 20 minutes later Gustav dropped the receipt (and thus the warranty) somewhere on the Swedish highway E18, heading east to Stockholm. His excuse was that we weren’t exactly likely to find a Garmin dealer in the middle of nowhere, Africa, anyway and thus the receipt really wasn’t necessary… he did however also get on the phone to the store where the GPS was bought and arranged for a copy of the receipt to be sent to Kina’s parents.

Reaching Stockholm we first picked up Gustav’s friend Ludvig and then spent another hour saying hi and goodbye to a group of friends. It was late when we reached Stigtomta and we were soon fast asleep… not yet realizing we were actually on our way.

Two days later we had said goodbye to most of our friends and family and set course for Trelleborg, where we were to board the ferry taking us from Sweden to Rostock, Germany. As a cabin was 800 SEK (USD 130) we set camp under a table in the restaurant. With earplugs and a t-shirt over your eyes it’s possible to sleep basically anywhere.

Traveling to Munich we got to see the best of Germany from the Autobahn. We both decided that it was highly unlikely we would see roads as good anywhere on the rest of the trip. After buying a compressor we stayed at a campsite at the foot of the Alps. It was beautiful! And cold!

On the evening of the 13th we reached Venice and a small campsite near the city, a mere 20 minutes by boat to the Piazza de Marco. This was our base for the next three nights, though the majority of the time was spent in town with Kina’s family.

After a great weekend and a tear-filled goodbye we were once again on our own. Passing San Marino on our way to Sicily it became clear to us that: 1. Italy is beautiful and 2. Whoever built the roads in Italy would never get a job in Germany.

From Palermo, Sicily, we boarded a ferry on the 21st, taking us to Tunisia and Africa. The ferry was an experience in itself and accompanied by seriously overloaded Tunisian cars we actually felt a bit anal about our packing. We had our things in boxes and firmly tied to the roof rack or floor and here everyone else had 2 mopeds, a fridge and 100kg of detergent on their roofs… kept in place by 3 meters of washing line and some duct tape.

In Tunisia we set camp in a small orchard at a hotel in Nabeul. We were shocked by the heat and spent most of the days in the shade under the trees; reading and drinking water.

We were now also planning the continuation of our trip. We had planned to go through Libya, but the red tape surrounding travel to Libya made things a bit hard for us. We needed a guide in our car at all time and thus had to find a tour operator that we thought could make our journey as pleasant as possible. Our choice fell on Jannat tours, and after visiting places as El Jem (great roman ruins) and Matmata (where they shot parts of Star Wars) it was time to meet our guide Lamin at the border to Libya. Now… if it had been smooth sailing we would just have to let Lamin in to the car and then ride off to the sunset… or rather sunrise since we were heading east. Now, this was not the case.

The Libyan border officials found our Arabic passport translations “unofficial” since they were not stamped in our passports, but on a separate page. After hours of discussion, begging and eventual apathy we were turned back to Tunisia. In retrospect this might have been a rather good thing since Gustav fell ill that night and spent the following two days lying in bed, semiconscious, with a high fever.

By the time Gustav was well again we had also gotten our “official” translations and on the 8th of July we finally entered Libya.

Libya was an experience. We had no idea what to expect, but we had not anticipated seeing such a beautiful country, meeting such wonderful people and having such great food. The ruins from the Greek and Roman populations were really impressive and well preserved. Regretfully we only had four nights in the country, which meant we didn’t have the time to stop at all sights.

On July 12th it was time for the next border crossing and thus the next ordeal. Getting out of Libya was a breeze. A computer breakdown did however result in a two-hour-wait, but we spent it in the comfort of our car with a fridge full of cold beverages and were eventually waved through first, as the computer was back online. Egypt, however, was a completely different story. 8 hours and 1,200 Egyptian pounds later we were in Egypt: hungry, angry and tired.

The first week we spent in a small hotel in Alexandria, a town that really grew on us! After driving through the desert in Libya the cool Mediterranean breeze that Alexandria offers was a very nice change. For four days we tried to leave for Cairo, only to find us both saying “only one more night… tomorrow we leave”.

When in Alexandria, one must of course visit the library. The building is however more impressive than the selection of books…

In Cairo we spent a whole week couch surfing (www.couchsurfing.com) at Tarek and Asser’s. During the stay we really got to know the life of an Egyptian family and we also had time to visit the pyramids as well as the Egyptian Museum. The museum was, however, a rather depressing experience since it was more like a poorly looked-after warehouse in an industrial harbor than a museum containing some of the world’s most impressive cultural treasures. Wonderful stone statues and sarcophagi were simply piled in the corners. There was a complete lack of information signs, and even lighting, and it seemed like being exposed in such environment did the objects more harm than good. A new museum is now being built and we must say it’s about time…

After Cairo we headed for the Red Sea coast where we spent a night in Hurghada before continuing to Luxor and eventually Aswan. In Luxor we saw a Land Rover 130 converted to a camper and after visiting the website written across the car we got in touch with Brazilian Roy and Michelle. We met the two overlanders in Aswan and decided to team up through Sudan. Roy and Michelle had been out for 1.5 years already, but were only halfway on their three-year trip around the world. Impressive! Follow them at www.mundoporterra.com.br, if you know Portuguese.

Monday the 5th of August we rolled our cars onto a small barge and ourselves onto a slightly larger boat, heading for Wadi Halfa, Sudan. It is actually rather ironic. Sudan and Egypt are both 90% desert and have a really long land border, but the only way to go between the two countries by land is to take a ferry across Lake Nasser.

Sudan was quite a change to Egypt. We had all gotten really tired of touristy, corrupt Egypt where everyone expects money and tries to rip you off. Crossing Lake Nasser made all of this go away. Wadi Halfa was a small, dusty desert outpost and its only reason for existence is the weekly ferry to/from Egypt, but it was so nice! The people were all friendly, the atmosphere completely different and yet the guidebooks stated that this place is Sudan at its worst.

We decided to head for Khartoum following the Nile. It’s not the closest way, but we had been told it would be beautiful. Besides, the other option was to go straight through the desert, something that didn’t seem so attractive given that the temperature was almost pushing 50 degrees Celsius…

The road we had chosen turned out to be more or less no road at all. Most of the time it was simple an assembly of tracks running somewhat parallel through the desert and at the times there actually was a road the corrugations were so bad that driving besides the road felt like a better option. It took us three days to drive the 300 kilometers to Dongola.

In Karima, 170 kilometers from Dongola, we spent the night near some old pyramids. Though they were not as impressive as their peers in Egypt, it was quite a feeling to wander around among them without any other tourist in sight.

In Khartoum we met Ian and Esther, a wonderful British couple working in Khartoum since a while back. They were too Land Rover as well as overland travel fans and we had a great time together, eating a very nice meal and exchanging stories. When leaving their house, where we had been offered the guest bedroom and gladly accepted, Gustav had to do his best to keep Kina from stealing Ian and Esther’s equally wonderful dog Hector, a two-year-old Rhodesian Ridgeback.

We are now preparing for the next part of our trip: Ethiopia. We got our visas yesterday and now have to re-stock our supplies and also clean the cars inside and out: the last week has offered more dust than we thought possible and the cars are now as dirty on the inside as on the outside.