Khartoum and homeward

When it was time to return home from Sudan I decided to take a holiday in Kenya, return to Khartoum and then travel overland through Egypt and Europe. I loved the first part of the trip, through Egypt, Israel and Greece but then found myself meeting more backpackers from the US and Australia than local people, so hopped on a plane home from Athens.

Working cotton and tin in the souk in KhartoumKhartoum souk - tailoring the Sudanese cotton Khartoum souk - tinsmithsI loved walking around the souks in Khartoum – I bought several brightly coloured shirts in strong Sudanese cotton and also one of the traditional tin, round-bottomed coffee pots. In Sudan ginger is added to the coffee and it is boiled on a charcoal fire, tasting surprisingly delicious (I had always been led to believe you never boil coffee). I tried to make it when I got home and it tasted awful. Never have worked out what the difference was.

SudanThe train from Khartoum to Wadi Halfa on the southern (Sudanese) end of Lake Nasser. When the up train met the down train (one had to wait in a siding, as there was only one track) there was a great hubub as everyone got out and communed in the space between the trains. The the down train started before anyone had got back in and there was a mad scramble to re-board before getting stranded in the desert.

Sudan-2Yours truly enjoying a break – the train ran out of diesel in the desert and it took hours before trucks could refuel it.

Sudan-3From Wadi Halfa it was a boat trip to Aswan in Egypt. This is my last view of Sudan.

Abu Simbel

And this was one of my first views of Egypt – the temple of Abu Simbel that had to be moved, chunk of rock by chunk of rock, when the Aswan dam flooded where it was located in the Nile valley.

LamuNot in the right order, but I couldn’t resist slipping in this photo of Lamu – I visited just before returning to Khartoum for the overland journey home. It was a dream location.

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