Big cities…a love-hate relationship

How do you travel these times? The adventure starts already before you fly or even pack. I had to find a health center that would give me a PCR test in English. While the Bavarian government pays Covid-19 tests they obviously don’t pay for an English version. Initially, I had to find one that was open on the weekend as I wanted to fly Monday (that changed). The one at the München airport costs 130 EUR, whereas the on in Nürnberg only 70 EUR (obviously my choice). Then you wait for the results and hope that it is negative, which always makes me smile because that is positive 😉

After an uneventful flight from München to Khartoum with a 5 hrs layover in Istanbul I arrived at around midnight (local time). Unbeknownst to me, my guide sent me a faked pre-visa approval, which I used at immigration. In all fairness, he did send a guy that had the wrong one but I was already at the booth with the officer. And? Nothing. Absolutely nothing happened 🙂 I payed the 100 USD in cash and went through with the faked one.

That night, as any night so far, I did not sleep one hour through. It is either fucking hot or the fucking mosquitos are biting me everywhere they find skin between clothes or sheets. The worst is when you wake up because one crawled up your nose. Fuckers! So, in the morning I am everything but a happy camper.

Anyhow, the first day in Khartoum we went to the local market. What stroke me (and still impresses me) is the friendliness of the Sudanese towards foreigners/us. It is not the typical “Hi, how are you?” bullshit (although you hear that also) but the eagerness of having a conversation with you. Of course soccer is a good topic and they know more about the Bundesliga than me 😉

It’s these kind of encounters that makes traveling interesting. Be it at the market or at a wedding getting in contact with a small boy. Just making a human connection and letting them know (and feel for myself) that we are all the same and that inherently we all want the same.

The smell, oh the smell! I wish you could smell through the pictures all the impressions I got from the market. Spices, incense, food, meat, animals, perfume…a collection of the flavors of the world.

We also had some milk with zalabya. A typical start into a Sudanese day.

However, the heat rises early (nearly as early as us) and thus between 9 and 10 am we are back at the guesthouse, diving into a delicious breakfast.

Although the word is unknown to them it is certainly very common here: siesta. This is what we take as well. There is nothing you can (or should) do during the hottest hours of the day. And clearly, you must be a tourist if you walk through the town midday.

Today, we went to a camel market in the morning. It sounded interesting but the atmosphere was kind of dead in the beginning. The whole market hassling would have happened the next day. So, except for one big cattle herd on the move, which was really impressive, we only saw the camels and cattle waiting for their destiny: being sold into a butchery (e.g. in Egypt) and then onto a plate.

However, an interesting sight was how they load the camels unto the trucks. Who would have thought what you can use a caterpillar for:

We just came back from a dancing prayer of the sufi-dervish group (one of 50 in Sudan). Somehow, I didn’t feel that comfortable with the “performance”. However, it is an interesting sight and some of them sing and dance their way into a trance.

And then again, this one chance encounter and everything changes. I spoke with a guy (Mustafa) about Islam and spirituality. And how are the odds that this guy is the driver of the German embassador?

Tomorrow we shall ride out into the dessert. And as crazy as it might sound, I do hope it is cooler there than in Khartoum. I am still positive about this since usually all that concrete in a big city is heating it up and keeping it longer than necessary.

How is Corona being treated here (if you are missing this topic). Not that much at all. You see people wearing masks here and there (and of course in the airport). But mostly there are no precautions about it. Life feels normal here. I think we could do all with a bit of this kind of “normal”.

Love,

Matthias