Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
I wondered what the folk in my home town would do if a group of Sudanese came
tramping down the street, and politely declined to answer.
In the morning, Will and Ash disappeared the same way they had come: in a cloud of dust
and a taxi, taking them all the way back to Khartoum. It was bittersweet to see them go,
but the river beckoned - and, with the Egyptian border only three weeks to our north, it
did not seem so long until I would see them again.
After they had gone, we continued our trek along the bend in the Nile, walking through
the date plantations and - after our sojourn in the desert - refusing to let the river out of
sight. After another two days the Nile turned north again, plunging straight into the enorm-
ity of the Nubian desert, itself part of the Sahara. Two more, and we had reached the town
of Dongola, the capital of Sudan's Northern State and the scene of one of Kitchener's most
notable victories against the Mahdists in 1896.
North of Dongola, the Nile truly collided with the desert. Here, agriculture no longer
flourished on its banks; sand dunes tumbled straight into the water, forming sheer cliffs of
gold - a stark contrast to the glittering, clear blue waters. The Nile had a clarity here like
never before: this was a scene straight out of
The Arabian Nights
, the crystal blue broken
only by an occasional palm tree growing on the banks.
Two days north, Moez bent down and plucked something from the sand. When he
handed it to me, I saw what looked like a long, twisted tube of rock.
'What is it?'
'Coral,' said Moez, smiling like a wise old professor. I recalled the various pieces of
stone that had decorated his office back in Khartoum. 'Proof, Lev, that the Sahara was not
always a sea of sand. What you're holding, there, is two hundred million years old.'
Further along the sandbank, Ahmad and Awad trailing behind with complete uninterest,
Moez pointed out more of the stuff - some thin, some thick, some gnarled like the branches
of a tree, some full of holes. In the middle of the coral field, he bent down again and picked
something else up. Holding it at eye level, he asked, 'Well, Lev? What do you think this
one is?'
Undoubtedly, it was a piece of wood; I could even see the grain and bark on the outside.
Yet, when he put it into my hand, it was hot to the touch. I couldn't quite believe the sen-
sation. Wood doesn't get that hot. What I was holding could only be stone.
'Petrified driftwood,' said Moez, rather too smugly. 'Once there was a sea here, and then
there was forest . . .'
What we were walking through, I realised, was nothing less than the history of the world
- not just the history of Sudan or its peoples, the Ancient Nubians, or even the prehistoric
people who had come before. Everywhere we looked, there were reminders of how recent
mankind's appearance on this planet has been - and of how the earth has been transformed
