rachelsuzyrallyafrica: Back into Africa

Back into Africa

Our cabin must be the dirtiest place we have ever slept in. When Suzy picked up her pillow 2 cockroaches ran out! So she put her own pillow at the other end and slept in her sleeping bag and was fine. Rachel braved the shower, which did have lovely hot water which we haven’t had for a couple of days, but Suzy couldn’t manage that. Peaceful breakfast as the ferry was delayed, after which we went up to the top deck to throw our abayas overboard. It was exciting then to watch from there as we came into Port Sudan and, through the binoculars, we saw the town completely bombed out. Africa proper! We docked eventually at about 2pm. As usual customs and carnet were a complete farce with loads of officials looking at every engine number and chassis number and finally we just drove off. We had 700km to drive and were a bit nervous as it would be dark for a lot of it but our lovely escorts, Owen and Matt and the Dawsons convoyed us at a good speed all the way. The roads were horrific, foot deep potholes appeared suddenly and we all hit a few but managed to survive. We stopped for supper at the side of the road at a mud shack were we ate lamb stew and flatbreads. We think it was lamb because our chef indicated an old lamb skin he had up to dry, quite near the food it has to be said, which still had the tail on. So when we said ‘Oh, lamb!’ he beamed and agreed, ‘lamb!’ Then off we flew again, bumpety bump, crash bump into the potholes and a few others joined us, finally getting in at 1.45am and straight to bed. One car hit a donkey and smashed in its front end and another broke their tie bar- ha! we only bent ours!