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journal entries22 Oct 04: [TS] Etosha Nat Park
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the blue nile challengeOur plan is to travel the entire Blue Nile River from its source in Ethiopia to the Mediterranean Sea . Starting from Lake Tana near the Blue Nile Falls in Ethiopia , we'll follow the river in a north westerly direction into Sudan and onto the capital Khartoum . There it meets the White Nile coming from the south so we expect the river to be considerably bigger from this point. There's a lot of British colonial history at this place as General Gordon came all the way up the Nile to here only to be eventually crushed in his fort by the Muslims. Their hardships to get up the river from the Mediterranean Sea to Khartoum were monumental having to cut their way through some places and carry their supplies around others. So from here we go north following the river but on bitumen, sand, bulldust, gravel and maybe even camel dung up to the Egyptian border. From there catch a boat down the river to Aswan . If we get through then continue on in Egypt past pyramids, tombs, temples, sphinxes, mosques etc all the way to Cairo . The Nile is a famous river for its length but mainly for the life it produces on its banks. A lot of the area just away from the river is uninhabitable sand and desert so the river is very valuable to the people living along it. Now this river starts from Ethiopia , goes through Sudan and into Egypt . 86 percent of the water Sudan and Egypt consume comes from Ethiopia and now the Ethiopians want to dam it for irrigation and build hydroelectricity plants which may affect the flow of the river. The Sudanese and Egyptians say that they've built all their civilizations on the Nile for 7000 years and that they have priority over others. There's 70 million people living in Ethiopia and they say their entitled to use the resource for its own people. Their was a treaty signed some time ago but this was for the British colonies which included Sudan and Egypt but Ethiopia has never been a British colony. If you were to look at recent history, man has gone to war over power, land and oil. Is water going to be next reason for war? Lets hope they have some good diplomats in this area. Damien and I are confident of being able to get through but are realistic about the capacity of our vehicle and the burocrisy involved. To get the Sudanese visa in Addis Ababa for instance you have to get an invitation from a Sudanese hotel or travel agent who then put in an application to the Ministry of Interior Affairs in Khartoum who then send a copy to you and the embassy. If you can get all of this to happen you can then put your application in. The time frame of this is unknown as the Sudanese officials run the Embassy like the soup nazi, out of the television program Seinfeld. We've heard stories from some people of applications taking one month and still being rejected and others of not even being allowed in the door. When I went there, I arrived at 12.55pm . Was told to come back at 3pm as lunch was between 1 and 3. Came back at 3 and was told to come back on Wednesday. It was Monday. He did answer some questions I'd asked but they were short and quick. This was all done at a single steel door on the footpath out the front of the Embassy. With this said, we're still confident of getting a visa but its the sort of place you don't want to ask too many questions in fear of being ordered out. We're expecting the Sudanese people to be a lot more friendly than their government officials. Egypt has its issues about taking foreign vehicles into its country. Most other countries in Africa require a carne de passage which is a document that guarantees the country you are going into that it won't be sold or dumped there. Egypt requires you to pay 150 percent of the vehicle at the border as a bond. We have recently heard that this may have changed. We have also heard that Libya has opened its borders to independent travel within its country. This is another variable which we needed to go our way to complete our overall plan of circum navigating the continent. If we can keep the van going and not find too many trees, it will make travel much easier on the West African coast. Our passports are running out of pages and the next Australian Consulate after Egypt is Cameroon , which we wouldn't make. To apply for one in Nairobi takes two weeks or we heard you can buy Somalian passports in Nairobi for $200. There's no functioning government in Somalia but they do have an Embassy in Nairobi that give out passports. With getting a visa for Sudan taking what we guess is a month and with Libya about the same amount of time. I thought it would be practical and funny to have two passports. One reason being that we can apply for visa's while still travelling on the other and it would be funny to see the looks on some border officials trying to see our connection to Somalia . I suppose we'd need to learn the Somalian national anthem. In the end the Somalian Embassy in Nairobi had closed down only weeks before we got there, so we got our Australian one's renewed. So the Blue Nile Challenge is in motion. We expect the first part of the trip to be scenic and mountainous from Lake T ana in Ethiopia to Khartoum in Sudan . Then drive through the desert plains in northern Sudan and onto the sites along the river in Egypt . It is a massive 4000 kilometres but sure to be a memorable one in one way or another. We will be joined by brother Frank on this part of the trip. His company and diplomatic skills will be welcomed. Who knows, he could be the one that prevents the war over water. |
 Lake Tana |
email us!tom@stuckintoafrica.com.au | damien@stuckintoafrica.com.au
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