Sudan - BRIDGET THE MIDGET

From Khartoum we drove 250 miles east to the town of Gedaref close to the Ethiopian border. The heat was not as intense as it was across the desert, but it was still in the mid-thirties centigrade. The road surface deteriorated considerably for the last one hundred miles and although Bridget has been through worse, it was unexpected after the great roads prior to Khartoum. On inspection of the cars that evening Chris discovered Dorothy had a broken rear leaf spring. By the usual MG good fortune a passer-by offered to help and whistled up a good mechanic within half an hour. It was arranged for Dorothy to go to the workshop the next morning and I would chase the British Embassy for the letters we needed for the border crossing. I phoned the Embassy and, full of apologies, they admitted they had misread the dates and thought we needed the letter the following week. They promised to e-mail me later that...

You should be aware from the two previous bulletins of Chris’s misfortune although it has turned out alright finally. The dog involved was identified by a local vet treating him for food poisoning and was not Benji. The Aswan to Wadi Halfa ferry is not your usual car ferry as it consists of a passenger boat, a general cargo barge and a vehicle barge. The barges travel independently of the passenger boat, are slower therefore take longer, and as they leave at more or less the same time do not arrive until one or two days after the ferry. We actually loaded our cars onto the barge on Sunday and returned to board the ferry ourselves on the Monday at 09:30. The ferry does not leave until 17:00 and by then is a seething mass of humanity. It appears that every Arab that travels carries several huge bags of goods, enough to fill most small shops. So by the time the ferry...

New Meaning to ‘Breaking News’

Aswan to Khartoum