I traveled to Khartoum in October 2021, somewhat on a whim, with the purpose of finding project funding to carry on with research in Sudan, something to do with an incongruous mix of armed groups and a disquieting number of firearms in a country on the precipice of post-Bashir political collapse. There was plenty to do in the lead-up and scramble to prepare: emails, meetings to set, a visa to get me on a plane, another PCC… a catalogue of stressors.
I was begrudged, from October 16 onward, it was to be a week-long camping yatra into the dreamy wildlands of Kenya. But cursed be me and reason be told, my livelihood needed prioritization, but getting to Khartoum was looking less guaranteed as General Burhan’s hold on the government was stoking the return of street protests and uncertainty in the capital.
I had resigned myself to the stony truth that another go at Marsabit National Park—with added legs to Meru and the Aberdare Range, would have to wait. But maybe, I thought, Musa—the gentleman manning the counter at the Sudan consulate in Nairobi—will return my passport unstamped, and north Kenya's Rift Valley will see me once more. There was enough within this wait-and-see process to wager on it; I was already on a visa losing streak. Six weeks earlier the Ethiopian government wasted a part of my life by making me move from pillar to post before I finally abandoned the effort.
But no, with a day to spare before the weekend and Sunday’s flight, Musa’s name flashed on my phone (an embassy that makes calls, what a nice touch), and another knock-on-the-consulate-door later had me planning for Khartoum and a bag to pack.
It was while performing the mind-numbing routine of luggage packing that I had an epiphany… nightly lows of 26 degrees in central Sudan translates to hassle-free camping—no gear needed, no base-layers or sleeping bag, no pots and pans to consider. All I needed for a single night—the most I could hope to manage—was my 1-person tent and something to sustain myself—a kg of dates, some chocolate wafers, and, so I estimated, a minimum of six litres of water. All of that I would find at any corner market in Khartoum. My bad luck had turned good, and a quick scan of the lunar chart revealed that October 21, a week away, was a full-moon—bliss, I thought.
Where was I going and how do I get there? The first matter was simple enough. The Pyramids of Meroë seemed the obvious choice, only a few hours from Khartoum. The second matter would get sorted out between my pre-dawn flight to Addis and the five hours of waiting in the Bole airport.
So I ditched packed pair of pants, a shirt, some socks, and filled the opened-up cavity of my bag with my Kelty one-man. It’d been a long time since I last used this one, several years, last pitched in the ruddy landscapes of eastern Utah near Moab. [ geo note: the base rock at Meroë is primarily pre-Cambrian metamorphic rock. Moab is known for its red sandstones, and the age difference in formations is about 300 million years! ] While Sudan is opposite of Utah by nearly every metric, there are two exceptions: dry earth and dry counties. So I packed the tent and traded another piece of clothing for a wide-mouth jar filled with four fingers of Jose Cuervo and a lime for good measure. You don't tequila for the desert, but the desert makes tequila so much better.
While in Bole I put pencil to paper with details for the bus to Meroë and tucked the quarter-sheet into my patch pocket. Hours later, when I de-boarded my plane onto the tarmac in Khartoum, my Sunday quickly transformed into a Monday—my work week had begun. Outside the Presidential Palace, a pro-military demonstration was underway. Large white tents had been erected, the kind Nairobians use for weddings at the golf club, but these were here to finalize a divorce.
People wandered about, some doing nothing, others drumming beats to what looked like an impromptu and jubilant dance party. Flags swayed to the rhythm of a man flapping his lips against a microphone, waving one arm in high praise of green uniforms.
Elsewhere in town, pro-democracy protests were getting organized for the week ahead. With tensions escalating between the military and civilian-led factions within a shaky transitional government, there was plenty going on and I had things to do. Camping took a backseat.
By Tuesday evening it was clear that Thursday would see that normal activity in the capital came to a halt. Protestors and counter-protesters were readying themselves across the city and upcountry. There was a choice to make, either remain in Khartoum and witness the day’s events, or catch the bus. I had little interest in being a voyeuristic foreigner in another country’s protest. Godspeed to the side that I favor.
Wednesday happened as planned. I’ve been doing the project-salesman grant-pitch routine long enough to know if something's going to stick or not—fingers crossed.
Thursday morning was like any other in the al-Barari neighborhood. I walked out of the Prince Hotel, crossed the street to Caffeine Café for a cappuccino and a sumptuous pastry, sent some emails, and met with two colleagues planning their movement in the city that day.
The night before I picked my provisions: six litres of water, a package of wafers, an orange-juice box, nuts, and three Snickers bars (a bonus!). I tapped my location into the Tirhal taxi app and 45 minutes later I was at the bus station, in the north of the city off al-Ma Una street, marked Shendi bus station on a google map. I asked a guy resting on a plastic chair which bus was going Atbara and he pointed to one of three in the lot. I was the second person to board, and two hours later the last seat was claimed and we left the station.
It was around 2;30 pm when the bus left for Atbara. Demonstrations in Khartoum had begun and this bus was headed south—I needed to be going north. An essential campsite-hunting tool for east Africa is the maps.me app. Many campsites are marked by other campers and it provides downloadable area maps that are accessible offline. With a phone connection, the app tracks movement along a pre-selected route and that would prove essential to figure out when I needed to get out for Meroë. By the time we got there it was pitch black.
After leaving the station, the driver routed southward before turning east towards Garri Ring Road, then turned north, bypassing the string of towns lining the Nile north of the capital on the main highway. After 40 minutes of dusty farmland and oil refinery sightseeing, the bus and its gaudy interior began bending westward, intersecting with the Khartoum-Atbara highway near Wad Ramli. From there it’s open road.
Catching the bus to Meroë was easy enough, but it was how I would return to Khartoum I was less certain about. My plan was to hitchhike as there was no other way to do it. For now, my lingering thought was how to alight from this bus and find the pyramids in the darkness—by 17h30 the sun is finished, but I’ve got that moon thing going once I get there.
The alternative to leaving late, of course, is leaving Khartoum early. But unless you're self-driving, you're not going to get to Meroë before dawn, the ideal time to be there. As it is, the tombs' entrances face east so to greet the rising sun. By midday, the light is useless for photographs, and by evening the front side of the pyramids are cloaked in shadow.
There were two stops between Khartoum and the pyramids. The first was a checkpoint on the south side of Shendi where everyone stepped out onto gritty ground and blowing sand. Off the road a hundred meters east was what appeared to be enough SAF troops to comprise a battalion, with roughly 35 armored personnel carriers and
a hundred+ smoking soldiers in desert fatigues, waiting. To the west, across the river, the sun was pushing out its last rays of light.
The other stop was a canteen on the southern edge of Shendi. As some passengers retrieved luggage and disappeared in waiting cars, the rest of us settled in for a 20-minute break for roasted meat, boiled milk and coffee. I sat on an open-air reed cot, settled in with a glass of steamy sweet camel’s milk and measured the moon’s approach as it inched upward, the beginning of its long arch above the shrubby Nile desert.
Back on the bus, I was ready to get off of it again. From here it would be another 45 minutes. At some point, I needed to tell the driver I wanted out at Meroë, so when the blue ball sliding north on my phone screen looked to be about 5 minutes out from the cluster of dots that were the pyramids, I made my move forward, the bus rolled to a stop, and I got out.
As the bus guzzled onward towards Atbara, its pair of red lights fading from view, the only sound left behi was my shoes scratching across small stones. Turning away from the road, there they were, a hazy cutout of blackened lumps against a pale moon-lit sky. There was no path, but ahead a traversing of sand and stone to figure out where to camp once things come into better view. I read somewhere of another’s misery walking from the road under a blistering midday sun. This would not be my experience.
As I got closer to the pyramids a structure appeared below these ancient stacks of stone-cut blocks. Perhaps an entrance with a closed-at-this-hour ticket booth, or so my imagination wanted to imagine. I further imagined, given the hour and absence of any people or light, that perhaps I’d simply walk in and be afforded a midnight stroll through the pyramids with that moon, my guide, anxiously awaiting my arrival.
Nearly there, the ground softened, and more trying steps were needed to trudge over the uneven sand. With an arm extended to prop me against this building in the dark, huffing for a quick breath, it became evident that this was not an entrance at all, or at least it wasn’t an entrance anymore. There was no ticket counter, and the only passage through this turnstile-less concrete structure was a gate half-buried in sand. There was a small wall to jump, an inviting option that I declined. I dropped my pack and drank from liter two of my six.
Faint tire tracks and foot prints were the only signs of life, and a blue port-a-potty. While examining an engraving mounted to the side of this deserted space—mentioning something about the place and its pyramids—I heard a noise, not something far off in the darkness, but right next to me, a very unexpected, yet not unfamiliar sound—someone was inside the potty, crapping, and by the flicker of blue light emanating through the air vent up top, apparently surfing the web while doing it. Cartainly, the person inside had heard me ourside. In the still-dark of this place where there was no one, now there were two people, separated by the plastic wall of the potty, one of them sitting on a can with their pants dropped, and the other holding a bottle of water in the sand. I picked up my bag and started walking, disinterested to explain to whoever emerged from that box what I was doing there. Waiting my turn? I walked southward along the barbed fence, moving towards the direction of the high outcrop on the outer rim of the pyramids to the south.
Camping at the pyramids is apparently permitted anywhere outside of the perimeter fence, one that resembles something you might expect in a place like Utah, a 5-banded barb-wire with posts five meters apart. Some 200 meters from the potty, I started my ascent to the top of the outcrop, and there I would find my spot for the night.
Along the way to the top of that outcrop were plenty of spots to step over the wire and enter the pyramids; years of shifting sand had buried sections of the fence. This bode well for a sunrise entry into the pyramids. For now, finding a soft patch of sand under the moon was my quest, and once to the top, out of breath, I was at a height that afforded a panoramic view of the entire complex. I found my spot, a soft bed of sand, set up the tent, and changed from long pants to my purple Hargeisa sarong. Satisfied with my place, I sat on a smooth rock and opened litre number three.
Apart from the scarab beetles shuttling at my bare feet, it was me, my moon romance, and glowing pyramids. One night here would provide what a week in the Rift Valley was meant to do, a Nairobi detox. I searched for Jose and split the lime, settled in, and thought about the Kush empire, sand, and the Nile River.
I woke up before dawn and sat on that smooth rock again, drank my orange juice, and waited for the sun. Returning to the deserted entrance didn't make sense and I could see that a kilometer or more away was the official entrance to the place, on the opposite side of the pyramids. Too far. Stepping over a now-interred part of the wire, I wanted to get in before the sun turned cool sand into burning earth. Inevitably, whoever is collecting entrance fees will find me, and so I descended upon King Arkamani-qo's tomb. It was 5:55 am.
After a couple of hours wandering from one pyramid to the next, during which time I crossed paths with the night guard—the only other person I would bump against and who was happy to double as an entrance-fee collector—I sat on a shaded block at the base of the last pyramid on my circuit, perched on the outcrop above the false entrance discovered the night before. Across the pyramid valley was an empty bus, and entering Meroë by foot and camel was a hoard of organized tourists. I finished litre five and descended the steep slope in an avalanche of sand towards last night's gate, hopped the wall, and walked back to the highway. It was 8:10 am and getting warm.
In half an hour I was standing next to the road again, just a bit more than 12 hours since the bus dropped me. Of what was passing me by, options were split into three: transport lorries, buses, and private cars. Buses leaving Atbara were already full, a few lorry drivers waved hand signals of empathy or dismissal, I couldn't tell which, and private cars seemed to accelerate as they approached. In Utah, or anywhere between Oregon and Minnesota via Arizona in winter, a thumb at the end of an extended arm is sufficient to catch a ride. However, after two and half hours, I was losing confidence in this method. It was getting damn hot and litre six was now empty. I needed a piece of shade, a nap, anything to get this heat off my body and cool down before trying again later. The only tree I could see was 200m away, back towards the pyramids, a stunted acacia looking thing two and a half meters tall. I needed that tree and the bit of shade it offered, and so spread out my tent and fell asleep on my back, dappled sunlight on my face.
I started dreaming about a loud, obnoxious horn. Awake, slightly annoyed, but less hot, my sideways view made out the form of beaten-down pick-up truck, three meters away, engine running. A man with a scruffy beard was smiling at me, his right arm curled over the top of the steering wheel, sun on his face through the open window. I imagined him saying something, but he wasn’t talking. He stuck out his arm and with his thumb in the air, gestured to the open bed of the truck. "Howdy, pardner," I said in his stead, and hopped over the tailgate.
He dropped me at a canteen 2 kms down the road, and there I negotiated with a bus driver to let me have the top step at the front of a bus, next to the driver’s seat, the last spot on the coach. Four hours later I was in Khartoum, catching a taxi back to the Prince Hotel.
Back in Khartoum, things were also hot. Ledes told of civilians injured the day before, one a journalist badly hurt by a tear gas canister. But the chaos of 3 June 2019, the day Hemedti’s RSF murdered over 100 people during sit-in protests in Khartoum, had been avoided. I returned to my hotel room, emptied my shoes of desert sand, and two days later was on a plane back to Nairobi. The next day, Burhan sprang his coup. Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdock and the rest of the civilian leadership in the transitional government were either arrested or otherwise disposed of. The Khartoum airport was closed, the internet cut, and demonstrations would continue into December.
All empires fall, as Sudan's (and so many other’s ) history teaches us, and just as the empire of Kush and the glorious city of Meroë met their end, the people in Sudan will see to it that the Burhan-Hemedti military conglomerate will meet its end, too; hopefully it won't take another century or more to do it. In the meantime, I’ll be back to Khartoum before long, with, I hope, my Kelty 1-man and another bus ticket in hand. The research I sought support for will get the seed money it needs.
