RED TAPE

To cut a long, frustrating story short it took us a week to get our travel permits and that with the assistance of active local contacts. The red tape seemed to increase every day.

Bear this waiting time in mind if you're thinking of following our tracks. Because Pete works for the hotel group we had two days free accommodation at the Hilton, but when that ran out we had to look for another hotel. It was a nightmare. There is no telephone service to speak of in Khartoum and the majority of hotels and streets are marked in Arabic only. Furthermore, most of the local hotels are not for the squeamish - the one we found was on the filthy side of basic.

VERY MUCH ALONE

By August 29 we had finally cut through the red tape and left Khartoum at six in the morning to a heartwarming send-off from the British residents. The Consul General and his son cycled the first 20km with us and we were escorted by others in a Range Rover so the first leg could be videoed.

The 20km checkpoint arrived all to quickly and, as only Pete and I had travel permits, we were left with the realization that for the next 800 or so miles we would be very much on our own.

We had been dissuaded from our planned rout via Atbara because everyone insisted it was totally desolate and hardly there at all. The safer bet, via Kassala, added a 300 mile dog-leg, but we'd have been fools to ignore local knowledge, so we headed south towards the town of Wad Medani.

(click to enlarge)