The ensuing Sudanese immigration process went smoothly (a local official immediately picked us out of the line, arranged our affairs and sent us the Lonely Planet Africa section for Sudan in PDF for free!) and we dashed through customs, hoping to find a lone taxi: waiting once more for customs and the subsequent packing of the bus was beyond our patience.
Fully one third of the bus was filled with everything from fridges to pans and microwaves, while the amount of passengers still corresponded to the total amount of seats.Īt customs we played chess for three hours as everything was unloaded, documented and loaded back into the bus. This turned out to be the most crowded bus we had ever seen, as the Sudanese all bought household appliances en masse from Egypt because their own currency makes imported goods prohibitively expensive. Not having any other options, we reluctantly boarded and demanded we would pay afterwards.
Helping us out, he flagged down a commercial bus which had turned us down earlier because it was completely full, and made a deal for the driver to take us to the next town, Wadi Halfa, for the outrageous amount of 200 Egyptian pounds. After politely overcharging us, he further informed us we would not be allowed to walk past the gate: being in a vehicle is mandatory for probably no reason at all. Upon our request to fetch the official in charge of this, he promptly disappeared behind a building, only to reappear inside the office as the official in charge.
Our hopes, however, that the border would be a piece of cake, were dashed when a man lazing in front of the gate informed us that we would need to pay an exit fee. After crossing the immense lake Nasser (named after the former Egyptian president and created since the 1960s by the Aswan High Dam, flooding countless ancient sites and Nubian villages in the process) we had a short stop at Abu Simbel (one of the more impressive temples of ancient Egypt, rescued from the rising waters and relocated entirely to higher ground but now sadly a prime example of a tourist trap), where we played ping pong, smoked hashish, drank what would be the last alcohol for a while and slept on the roof of the hotel to dodge the actual room cost.Ĭrossing the lake once more we hitched a ride to the actual Sudanese border, driving 180km/h through the desert. And here I am, still alive and back with you after the heat and drought of the Sudan.