Capturing Sudan

We spend an entire week to cover about five hundred kilometers. The distance we travel seemed to decrease every day, equally to the status of the road. Well, road…. Mostly its gravel or dull sand and this is then accompanied by a lot of rocks which makes it near impossible to drive at a normal speed.  This caused us to travel about hundred kilometers a day, if we were lucky. It was a great time though, for not being a four wheel drive, Doutzen gave her best and besides some heated vains, no problems could be detected in the Sudan Desert. Our special for this purpose scavenged driving boards were used by the French in their huge camper on too small wheels that got stuck several times. Of course we saved the day, thats what we do! Also, traveling in a group was fun for a change, thats what we realize now when the group falls apart; The Irish Steve travels ahead to catch his plain, the French family consisting of Miquel, Elodie and their six year old daughter Lola drive of and soon also the Motorcyclist Nick has an other direction than we do. That leaves us in Khartoum where we need to fix the car an try to enter a refugee camp…

In the desert there were no problems, but now we’re on solid ground again, Doutzen fell down. We don’t care, if she’d failed us in the scorching desert, now that would be a problem. Exhausted as she is now, we’re happy to give her some quality time and fix whatever is necessary. Minne en Marten will be off to do that, while Henk will scout a refugee camp, make some contacts and get us a job there. We feel excited about this; its what we traveled for and we are willing to give our best. We can cook, we can build, we can give the clothes that we’ve been given earlier, enough to do and we are sure our help will be much appreciated.

Well, obviously its not and a week later we wake up. We earned an experience, where we lost an illusion. The Sudanese government doesn’t want us to see whats going on in the more remote areas or refugee camps and makes it impossible for NGO’s or the UN to let us enter these areas, where help is extremely needed. It took us a few days to figure that out and we are very, very disappointed. To be honest, their strategy works, we almost believed that entire Sudan was as safe as the North-Western part of the country, which is actually one of the safest places on this planet. A conversation with someone in the top of the UN made an end to this false idea; the regions near Darfur and Chad are still very inhospitable what explains the need of a permission to go to these areas. A permission that you won’t get anyway. There you go, Mr. President, Thats the shortest route to be charged at the International Court of the Hague!

‘The only thing you don’t want in Sudan, is ending up in prison.’
While Henk figured out the UN-business, Minne got himself in prison. In prison, you ask? Yup, in prison. Jail, bars, bad boys and the like, Minne experienced it all, and Marten saw it happen. It started like a normal ThreeLeftHands Improvised Campingsite, but ended as a crime scene. Like always, we got our electricity from a road lantern without consulting the neighborhood. They never know how to respond to our actions and usually we’re gone the next day anyway. Not this time though. By parking just in front of the Blue Nile camping, where we didn’t want to pay the extreme high camp prices, we annoyed the manager of this terrible place a bit. This caused him to act like an idiot the next morning and he started claiming that we stole his electricity. We responded by explaining that in order to own the energy supply he had to pay for it, which he didn’t. This made the frantic Blue Nile Club owner call the police that didn’t really know how to handle this situation. Being totally relaxed, Minne started to make tea and took his time to wake up and so did Marten. Taken off guard by this method, the cops finally decided to throw Minne roughly in a police car, and from there they took him from police station to police station to end the trip by trowing him in jail. In his best Arab-English Minne tried to solve the situation, but without any result. After a few hours, Marten showed up bringing Mutaz, a friendly Sudan man, that already helped us fixing the car and now also helped to get Minne free again. After signing a note to never commit such a tremendous crime again, our crook was released to the public again.

Following, Mutaz invited us to his house to meet his family that consists of no less then three women and his fathers huge offspring. Together we ate a few sheep, experienced the great Sudanese hospitality and prepared ourselves for the next country. After a few days drive, we entered Ethiopia, a country we expected a lot from, cause of the easy going embassy in Cairo and the country being the home of the Rastafarian religion. The border was a welcome and refreshing kind of village, where the paperwork was easy as never seen before. Would the rest of the country would be as great and relaxed as this passage…?

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Tags: nile, prison, refugeecamp, sudan