I find it easy to fall into a certain numbness living in Khartoum – one forgets where one is as day-to-day life goes it normal ways within a little bubble. In that bubble of course there is the knowledge and awareness of being in a place that isn’t quite what it should be. Emergencies, civil war and other political problems are on the front page every day. But life for an expat living in Khartoum can still be a little mundane – I wake up, go to the office, work and attend meetings (generally with other expats), work out and at the end of the day return home to my nice air-conditioned apartment where my biggest problem at the moment is the troops of tiny ants that have decide to wage a war against my cupboard of food.
So the other day, a couple of friends and I decided to adventure out of this little bubble for the weekend and explore some new (well at least new to me) and less media focused parts of the Sudan – the old land of the Napatan kingdom of Kush – around Karima town north of Khartoum.
To get to Karima one must drive out of Khartoum through Omdurman and Souk Libya, a market known for illicit arms trade and also supposedly a thriving drug trade. It is a poor place. Populated mainly by people from the war-ridden western provinces of Darfur. It is a place of strange smells, hooting cars, rickshaws squeezing their way through the most narrow spots, people everywhere and merchandise of all kinds – TVs, stereos, mattresses, pots and pans, jewelry and garments. Like a supermall that lost it’s structure and was rebuilt out of random leftovers on a piece of dirt land.
Moving on, passing the re-enforced security posts and numerous check points that the government sat up after the JEM attack, the city is suddenly left behind and ahead is a flat stretch of land that with time goes
from basic dry shrub land to red sand desert. The road is brand new and smooth. The car ran 140 km/hr. Red sand, black stones and the occasional shrub passed my widow. It is a 5-hour drive to Karima (that is if you keep to a reasonable speed). We reached in about 4.
I found it somewhat relaxing driving through the desert. Empty space helps emptying the mind. It is one of the parts I really enjoy about travelling, being it sitting on a plane, train, bus or car. It is the opportunity to do absolutely nothing – a legitimate time to just let the mind wander as the world floats by ones window.
There were the occasional villages. Though I am not really sure one can even call it village – maybe random settlements? They seemed to be sort of accidentally thrown out amongst the stone and shrub with absolutely no logic to why one would settle there. Sam Kinison’s peace on world hunger came to mind and to my travel companions’ amusement I played it for all. It became one of the themes during the rest of the trip – ‘it’s the fucking desert! Why don’t you people go live where the food is??’ (And here one should of course hear the shouting sound of Kinison).
Karima itself is a market town on the Nile with lovely date farms along the river and Jebel Barkal looking over the town. Most of the pyramids from the heydays of the Kush are long gone and remain either as big piles of stone rubble or nothing at all. But some are still intact and have been restored by German archeologists who found their way here a couple of decades ago. These are the royal cemeteries of the Napatan kings. At the base of Jebel Barkal stand the ruined temples of Amun and Mut, which you can see a good outline of lying on the edge of Jebel Barkal looking straight down 700 meters or so to the ruins. I had to carefully lie down on my stomach and peak over the edge. Below I could clearly see the outline of something that once must have been quite a grand temple. I felt a tingling in my legs when I got up again. I will never be very good with steep heights.
As the sun set, Jebel Barkal came alive. It seems that we had landed in the most popular hangout of Karima town. Families, young couples, kids and youth alike were climbing up to the top to watch the sun set, for then to run down the red sand dune on the hillside as fast as possible at the end. As the sun sat over the desert the contours of the pyramids fade and the landscape, which seemed so warm during the day quickly turned cold in colour as shades of blue takes over. By the time we are back at the hotel, the scene has turned black and Jebel Barkal has become only a silhouette against the sky, a couple of shades darker but lit up by the half moon. The evening is pleasantly cool and quiet. Khartoum seemed a million miles away as we sat into the late hours secretly drinking our win
e and talking about all sorts of random matters.
It is easy to forget this part of Sudan in the midst of war and emergencies that grab the headlines every day. Not even the Sudanese themselves have taken too much of an interest in preserving this history it seems. Much has been destroyed and looted with the years. But in between you can find some beautiful gems – like the tombs in El Kurru were the wall paintings still kept their colour. There are no signs in these places. First time one visit it is a hit and miss game to find. And maybe what makes it all that bit more special is that when you do find it, you are likely to get it all to yourself. I guess it goes without saying that Sudan isn’t quite overrun by tourists. Though having said that there was a group of about 10 Italians in Karima when we got there – all retired. We wondered what had brought them here but failed to come up with a good answer, neither did we bother to ask.
Unfortunately – like everywhere – the weekend is always too short and after a visit to El Kurru in the morning we were back on the road returning to Khartoum. Hopefully there will be other opportunities and other small escapes ahead.
So the other day, a couple of friends and I decided to adventure out of this little bubble for the weekend and explore some new (well at least new to me) and less media focused parts of the Sudan – the old land of the Napatan kingdom of Kush – around Karima town north of Khartoum.
To get to Karima one must drive out of Khartoum through Omdurman and Souk Libya, a market known for illicit arms trade and also supposedly a thriving drug trade. It is a poor place. Populated mainly by people from the war-ridden western provinces of Darfur. It is a place of strange smells, hooting cars, rickshaws squeezing their way through the most narrow spots, people everywhere and merchandise of all kinds – TVs, stereos, mattresses, pots and pans, jewelry and garments. Like a supermall that lost it’s structure and was rebuilt out of random leftovers on a piece of dirt land.
Moving on, passing the re-enforced security posts and numerous check points that the government sat up after the JEM attack, the city is suddenly left behind and ahead is a flat stretch of land that with time goes
from basic dry shrub land to red sand desert. The road is brand new and smooth. The car ran 140 km/hr. Red sand, black stones and the occasional shrub passed my widow. It is a 5-hour drive to Karima (that is if you keep to a reasonable speed). We reached in about 4.I found it somewhat relaxing driving through the desert. Empty space helps emptying the mind. It is one of the parts I really enjoy about travelling, being it sitting on a plane, train, bus or car. It is the opportunity to do absolutely nothing – a legitimate time to just let the mind wander as the world floats by ones window.
There were the occasional villages. Though I am not really sure one can even call it village – maybe random settlements? They seemed to be sort of accidentally thrown out amongst the stone and shrub with absolutely no logic to why one would settle there. Sam Kinison’s peace on world hunger came to mind and to my travel companions’ amusement I played it for all. It became one of the themes during the rest of the trip – ‘it’s the fucking desert! Why don’t you people go live where the food is??’ (And here one should of course hear the shouting sound of Kinison).
Karima itself is a market town on the Nile with lovely date farms along the river and Jebel Barkal looking over the town. Most of the pyramids from the heydays of the Kush are long gone and remain either as big piles of stone rubble or nothing at all. But some are still intact and have been restored by German archeologists who found their way here a couple of decades ago. These are the royal cemeteries of the Napatan kings. At the base of Jebel Barkal stand the ruined temples of Amun and Mut, which you can see a good outline of lying on the edge of Jebel Barkal looking straight down 700 meters or so to the ruins. I had to carefully lie down on my stomach and peak over the edge. Below I could clearly see the outline of something that once must have been quite a grand temple. I felt a tingling in my legs when I got up again. I will never be very good with steep heights.
As the sun set, Jebel Barkal came alive. It seems that we had landed in the most popular hangout of Karima town. Families, young couples, kids and youth alike were climbing up to the top to watch the sun set, for then to run down the red sand dune on the hillside as fast as possible at the end. As the sun sat over the desert the contours of the pyramids fade and the landscape, which seemed so warm during the day quickly turned cold in colour as shades of blue takes over. By the time we are back at the hotel, the scene has turned black and Jebel Barkal has become only a silhouette against the sky, a couple of shades darker but lit up by the half moon. The evening is pleasantly cool and quiet. Khartoum seemed a million miles away as we sat into the late hours secretly drinking our win
e and talking about all sorts of random matters.It is easy to forget this part of Sudan in the midst of war and emergencies that grab the headlines every day. Not even the Sudanese themselves have taken too much of an interest in preserving this history it seems. Much has been destroyed and looted with the years. But in between you can find some beautiful gems – like the tombs in El Kurru were the wall paintings still kept their colour. There are no signs in these places. First time one visit it is a hit and miss game to find. And maybe what makes it all that bit more special is that when you do find it, you are likely to get it all to yourself. I guess it goes without saying that Sudan isn’t quite overrun by tourists. Though having said that there was a group of about 10 Italians in Karima when we got there – all retired. We wondered what had brought them here but failed to come up with a good answer, neither did we bother to ask.
Unfortunately – like everywhere – the weekend is always too short and after a visit to El Kurru in the morning we were back on the road returning to Khartoum. Hopefully there will be other opportunities and other small escapes ahead.
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