Sudan: Mangoes vs Pyramids

Africa » Sudan » North » Atbara

The Nubian mausoleums within the current borders of Sudan are famous amongst Archaeologists and Pyramidaphiles a like. However seemingly the current Sudan residents don't quite value them in quite the same way. On my first attempt to visit these red teeth rising up through swirling yellow sands, the driver decided that a much more worthy site was the "world famous" mango market. I have to say I do like a good mango, the market however tends to lend itself to buying as opposed to eating (NB: As it was Ramadan, we couldn't eat them even after buying!) and as such I was rather disappointed to have skipped past the pyramids. Once again (re: Nigeria blog) I had to remember my youth and John Cleese's documentary about fruit-based assailants. Luckily I had prepared for such an event, pulling the lever I released the tiger and no only maimed the driver, de-armed him.

Pyramid shaped mangoes

And now for something completely different...

The Blue Nile meets the White Nile at the heart of Khartoum, such an important river steeped in mystery that Victorian explorers wandered through jungles to find out where all that water came from. So why all the hype - the media? Something to avoid people thinking about the state of domestic affairs and fill the papers as colonial armies committed "peacekeeping" actions for the empires of old. The colours coming from poetic licence of the media to envisage a beautiful and exotic river. "Blue and white snakes winding through the high sands of the great sahara. The confluence of which is a must see for any traveller to The Sudan on the way to the Mango market close to the old shabby pyramids."

Unfortunately, its a bit of an overstatement with a rather mucky brown Nile merging with a sort of sandy reddy Nile which amalgamates into one of the most dangerous stretches of river to be found in an urban area. Luckily I am also optimist as well as cynic and whilst viewing the confluence with my binoculars from the island I admired the hydraulic jump that occurs at the confluence (think Falls of Lora but bigger).

After that quite overwhelming experience I decided to visit the national museum. It was closed; it was Ramadan. Ah yes, bit of advice for anyone travelling to Sudan. Unless you plan to just chill out looking at lots of unsold mangoes, I strongly recommend a trip outside of Ramadan. After that I continued on to the other sites all of which decided to keep closed for my visit. At last some peace and quiet!

That is about the whole story of my touristting in Sudan, the rest of my days there, I was installing equipment on massive pivot farms they build in the desert to grow wheat. An incredible activity but that is the benefit of having a mega river(of any colour) nearby and vast tracks of cheap unused land. Worth checking out on google maps... look at southern Egypt... zoom on the bits that seem to be a chequer pattern... keep zooming ... until you see the crop circles... compare the area with that of a city!