This has been our longest trip ever - and done quite accidently! 3 months ago distances like this would have made us go pale but now the miles passed easily under us as we chat, write the blog and listen to audio books and music. Our biggest distraction has been audio books and we can highly recommend them. We are now on "Two Towers" of Lord of the Rings and about half way through the epic. Wonderful!
We set off from Dongola after filling our water tanks and re-inflating the tyres with the plan to stop at Karima as we wanted to see Jebel Barkal ("Holy Mountain" in Arabic) and the Pyramids of Merowe. With the national road in such good condition, we arrived there at 10:30, 2.5hours after leaving Dongola and stopped at the ancient site. 
The pyramids are not as big as the ones in Giza but are impressive nonetheless but after an hour of wandering around, we figured we'd seen what we wanted to see so we decided that we would head for Atbara. As we had already crossed the bottom of the Nubian Desert (204km) and hadn't filled up since leaving Egypt, our main tank was now registering and dropping fast and with another 400kms of the Bayuda Desert to cross we needed some diesel. Unfortunately, when we checked we realised that we only had S£20 left (blast!) and even with fuel at the cheap prices that they are, we didn't have enough to carry on. When we had stopped to ask one of the locals where the road was for Atbara, he had mentioned "turn at the garage", so we made a pact. We would go to that garage and if we could persuade them to take US$ we'd fill up and carry on to Atbara. Just something to note here, the Tracks4Africa maps are not up to date as there has been extensive work on the new national roads so it does take a little while to find out where they are.
We set off for the garage and, as it turns out, they do accept US$ but at an exchange rate of 2S£:1US$ instead of 2.5S£:1US$. A difference across our fill of US$11. A good compromise, we thought, as we had been stupid enough to run out of local currency! So we filled Sully's tanks to the brim and set off again.
We had been driving through the desert for about 2 hours and with no sign of life when, in the distance, we saw a group of who we thought were nomads or bedouins but later we learnt that they are from the tribe of Hassians, on the side of the road flagging us down. We had made a decision early on in our trip that we would never drive by someone who needed water. So, this being the middle of the desert with no visible signs of life or water anywhere, we slowed down and stopped. Turns out they just wanted to have a chat as they hadn't seen anyone in weeks (it's surprises us at every turn how effective miming and charades is!). So we gave them water anyway, had a chat and were given permission to take some photos of them (no payment required - what would they do with money anyway??)
I think that this has turned out to be one of the best photos I have taken and I love it.
Atbara was fast approaching; as was the industry and smog that scars this town. We decided as we approached that we would head straight down to Meroe and the Royal City (ruins) as there was nothing here for us to see.
"The little, slimy turd!" I said to Trevor as we drove away from the bridge. Turns out that there is a bridge to cross the Nile into Atbara now instead of a ferry. On the other side we came to a checkpoint and were pulled over by a guy in plain clothes.
"Tourist?", he asked. uuum yes, what else would we be?????
"S£10 for tourist to cross bridge."
Now I'm all for paying where it's due but this was a blatant and amateurish attempt at extortion and I was having none of it. I made the Arabic sign for official paper/passport/bill/receipt which is a slash across the left palm with the right finger. "Receipt," I said, "then I will give you the money."
He caught on immediately what I wanted but not having anything to hand over he motioned to us to get out of the car and told us that we would have to wait for 2 hours for the official police to arrive to give us a receipt. Toad! I told him that we had full permission to cross Sudan, showed him our immigration papers and police registration and said that unless he phoned the police now to come and pick us up and issue a receipt, we were driving on. He went to take the papers from me and I snatched them back. "Bad man," I said, "you can look but you can't touch!" With that, he backed off, apologised and waved us on. As we drove away, me spitting mad at the confrontation, I suddenly came to my senses.... what on earth had possessed me??? I couldn't believe that I had just done what I had and as the adrenalin of the confrontation left me, I started to shake and thanked God for watching over us. Later we chatted about it and it struck us just how much this journey has affected us and how much we are changing.
About 20 minutes later and another check point but this time an official one and without any attempt to extort money. They did ask us to leave the car and come into their tent/shack to complete the paperwork. Again, they asked to see the immigration papers and passports and again (although much more politely and calmly) I kept hold of them and let them take them one at a time to read and record the details. We spent a couple of minutes joking and laughing about football, my inept attempts at speaking Arabic (although they seem to really appreciate it) and then we went through the toll booth (with an official receipt this time!) and off on the road to Meroe. By the time we got there, Khartoum was within striking distance but only if we pressed on immediately and bypassed the ruins. We made the decision to drive straight on and 2 hours later passed through Omdurman and crossed the old bridge into Khartoum.
As we parked up in the Blue Nile Sailing Club, the first spots of rain appeared. After 76 days of sunshine, we were hankering for some moisture so we spent an hour sitting in the spitting rain on the banks of the Nile listening the African music thump out from the neighbouring restaurant speakers. When we had recovered enough, and with our last S£10, we ordered some mint tea and a mint sheesha and it was midnight before we got to bed, exhausted and wet but as chuffed as anything!
