Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
splendour of the lake and the pink hue of the desert, I could see the tracks of wolves who
had come padding through my camp as I slept.
'There's talk of hyena, too,' said Turbo, shaking his head. Lake Nasser was to be the
only part of my Egyptian odyssey where the authorities would allow me to camp, and
Turbo had joined me - only, like the Bedouin in Sudan, he refused to sleep too close to
the water. 'Because of the crocodiles,' he said. 'Big bastards. And scorpions. It's the little
ones you have to watch for. The small yellow fuckers can really ruin your day.'
'That's why the government doesn't let tourists down here, is it? Because of the wild-
life?'
'Ha! The
real
reason the government doesn't want people down here is because of the
smuggling.'
'Smuggling?'
'It's prime smuggling territory, coming over the border from Sudan.'
'So, people don't come here because the smugglers are dangerous?'
'You've got it wrong, Lev. The government doesn't
want
the smuggling to stop. It's
worth too much money to not let it happen. Look around you - all of this could be prime
farmland. Instead, it's wasted, so that the smugglers can bring in camels, guns and drugs
from Africa . . .'
'What do you mean, Africa? We're
in
Africa . . .'
'No, I mean
Africa -
the Africa over there. Egypt isn't really Africa. We're almost civ-
ilised here - not quite, but almost.' He paused, changed tack. 'Did you see the car tracks
out in the desert?'
I remembered seeing them in the sand north of Abu Simbel.
'That's the smugglers,' Turbo confirmed. 'Usually Bedouin. Tribesmen from the Sinai
or the coast, they do deals with their mates in Sudan and bring all sorts of shit this way.
All the guns in Palestine, where do you think they come from? Hashish - yep, that too.
And gold - there's plenty of that in Sudan. Antiques from Kush, diamonds from South
Africa.' He paused. Where once he had been enjoying telling his tale, now he seemed sol-
emn. 'Those smugglers don't mess around. If they see anyone, they'll kill them, throw the
body to the crocodiles and change the plates on their car. They can't afford to stop the sup-
ply route, so if you see anyone in a 4×4 that's not mine . . . well, hide.'
At that moment, Turbo stood up, poured the dregs of his morning coffee into the sand,
and moved towards the car. Climbing back in, he waved goodbye, choked up the engine,
and left me in a cloud of sand and dust.
Throughout the next days, I took Turbo's advice, keeping to the creeks and gullies, out of
sight and out of mind. The walking was hard but it was much cooler here, and at least I was
close to the water so - unlike in the Bayuda - I'd never run out. Sometimes I saw more car
