Sudan Camel Trek, January 2011

Sudan; what to think when someone tells you that they are planning a trip there? Madness? Folly? Reckless? Images of gun toting militias riding on camels or horses spring to mind; news stories of genocide, kidnap, and many other atrocities are all thoughts crossing ones mind.


Sudan is a big country, about 2.5 million square kilometers; or just shy of a million square miles…. As with all news the bad stuff sells and they neglect to tell you that the trouble is confined to small areas of the country; small being a relative term here as Darfur and Kordofan alone are about the size of Tanzania.

We arrived in Khartoum on the last day of the South's referendum to secede; there was no way of knowing that anything of any import was going on in the south. The people were extremely friendly and welcoming and I felt safer in Khartoum than I do in Nairobi!

Our camel trek started just outside a town called Metemma on the west bank of the Nile, some 4 hours drive north of the capital. We were basically following in reverse the route that the Gordon Relief column followed in 1895.
Over the next 10 days we walked and rode through some incredibly diverse terrain; ranging from Acacia scrub in sandy soils, very typical Sahelian vegetation by all accounts, through to rocky pavement like reg desert and beautiful rolling sand dune fields, almost erg-like desert.

We camped at the Abu Klea wells, site of a major battle for the control of the wells, and the only place where the British Square was actually breached. The British won the day, and today there is a monument on the site of the battle as well as many graves of the fallen soldiers. We found cartridge cases on the battle site as well and we saw the stone walls put up by the British for their overnight defences before the battle.

We also spent a night at Jakdul Wells; the British used these rainwater cisterns as a base about midway across the Bayuda Desert. They were here for some days and one can still see the fortified 'sangars' that they built on the high ground surrounding the wells. These stone forts commanded the approaches to the wells and would have made it a very difficult proposition for anyone to dislodge them from this vital water supply.

From Jakdul we headed back into rocky desert with rolling hills, covering an average of nearly 30 kilometers a day walking and riding. The longest day was a 45 km trek; we walked into camp at the end of the day by the light of the waning full moon; spectacular experience.

We passed a well where our jerry cans were filled by local nomads, using a pulley, a donkey, rope and leather water skins to reach the water some 70 metres down.

This for me was one of the highlights of the trip, along with the military history of the two sites mentioned above.   

The last day of walking we ended next to an irrigation canal so were able to have a refreshing wash and swim; although surprisingly the water was decidedly bracing. On the return drive to Khartoum we spent the night camped at the base of a huge sand dune near the Meroe Pyramids.

We spent the following morning walking around the pyramids followed by a stop at the 'Lion Temple'  before finally ending in Khartoum. 

The diversity of historical peoples and civilizations in Sudan was eye-opening and this trip was worth a whole lot more than just a simple desert trek.

Our last day was spent in Khartoum, we enjoyed the Friday evening ritual of the 'Whirling Dervishes', a religious sect of Islamic Sufism; it was an incredible scene, and overall we found the North Sudanese people we met and interacted with to be amazingly friendly, polite and welcoming.