The Van Plan

By luck we stumbled across the most amazing dance and culture festival whilst driving around Omdurman…. about a hundred tribal groups were celebrating their culture and diversity with a riot of dance and pageantry. The emphasis seemed to be all about retaining their tribal identity and not allowing their roots to be swept away in an overwhelming drive by pro Arab Government initiatives. Interestingly its the same feeling we came across time and time again in Egypt with the Christian minority.



Again we were the only tourists and despite invitations apparently being sent to all the major Embassies and the UN mission we seemed to be the only foreigners and found ourselves ushered into very plush VIP seating!
It was beautiful and a real touch of the Africa we had come to see.

The Lonely Planet Guide describes Khartoum as a “boisterous, modern, flashy city with an ever increasing number of glass tower blocks” well the last bit is true.

The Sudan Club which I remember from my childhood is long gone and is now the Ministry of Foreign Affairs…(there are literally hundreds including the Ministry for Ministers and a ministry for the Chamber of Ministers.) The swimming pool and half the gardens are now the sight of a bridge across the Nile. The Blue Nile Sailing club home to Kitcheners gunboat the Melik

is still running and I suspect completely unchanged over the last 40 years ( The loos certainly haven’t been updated…. or cleaned )
I asked at the 5 star Burj al Fateh hotel what we should see if we had a spare day in town and the receptionist said, with a lovely smile, there is nothing to see. Not quite true but the sentiment was right. The Mahdis tomb

the Khalifa’s house the confluence of the Blue and white Niles and the Omdurman souq were all done in a day.
Our tourism was completed when we found the Bugger Specialised Hospital.

We had breakfast at the Acropol hotel who found George to mend our fridge, which couldn’t stand the desert heat and now has twin cooling fans from a computer!
After a couple of days at the sailing club we were luck enough to be invited round to friends for dinner, the use of their washing machine and an air conditioned bedroom. Thank you Chris. The small world syndrome kicked in on our return to the sailing club when a very tall ( too fat to be a Dinka) English man called Adam walked over to our van and said “yes I do know Colin, he’s stuck in a meeting but will be down later” sure enough Colin appeared, I was in the army with him and he is here on a 6 month UN tour and had heard through the grapevine that we were in town!

Did you know there were 228 Pyramids in Sudan ( three times as many as the Pharaohs put up in Egypt) We set of with Erkan ( aka Mustapha) from Turkey on his motorbike

and Tarmo from Estonia in his van into the desert south of Wadi Haifa.
Desolate, barren, completely empty and HOT,( did I say HOT!!) between 45 and 50 degrees depending on time of day…Our fridge couldn’t stand the heat and George from Falcon Engineering had to sort us out with an extra fan…


we followed the Nile south aiming to get about 100k’s from Wadi Haifa towards the temple of Soleb on the West bank ( the road is on the East bank) and stopped in a lovely looking palm grove by the river ….only to be overwhelmed by millions of flies

and have to beat a hasty retreat back onto the road and look for a camp site away from the river.
The desert was dotted with mining camps and men with metal detectors hunting for gold, we spoke to one man with a bulldozer who had found 4 ounces that morning..

The twin tombs at El Kuru with their beautiful wall paintings and the pyramids at Karima and Meroe were amazing.
We found the petrified forest, I remember it so well from my childhood in Sudan a special weekend camping with my father, when he was military attache.

We splashed out and stayed at the Meroe tented camp
an oasis of sophistication in the desert with fantastic views towards the pyramids and wonderful international food but sadly no wine!

It should have been simple, we drive to Aswan put the van onto a barge on Monday and drift slowly down Lake Nasser past Abu Simbel





unload the van on Tuesday morning and drive off into Northern Sudan…….we had not counted on the mass repatriation of thousands of Sudanese construction workers who had been working in Libya.
The boat which usually has 50 or a 100 people on board and on which we had booked a first class cabin…. had 580 ( on the manifest) and was piled high with freight and everyone’s worldly goods that they had managed to salvage from Libya, every nook and cranny including the life boats were full


and our first class cabin…. was a broom cupboard …filthy dirty, baking hot no window and it stank of stale sweat!
We did get a state welcome from the Governor of Northern Sudan with the media in attendance. There was no sign of the barge and the vehicles ( Erkans motor bike, Tarmos van and Lance and Maurice’s landrover as well as our van)
Lance managed to get hold of “a fixer” in Wadi Haifa on his phone who booked one of the few remaining hotel rooms not taken by the construction workers whilst we waited for the vehicles. Magdi Boshara turned out to be a bit of a shark the hotels weren’t full, the place he put us in was a flea pit and our room like a prison cell and we never managed to get a breakdown for the various taxes and duties we were required to pay…feel a bit ripped of ….but hey its Africa! The van and other vehicles eventually turned up on Thursday, last time we pack the bare essentials when we leave the van. We both stank!

Mind boggling is the only expression that my limited vocabulary could come up with …until you have seen the scale and complexity of these sites with your own eyes you just can’t comprehend what the ancient Egyptians did around 1400BC that’s to be absolutely clear 3411 years ago…. ( Stonehenge according to Wikipedia dates from 2400BC)
We visited the Valley of the Queens and the Valley of Kings, sadly photography is forbidden so only a couple of furtive photos.



Ramses the IV and Ramses the VI get the votes and Tutankhamun although disappointing (its very small) has a certain something just because of the history!

We also saw the Temple of Luxor

and of course the Amun Temple at Karnak.
Down from Luxor to Aswan a fantastic drive along the green banks of the Nile past the temple of Horus


to Aswan the van is booked on the ferry, a first class cabin confirmed and tomorrow to the High Dam and to the Nubian beach

We decided to have the van serviced by Mercedes Benz in Hurgharda to ensure all the parts were genuine after 10,000 fairly hard miles….big mistake….. HUGE…..

If you have a blue Mercedes overall you must be a mechanic!

They overfilled the engine, broke the fuel line and then fitted a fuel water/separator so badly it took two days to sort out and its still a bodge….. because they didn’t have the right spare parts. We now have a permanent engine malfunction light on the dashboard but apparently “its nothing serious” just telling us that the fuel line is non standard….
Anyway enough of that…. the diving was superb and the reefs deserted the team at Emperor divers say they regularly had 20 boats anchored on the best sites but we saw no one else.

After Hurgharda we went south along the coast stopping at a couple of dive sites camping alfresco

view from the bedroom window!

and spending more time in the water and sun.


Amazing drive across the Red Sea mountains

and desert from Al Queser ( one thing about the current lack of police in Egypt is the closed desert roads don’t seem to be high priority at the moment so we just turned right) and blasted across to Luxor.

The markers must mean someone is going to build here….

Now we are safely lounging in the Marriott in Hurgharda preparing for the next leap down to the Sudan I thought a summary of our trip round Cairo and through the Eastern Desert was needed.
We decided to try and do the run through Cairo in a “oner” as the tourist attractions in Cairo were all closed…. we were at the height of the troubles!
Set off on the Alexandria Desert road early morning past the usual tanks and road blocks…


fuel was in short supply so we filled up everything we could before setting off.

About 150 miles into the middle of nowhere we found a broken down van and gave them a pull for about 30 miles….not great for our fuel consumption but they were happy. Hit the outskirts of Cairo at about noon and immediately all the signs which had been in English and Arabic turned to just Arabic! We got a bit lost and came across several crowds of protesters and signs of rioting… stones, broken glass, etc, all over the road.

We also saw a crowd round a dead body suspect it was an RTA but could easily have been a looter who had found local justice….. Eventually broke free of Cairo and set off south towards the pyramid of Meidum and Beni Suef a very poor and rather frightening provincial capital which had been the site of serious unrest in the 90’s. We crossed the Nile and got into the Eastern( Arabian) Desert itself

and set off towards the Monastery of St Antony reputedly founded in the 4th century…where we hoped to find secure parking.

Sadly we were refused entry so spent the night far off road in the desert where we judged we would be safe. We returned to St Antony’s early the next morning and had the most wonderful tour escorted by Father Ruwais

amazing coptic wall paintings from the 13th century and earlier and a fantastic atmosphere of peace and tranquility. On again to Hurgharda and a touch of luxury at the Marriott

and some diving in the Red Sea.

Went out to supper last night at the New Marina in Hurgharda, and heard that a big street party was being planned in the town center today to celebrate Mubarak’s downfall and a new beginning for Egypt. We went down in the van after a very strenuous morning on the beach!
Electric atmosphere live music and tourists and locals in jubilant mood many wearing I love Egypt T shirts… very different to the atmosphere in Cairo when we drove through. A privilege to be part of it.

We crossed the border yesterday, more red tape than you can imagine, signs that others had given up included two British registered BMW motorbikes covered in dust and seemingly abandoned.

The banks were still not open so our trip to Tripoli for the visas was worth it! Things were very much calmer than a week ago but a very strong military presence at the border complete with tanks and armoured vehicles.


Despite the armament the atmosphere seemed to be quite relaxed. The north coast near the border holds few attractions except El Alamein where my uncle Geoffrey Macdiarmid was captured …and escaped! So once we had seen the site and the British war cemetery where another (unrelated?) Macdiarmid is buried Sgt Colin Macdiarmid of 3 Sqn Royal Australian Air orce we made a bee line to Sidi Bdel Rahman which the Lonely Planet guide said had the most fabulous beaches. It does…. but the rash of new hotels and resorts makes most of the place look like a building site.

Beautiful beach with not a tourist in sight

Turned up at the Ghazala Beach Resort to be offered a free room as they had no guests….and were interviewed by Reuters about the prospects for tourism in Egypt! Watch out for the van on a small screen near you!
thevanplan on the BBC

Richard and Susan were wonderful again and we even had a Chinese New Year Lunch with a group of their friends in a gorgeous restaurant in Tripoli. During the lunch one of the girls had a call from her Libyan husband warning her to get home as quick as she could as there was due to be a demonstartion….

Chinese New year Lunch, the year of the Rabbit in Tripoli


William James and Richard come to visit the van!

All our paperwork has now been reissued and we have our Visa for the Sudan as well, which means that we don’t have to go into Cairo if things are still a bit unstable.

Idris our “escort” relaxing
News from Egypt looks better and we are going to try and cross again either this afternoon or tomorrow morning depending on flights back to the van( its about 1,400k’s).