Life with the Lovemores: Ferry

It’s hot. My shirt would be soaking if it wasn’t for the sun. It sucks up every bit of moisture. My lips are chapped, my mouth sticky. We wait in the shade, our bags keeping our spot in the line outside the border offices. Next to me a donkey licks a dripping tap, and I share his disappointment knowing the sandiness of the water that never quenches.

The doors to the passport office opens, and all order is instantly lost. People push, shove, pull, and block, shouting in Arabic. Jordan is big. He blocks one side of the queue and I squeeze in and slip our passports under the less than bullet proof glass. In the background I hear Robs fighting with one of the locals. Neither one knows what the other is saying.

We fill in piles of useless documents, and hand the paper waste to the police. I’m first through and remember the young Swede we’d met the day before telling us to get on the boat early and book shade under one of the lifeboats on the upper deck. So I climb on the first Land Rover that’s leaving. An elderly man grabs my bag and stows it under his legs, allowing me to sit on a small piece of floor.

We rumble down the sand road, cliffs warn smooth staring at us on either side. Lake Nubia, as the Sudanese call it, looks out of place cradled in the desert’s arms. I jump off the landie, and returning the favour I carry the old man’s bags onto the boat.

At the door we hand in our passports and are given a single meal ticket in return. I walk past the expensive cabins below deck, past countless boxes and bags, through the eating area. I walk past a very black family sitting on the stairs. The four daughters, all at different ages, look exactly like the mother. A time warp. They all smile at me. Their teeth are very white.

Next door a goods ferry is being loaded. The crew sit against the coughing engine room waving instructions to the horde of porters below. One man pulls out a broken chair from a pile of junk and leans it against the railing. He doesn’t sit.

I find my shade. The cold metal of the upper deck, like ice on my neck, pinches my breath. Down below, clear water laps and lulls. I hop over the railing, bypassing the stairs, onto the poorly lit bottom deck. The smell of something boiling hangs stiff and heavy in the air. I push past people with large bags shuffling towards me, and head for the light of the doorway. The policeman grabs my arm and pulls me back. “No outside. Once give passport, no leave boat!”

I push back inside, slip streaming a fat man with neck rolls and a giant sweat patch down his back. I branch off into the bathroom, a small stinking cubicle. I stick my head out the tight circular window, remembering my childhood days of climbing through burglar guards. Will my shoulders fit?

I strip down, hanging my clothes on a high tap away from the wet floor. I wonder whether to lose my underpants. Nudity in Arab countries is a punishable offence, so I keep them on and slide through the window. Lowering myself down I slip into the water. Like a sailor lured in by a mermaid. Before it totally wins me over I pull myself back up the copper pipes.

Wet footprints follow me as I swagger past the passport police and return to my shade. Looking out I see Robbie and Jordan hanging on the side of a rusty turquoise Land Rover. Their border passage obviously wasn’t as swift as mine.

A man selling burgundy hibiscus juice on the dock fills countless plastic bottles, “One shilling, one shilling”. Whistling, I put up two fingers and throw down a five shilling note which zigzags through the air. Two bottles are tossed up, followed by my change. The syrupy tea is sweet and I dilute it with water.

Midday turns to afternoon. Afternoon to evening. The heat subsides and people move out of the shade and begin to spread out mats and cloths to sit on. People from below decks join friends outside.

As the last of the sun sets, military lines are drawn and a man leads the neat rows in prayer. “Allahu akbar” is chanted in melancholy unison. The throaty Arabic, the smooth transition from raised hands to faces flat on the floor, is strangely haunting.

Next to us a North Sudanese accuses a South Sudanese of fleeing his country and abandoning his people. He denies it adamantly, and talks of his quest for education and desire to become a medical doctor at the University of Alexandria.

Later he shows pictures of his four year old son back in South Sudan. Nothing of the mother. Evening comes and I decide to save my single meal ticket for tomorrow’s breakfast. Everyone spreads out, and my bag is commandeered as a pillow. Dodging someone’s feet, I lie down and cherish the chill of the wind as the boat moves swiftly across the empty water.

In the morning I wake early and walk around the boat. Sleeping bodies leave only enough space for a small footpath, and I thread my way, carefully dodging the sprawling limbs. The boat wakes quickly. Men play cards, settle scores from last night’s game. Others sit and read the Koran or share tea and oven bread. Others, more devout, face the sun and pray. Soon they are joined by everyone. The golden silence is interrupted by the demanding speaker summoning all to pray. The military lines are redrawn.

Taking our food tokens we head down for breakfast, trusting it’ll be good after passing on last night’s chicken. It isn’t. The boiled eggs are rubbery; the pickled vegetables aren’t too tantalising either. At least the tea is hot, but it burns my tongue making everything rough.

I return my eating tray to the busy kitchen. A friendly conversation with the chef results in free bread, jam and tea. The sweetness of it takes away the sour pickle taste. On the top deck we share it. Everyone breaks off pieces of bread, dips them in jam and washes it down with tea.

We continue our conversations of religion, politics and education. We pass the famous golden temple carved into a cliff face and a Zambian joins us, speaking French to the bikers we met at the passport office. A young Egyptian boy asks to join us on our travels. We give him our sun glasses and he takes a photo with us on his dad’s phone. Loois, one of the French bikers, gives me the book he’s reading, saying he’ll be home soon. Once I’m finished I must leave it at a backpackers or pass it on to someone else.

The Hibiscus Salesman

Egypt side

For some reason when we arrived at Wadi Halfa, I expected a lot more than just a few houses, small businesses, home restaurants and one abandoned looking hotel next to to a random road in the middle of the desert. Perhaps it was because, as a harbour town, I thought it would have some sort of trade and development. I was wrong.

For us Wadi Halfa will forever be a turning point in our 'hoboness'. Having been caught out by a hidden registration fee of $50 (on top of a $100 two week transit visa), we quite literally had zero money to our name after paying for the ferry to Egypt. it was the perfect time to whip out the survival food and get exactly that on; survival.

After waiting in the shade the entire afternoon, and stocking up on the free cold water at the derelict hotel we set for the desert to find a place to sleep. We settled behind a 'koppie' and watched the sun drop as it pulled the days heat around the earth with it. We each cooked up our various meals; Jordan his noodles and FP his chicken soup whilst robs ate his pronutro-muesli combo and I indulged in a large helping of sand tasting water, deciding I'd keep my chocolate future life for tomorrows breakfast. I also thought how this would make a far better future life ad than Chad le Clos' one, and dozed off thinking how cheap an Olympic gold medal seemed in the vastness of this huge desert sand pit.

Making a ring around our bags we got comfortable, each using our own sleeping methods we'd developed during the trip. The slight breeze was a welcome respite to the heat, and the little bits of stinging sand were a worthwhile trade for the coolness it brought.

Above us stars sat like icing on top of a cake. It was so clear we saw aliens and some other characters from 'starwars'. Chubakka smiled at us and gave us a thumbs up, asking us to greet his relative Dillon Nuss on earth.

In the early hours of the morning, the stinging sand began to hurt. Our air-con has been switched to setting 'Gale force' and we couldn't find the remote to turn it down. Sand flying across the grounds surface, I stood up to get a scarf out my bag, only to realise the the wind only blew to about knee height. Unfortunately I hadn't learnt to sleep standing up yet, despite coming close on a few bus journeys, and so lay back down, wrapped up my head, and turned my back to the wind.

In the morning we shook off the sand like dogs do with water, and headed back to the town. With the rest creating a diversion, Jords and I managed to slip a free shower disguised as a long toilet visit in the hotel. The day followed the same as yesterday; a search for shade, sleeping and communicating not in English to everyone.

Our next night was very restless. After being too lazy to walk to our previous nights camp, we settled closer to the village in a ditch, hoping to escape the wind. unfortunately, the scorpions had decided to do the same, and seemed to have called a meeting there. After seeing three in the space of ten minutes we were faced with a classic Africa decision: sleep in the desert with scorpions, or find shelter in the town and risk being arrested.

After remembering what the French bikers had said earlier in the day; "ze green ones will kill in sree hours", we decided that had it been three black mambas we would definitely have left and although not as scary, these scorpions could do the same. thus it became clear, we needed to find another spot.

We picked up camp walked across the desert of dry bones (quite literally: dead camels everywhere) to an abandoned house on the outskirts of town. Our stealth was completely ruined when one territorial dog barked, only to be joined by every other dog in the whole of Wadi Alfa, if not North Sudan and possibly even the South. Worst of all when they all stopped, one single dog remained barking, like the cymbal player in a marching band determined to be recognised. Comically, it was actually barking at it's own echo bouncing off the distant 'koppie'

We rose the next morning not arrested and laughed as Jordan pointed out that our closest equals in the little nothing town were the stray dogs who, threatened by a possible take over, had barked at us the entire night.

Sneaking another shower, this time dodging the suspicious owner, I even managed to fill up my bottles with some cold fridge water whilst no one was looking. After trading avoidance tactics with the rest and hearing how Jordan had scooped a free breakfast, I realised in my gleeful feeling of victory at a cold shower we'd gone full hobo and the travelling had truly begun to take its toll.