SUDAN

from Egypt to Sudan travel by road is prohibited: Egyptian authorities have found nearly 300-kilometer border zone in the south. Therefore, from yuzhnoegipetskogo city of Aswan to Wadi Halfa, Sudan's first village, go once a week the ships on the Nile. The steamer carries, in addition to people of different goods: from rotting tomatoes to luxury beds and chairs of Egyptian production. Passage of human worth, hitchhiking is not possible.
On the boat sailed to Sudan and six foreign tourists - two Japanese, two Australians and two Europeans. Some just wanted to get to Khartoum and to return to Egypt, while others intend to go Trans-route. Now the only real route, crossing Africa from north to south, passing through Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, the way to West Africa, is extremely complex and unreliable because of the civil war in Congo. Since the ferry from Egypt to Sudan, running once a week, all foreigners wishing to cross Africa from the top down, flock to this ferry. They are usually from 5 to 10 people then, just for the conquest of Africa, sent about 200 "burzhuinov" per year.
"Burzhuiny" on our ferry for the first time were in Africa, and I'm on the Rights of the guru has to teach them to advise, in which the country is better to go and what road to choose. They all dreamed of having arrived in Sudan to sit down to Wadi Halfa on the train and go to Khartoum. I dissuaded them from this boring idea.
- That's interesting! Two days in the wilderness in a stuffy crowded train, and then Priedite immediately to the capital. Take the road on trucks! It's a bit longer, but you'll see how people live in the Sudanese villages, you will see a real Africa - and why else would you go here? Are you not seen the train?
Foreigners thought and agreed with my advice. Later we crossed with them. Poor burzhuiny! Oh, and cursed them, probably me! Just a few days' journey by truck through the desert (the "real Africa") are able to izmuchat even the most "extreme" of bourgeois tourists. But not Russian!
Over the past 4 years Sudan has changed. In the south, began production, the oil flowed into the treasury money. Border Wadi Halfa has acquired a new customs building (before the whole custom fit on an old barge and moored to a steamer) officials became three times larger, and the process of entry and customs clearance - twice as long. In the customs building appeared even money-changers - before the first few days on the Sudan, we had to go without money, because nobody knew what a dollar, how much it costs and how to change it. In the capital (Khartoum) has begun construction of office towers on 8-10 floors, there were bottled water, Pepsi-cola and juices in the package even started production of ice cream, which in previous visits we found nowhere else in the country failed. Around the capital, began construction of asphalt roads in major cities have appeared in the bazaars of Chinese goods.
So that civilization is coming, but only in the cities. In the villages still have no electricity, people are hospitable and kind, like a thousand years ago, and every Sudanese, seeing the stranger, dreaming zazvat him to visit me and feed. Drinking water taken from the Nile, cooking over a fire, do not watch TV and do not discuss the bad world news. Muezzin call to prayer, home builders are molded out of clay (right before your eyes), and several times a week, trucks, stopping, pick up all the backlog of passengers.
In Khartoum, a note of self-propelled woman separated from us. She went to southern Sudan (where 25 years of civil war), hoping to reach the city of Juba (the local analog Terrible, just harder to hit). It turned out that there are no roads, it is necessary to sail on the Nile, upstream, hidrostop. A note on the village fair ship, but he walked very slowly: the ship had no anchor, and every evening he would sit on a bank that night he was not swept away back to the north. And in the morning all the passengers and the captain jumped overboard and pushed the boat off the shoal. At night they could not swim, because the ship had no electricity. A few days later he broke a note waited another steamer, and soon reached the city of Malakal (halfway to Juba), where she was arrested for failing to register. Some days she spent in jail, then she was deported to Khartoum (on the plane with Russian pilots), where several days were held, and then recorded and released. Note went to Egypt and flew home.
of registration. At the entrance to the Sudan everyone put in their passport stamped: "Registration for 3 days. As in Russia, a foreigner in the Sudan must be registered (paying) the place of stay, but if you want to go somewhere must be obtained from the local KGB permit - permission to travel, and a new place to register again (in 24 hours). This, they say, is dictated by concern for the foreigners: "It's for your own safety. The country we have a big, bad roads. If, God forbid Allah, where are you lost something, and your relatives, friends or your embassy will look for you - where you look for and save it? " Traffic police at checkpoints in the Sudan, sometimes checking the registration, but we used to help the WUA, and it's generally satisfied with the auditors.
In past years we have been able to avoid problems. But the Sudanese have taken an example from the Russian authorities and is now on the outskirts of Sudan, in the border village of Gullabad, all foreigners that have not been registered, "register" on the road. As in Russia, alien capture without registration costs 500 rubles. And with us trying to shake this sum ()!
We affirm that we will not pay, but if we will not be released, it will remain to live in Gullabade; better will drive this amount than the surrender of its cops. After much discussion we were released to the world.