Camel Train – Sudanese Sands

Led by the award-winning desert explorer and author Michael Asher:

Khartoum to Abu Tleih

Explore the relics of ancient Sudanese civilisations in Khartoum, a city famed for its turbulent colonial history. In the Ethnographic Musuem, we acquaint ourselves with the tribes and the traditions that you will encounter on the trek. Pass the Nile’s sixth cataract at Sabaluka gorge to Shendi, where we enter the domain of the powerful Ja’aliyyin tribe. Cross the Nile to Metemma to meet our camels and camel-men. Set out north into the rolling sand-sheets and acacia forest of the Bayuda Desert. We hobble our camels and pitch tent at the base of an immense dune. In the wadi of Abu Tleih, we sight the dark fang of the mountain in the distance.

Across the Bayuda Desert in the shadow of the dark cliffs of Jakdul

Climb the narrow stony gorge, to emerge in a scorching desert landscape. Mystical peaks hang in the heat-haze and the surface of the desert varies from gold to black. Passing through a gap in the mountain chain, the plains give way slowly to an undulating panorama of sand-dunes, interspersed with sand-sheets, and time-eroded stone ridges. Traverse rolling expanses of sand, shimmering with quicksilver mirages. Nights under the uninterrupted brilliance of the stars can be as cold as the day is hot. The imposing cliffs of Jakdul dominate the entire sweep of the horizon. This massif contains a natural rock amphitheatre which shelters a gelta (rain water pool) – the only open water in the Bayuda Desert. Gradually, the sand sheet gives way to clay soil, as we pass through a wadi of sparse acacias and bitter colocynth melons. We find the secret entrance to the tortuous pass that leads us mercilessly into the heart of the mountain. On top of the escarpment, we find the upper pool in a deep cleft in the rock where birds roost and dragonflies flicker. Emerging from the mountain, we travel parallel with the dark massif, through surreal forests of tangled thorn-trees.

Through the wadis of the nomadic Hawawir and Hassaniyya tribes

Severe gorges between towering mountain peaks lead us down into deep wadis, through swathes of rich grasses across vast golden plains. We camp on the gravel plains in the lee of the hills. At the well of Bardallah, set in a great valley bordered by whaleback ridges, we encounter the camel-borne traditional pastoralists of the Hawawir and Hassaniyya tribes hauling water in leather buckets. Riding between vast ridges and camping on the open plains brings a sense of purity and simplicity that can only be felt miles away from the city, devoid of technology and communication with the modern world. The black tents and grass hut villages of the nomads make us ponder the superfluous materialism of our all too complicated lives.

Korti Desert to the pyramids of Old Meroe on the banks of the Nile

Crossing rolling desert south of Korti, we spot the dark stripe of the Nile in the distance. At Kerima, we bid a poignant farewell to our camel train and drive through palm-groves and mudbrick villages on the banks of the Nile, no longer moving at the same pace as the villagers who come and go on donkeys and camels. At Bejrawiyya, the site of the pyramids of Old Meroe we tour the tombs of the ancient Meroitic kings and queens, inscribed with hieroglyphs and ancient script, who reigned in Nubia from 300 BC to 300 AD. The sun sets on Khartoum, where you seek to re-discover the self you departed from when you strode out into the desert.