More pyramids, more aimless walking...

17^th November 2009 – Day 50 – INTERMISSION! – Bajarawiya, Sudan

We had been talking about seeing the Pyramids on the Sudanese side ever since we had seen the ones in Egypt, if not before. Yet we had rolled right by them on our way down to Khartoum from Atbara without even poking our heads against the bus window while passing Meroe, close to where they lay. Therefore we organised a separate mission to go back up there to see them and luckily got some company in the form of Sean the American, who also wanted to see them before heading north via another route. Sean had inquired about connections already in advance and hence we knew we were in for some bargaining and mild physical assault at the Bahri (Khartoum North) bus station. We formed a tight pack and marched to the station in the morning of our desired departure with a clear plan to aim for breakfast first and foremost and only start negotiating about tickets after things would cool down a bit around us. The plan worked quite well in that me and Sean got our brekkies and sat down to watch T being ripped apart by a gang of eager ticket agents. T sorted us out with correctly priced tickets – SP15 each – soon enough and with both sleeves still attached to his shirt. We even had time for some juice and shai and money changing before scheduled set off time, which obviously was one hour too optimistic compared to the actual set off time.

The juice man.

On the road we also made a couple of lengthy stops which were mostly attributable to us being khawajas and therefore our papers’ being checked extensively. Our initial plan had been to get to the pyramids in the early afternoon, in good time to have a walk about and set up camp outside in the desert before sunset. Us being us and leaving later than would have been ideal, and Africa being Africa and making us wait around on the road, we got there only an hour before sunset and only had time for a quick stroll before darkness fell upon us.

The pyramids are situated right next to the Atbara-Khartoum highway near the village of Bajarawiya and can easily be seen while driving past, which meant we only had to ask to be dropped off the bus at our preferred spot. Sudan does not receive the kinds of tourist herds that roam the sites of its northern neighbour, so the place is not exactly signed with neon lights, nor is there any array of stalls selling tourist merchandise. Still, we were greeted with two helpful guys on camels riding towards us as soon as we became visible to them in the distance. We kindly declined their offers to take us to the pyramids, as we wanted to enjoy the view of them slowly approaching us in front as we walked towards the site. Entry to the site cost SP20 per person which we paid to the ghaffir who occupied a mini-museum kind of hut at the corner closest to the highway. We were unarguably the last and perhaps the only visitors of the day, so we got the last three quarters of an hour of sunlight at the site all to ourselves.

Toplessness is usually not a bad thing, but in this case...

There are two clusters of pyramids at Bajarawiya, at walking distance from each other. We only saw the ones closer to the highway which counts more pyramids in numbers than the other cluster. The pyramids here were partially very well preserved and for the parts that weren’t, they had been restored to some extent. Their shape is different from the ones found in Egypt, as these ones were built later under the Kushite kingdom. The shape is both shorter in height and narrower in width, with a steeper angle to them. They also have a passageway with pylons leading up to the door of the burial chambers which can be accessed on earth level, whereas in Egypt the way to the chambers loops underground and resurfaces inside the pyramid. The hieroglyphs here were still in good shape in some of the chambers, all of them you cannot even access to evaluate for yourself. The only major shame on this site is that it was looted by an Italian treasure-hunter expeditor who thought it would be a good idea to blast open all the tips of the pyramids in an attempt to find riches from within. Apparently the only treasure he found was some golden jewels inside the tomb of one of the queens buried here, but that was about it for his booty. These jewels were shipped to museums in Europe and Sudan now hosts only the hollow pyramid carcasses. That’s the way the cookie crumbles in the world sometimes, as is well known.

After spending our precious sunlight minutes, we hesitated on whether it was actually that much of a good idea for T and I to camp out here in just our sleeping bags without a tent and with time pressure to get travel permits to the eastern parts of the country from Khartoum quickly enough still before our visas would run out. As we couldn’t make up our minds there and then, we all headed off back towards the highway to see whether there would be some food available at one of the roadside stops and whether we could hitch a lift back to Khartoum with T the same night still. Sean, who had a tent and no imminent hurry, left his stuff by the ghaffir’s place where the man had said it would be OK to camp for the night. We found some ful and sheya, a type of fatty kebab meat, and indulged ourselves in those while testing out the soft drink we had heard about but had had hard time finding until now, Pasgianus. This amazing refresher is a mixture of apple and karkadeh flavour, the latter being the bright red infusion drink made of hibiscus flower that can be enjoyed hot or cold. My definite favourite in the Sudan selection.

Another pyramids and sunset picture but this time not a soul in sight!

The fun began for me and T as we decided to take our shot at getting a lift back and parted ways with Sean who headed back to camp by the pyramids. We started walking towards the next lights that we could see in the distance, waving our arm out as any vehicles passed us by and remembering that there was at least one petrol station we had passed on the way here and possibly some other roadside restaurants. The police checkpoint didn’t seem to be far either, to our recollection. So we walked about a kilometre to the first lights – the presumed petrol station. We walked a few kilometres further, passing a dead donkey and loads of exploded rubber tyres by the side of the road in peaceful co-existence – indeed a roadside restaurant. We hadn’t managed to wave anyone down by the side of the road as most of the vehicles were huge trucks in full load and with no space in the cab. We therefore stopped for another beverage with a sneaky plan to inquire for anyone going to Khartoum, or even to the close-by town of Shendi where we could stay over and get a bus back from early in the morning. No one was going towards that direction, and we learned from one of the guys that Shendi is another 40kms away and it’s 34kms to the police checkpoint as well. We’d thought that would have been slightly closer and considered it a good back-up as nearly all vehicles must stop there and thus would be easy to approach. I guess that plan fell through. So we sipped our drinks slowly weighing our options. There was a kid sleeping on one of the rope beds next to our table, we could surely just bunk in the corners of this place if we asked nicely. The host of the first roadside restaurant had offered for us to camp in his corners too, we just took our leave with optimism about getting a lift.

It was now past 10pm so there would not be many private vehicles on the roads anymore at this time. We asked one more Hilux that was parked at the restaurant, but as it was full already we walked back to the side of the road and put our arms out again. One, two, three, four trucks went by. A couple of private minivans that didn’t stop. A truck-bus stopped and we asked for our chances but heard that we’d cause trouble at the police checkpoint. Another truck, and behind it the saving grace: a big vehicle with very dim lights making it hard to tell what type of vehicle it was. It turned out to be a be a very comfortable bus heading back to Khartoum between services with a couple of very friendly driver guys and apparently the lady friend of one of them inside. The guys promised to take us onboard and we agreed to pay SP15 for the ride each. This included air-conditioning, reading lights, bottled water on the bus, a stop for some shai on the way and the whole back of the bus to ourselves with plenty of space to stretch out!

We were woken up by the driver at 2am when the bus had arrived to Bahri. We got out half-asleep but happy to be back in the big K. Last leg of the race still involved getting back to the sailing club. We asked a lone wanderer on the street for the way to the bridge over to the right side of the Blue Nile for us, and soon found ourselves in some Palestinian guy’s car which the wanderer had waved down for us. This friendly soul dropped us off in front of the locked gates of the sailing club, and we crawled underneath them and tiptoed our way back onto Gunboat Melik’s deck for some more Zzzzzs.