Meroë

A tarmac road brought us to Shendi where we visited the faculty of medicine. Ed, as guest of honour was allowed to cut the ribbon to open an exhibition of paintings made by the students. The faculty is next to the river Nile and it is cooler in Shendi than in Khartoum. They wanted us to spend the night in the guesthouse, but we wanted to try out our camping gear in the desert.
Before that we visited the pyramids of Meroe, where we were the only visitors; in Egypt this will no doubt be different as there will be thousands of other people. Bart and Evert made a trip on a camel, which was far more scarier than on a donkey´s back. Camels make a strange sound and they spit saliva if they are angry. They are of course also much bigger animals.
It was good to see that Meroë had not changed.
At the other side of the hills we put up our tent and made everything ready for camping. The moment the sun disappeared it is not so hot anymore. We are very well organised. Everyone has his or her own task and that works quite well. Within 30 minutes the tent was all ready for sleeping and we were having our hot meal.
At that moment a car drove directly towards us.. police? No, again other overlanders, this time from Belgium. We spent a nice evening together with giving each other addresses and telling about our adventures. Katrien and Peter had spent a long time in Egypt and had met our German friends on the road in Wadi Halfa.
When we finally went to sleep it was very hot, hardly any wind. In the middle of the night finally some cold wind which changed rapidly to a haboub. Fortunately the tent was strong enough. The next morning Ali the camel driver was waiting for us. Yesterday I gave him the left over pasta and when he left suddenly his cell phone rang. Strange experience to see a man on a camel with a cell phone! Because of the wind we were not interested in another trip on the camel. We drove back to the guesthouse in Shendi for a nice shower and Ed went away for a meeting to return with a carton box full of very nice mango’s and some other presents from the Dean of the Medical school as well.