Back to Aswan … Egypt
We left Aswan in convoy nearly two weeks ago. Aswan was very clean and tidy. Beautiful, green and colourful along the Nile … catering very strongly for the tourist market – especially all our friends from Deutschland … Ja?
The police and military presence – as always – was very visible. Partially due to the presence of the Aswan Dam Walls … I think hydro-electric power source … and Aswan is a Customs Port to Sudan in the south. We met two Mexican cyclists that had waited to cross the first/old dam wall for nearly three hours and were denied the opportunity as it was illegal to cross by bike. We had special permission and they were able to tag along with us. We met another cyclist from Japan … the Mexicans are trekking thru Africa towards Cape Town and the Japanese guy has traveled from China thru Asia into Europe and now down to Nairobi. We have subsequently bumped into them on several occasions – they actually stayed with us in Khartoum last night again.
The Japanese guy keeps telling the Mexicans to hurry up and go faster … he wants to get to Nairobi soonest as he misses his wife and wants to fly back home. His trip has taken a good year and a half … and when he gets home his wife is apparently going on some adventure of her own … I just hope she isn’t planning something crazy like cycling thru the Americas or so …
The Circus of Aswan – The Ferry
Well what can one say … a true African adventure!!! Thank god we were able to get ushered thru quickly … customs and onto the boat. The boat only leaves at five or so (our luck ... only at seven) and people start boarding and packing from the wee hours of the day. Truck loads of goods and people come bustling in and get carried onto the ferry by a constant stream of worker ants ... Organised Chaos ... pushing, climbing, bumping, moaning, balancing and more pushing. Two barges were loaded up and up and up alongside (which ultimately traveled several hours slower than us) and the ferry was filled to the brim with people and goods from the lowest decks up to the top/roof … people slept and squashed onto the roof where every space possible was found and used to stack goods. We were lucky to have so called First Class cabins … two per cabin – thanks for the company Gerhard.
We split up security duties – two persons per hour keeping an eye on the passages and doors of our section. We had the best toilets on the boat … well what was left as toilets, usable and space wise, when everybody came thru to use the First Class toilets.
The trip was really good! The ferry was not too noisy and very calm on the water. We all slept very well and crawled out to a beautiful morning. Quite weird sitting on a huge lake … Lake Nasser … and looking towards the shore where everything is Sand!
Along the way we came close to Abu Simbel – a temple buried in the sand till it was discovered in 1813. The condition of the temple is brilliant as it had been covered for so many hundreds of years. In 1960 – as the levels of Lake Nasser were rising, due to the dam wall in Aswan – the temple came under threat. UNESCO put together a remarkable project costing US$40 million to cut up the temple and move it a fair distance up the coast to its current position.
Corruption, Theatrics and Inefficiencies into Sudan
I don’t think - even if I tried real hard - that I could find a more ridiculous process of getting everybody processed thru border control and customs!
We initially handed in our passports to the Sudanese on the ship. We had to complete two forms with the passport. In the morning – once we had docked – they called in every person on the ship (one by one ... several hundred passengers) to collect their passport … and re-state their profession. We then unloaded the ferry … which went much quicker than loading, but no less pushing, pulling and mayhem than earlier. Our stuff was piled onto a truck and driven up to the Customs Building.
Here … once more they wanted a form completed – including our profession and were quizzed once more about our professions for another form shortly afterwards. I wonder if they would have noticed if I gave a different profession every single time?? Or how they would have reacted had I stated I was a CNN Reporter or Personal Aid to Georgie back in the US?
Our dear customs inspector was also something else – he made us take all our bags off the truck … simply to put a sticker on each one, which was checked by no one else further along. He checked the odd bag here and there … helped himself to sunscreen, was looking for batteries and refused us permission to enter Sudan until he had a quick consultation with our Dr (which turned out to be wart on his finger) and received some free tablets for constipation and diarrhoea.
