Chad & Sudan

We stayed in Ndjamena the capital of Chad for a while, rescued a dog who now lives in Uganda, scared ourselves about the security situation in Sudan listening to World Service and then spent several days driving towards the Sudan border. On the way we broke one of the trucks so we all had to get in one truck and as our visas for entering Sudan were about to run out raced overnight to the border.



Once at the border we discovered that the fighting in Darfur was a few miles North so we hurriedly followed the train tracks east across the desert (there is no road). On the way Garon was bitten by a saw-headed carpet viper and nearly lost his arm. With temperatures regularly above 40 degrees we left water out over night to cool and then kept it in our sleeping bags all day so that we could drink cool water. Our expected 3 day drive (we had no idea!!) took 10 days and we eventually discovered a pristine tarmac road built by Osama Bin Laden that took us directly to Khartoum. We had travelled about 300 miles in 10 days and it had been really hard, Garon was hospitalised and had some serious antibiotics to stop him dying and then some rather lovely skin grafts (which didn't take) on his finger. Khartoum was brilliant, wide streets, litter bins, automatic public squat toilets, and super friendly people who were all scared of the Americans invading. We got ourselves camera permits and spent several days filming around the city , catching the whirling dervishes at a Christian church in the middle of a wasteland and visiting the fair at the junction of the White and Blue Niles. From Khartoum we headed North to the pyramids at Meroe and then east into Ethiopia.