Recently I was going through an old external hard-drive looking for something and I came across a folder of photographs of Egypt and Sudan. They were taken by me in 1979. The thing that struck me about the images of Sudan was that they showed a country that had not been through the civil war it experienced in the 1980s and beyond. Despite a turbulent history, it seemed to be relatively peaceful. From memory, it was taking refugees from places like Uganda, Eritrea and Chad. The coup that ended its peace in 1983 was only a few years away, a coup that would smash its peace and cause untold suffering to the Sudanese people.

In 1979 there can’t have been many people from Sudan in this country. Now of course, 43 years later, there are many people with a Sudanese heritage here, almost all as a result of the war that engulfed Sudan and powers much of the violence that is still there now.

Going to Africa was unplanned. It was towards the end of a 6-month jaunt across Europe with my friend, Noel. We had worked in Germany for about a month, were pretty cashed up and wanted to go to India. In 1979 there was a revolution in Iran. The well-worn overland trail that led from Europe to India was suddenly no more. Still wanting to go to India, we looked at flying. For whatever reason, the only airline available to us was the Russian airline, Aeroflot. Had we flown with them, it would have been to India via Moscow.

None of this appealed and so we decided upon Africa. We made our way to Greece, visiting a friend in Veria and seeing northern cities like Kavala and Thessaloniki before making our way to Athens. From Athens we flew to Egypt.

In your early 20s, you don’t know a lot. Everything we did on that trip just seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe it was a different world back then, but there was so much less concern about international politics and where you should travel to and where you shouldn’t. I can remember landing at Cairo’s International airport and walking down a corridor of armed soldiers lining the walls. So there was definitely stuff going on then, but we took next to no notice. Personal safety? What’s that?

We were in Cairo for a few days, the highlight being the pyramids at Giza. Like seeing Uluru for the first time, nothing prepares you for the pyramids. They are incredible, their extraordinary size made all the more extraordinary by the fact that they were built by the sweat and blood of human labour. We hired a guide and his horses and the three of us spent 6-odd hours riding along the Nile and seeing what we saw, including some of the smaller pyramids there. At some stage we also rode camels.

Our guide didn’t offer us a price for his time; he asked us to pay him what we thought he was worth. I think we gave him something like 20 Egyptian pounds. He must have been happy with that because that night we dined at his place at Giza. I don’t know how we found it or how we got out, but he lived in amongst a maze of Giza alleyways. We could have got incredibly lost, but we didn’t. Too young and stupid to know or care.

We bussed to Luxor. We hired bicycles and after taking the ferry across the Nile, rode to the Valley of the Kings. The valley itself isn’t spectacular, but what is beneath it is. I can’t remember how many pharaohs’ tombs we went into, but I’m sure Tutankhamun’s was one of them.

From Luxor, we bussed to the southern city of Aswan. I can’t remember much about Aswan, but the Aswan High Dam is just up the road. Wanting to push further south, we got ourselves onto the ferry that travelled the dam to the northern Sudanese town of Wadi Halfa. It was a three-day trip there. The ferry was really two ferries, roped together to make one. There were three classes; first on one boat and second and third on the other. Third, which we took, was on the top deck; covered but still exposed to the elements. At some stage, one of the boats began taking on water and started to list. We parked on an island in the lake for repairs. Noel and I carried a Frisbee everywhere we travelled and on that island in that massive lake entertained ourselves and others with it. Were we concerned about being on a leaking ferry a million miles from anywhere? Of course not. Didn’t have a worry in the world. At that age, you’re invincible.

The Sudan we came to was warm, dry and slow. I had never known people to walk so slowly. Westerners are always in such a hurry. Not so in Sudan, at least not then. I remember consciously making the effort to walk as slowly as the people around us to see what it was like. It took real effort. I’ve a friend from Kenya and he tells me that they walk the same way there. Slowing down is a skill that many of us in the west would do well to practice. Where are we rushing to? To the end of our lives?

We took a train to Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. I can’t remember much about the city or our time there, but we organized to travel south of the capital. There were no train lines south of Khartoum, at least not to where we were going, and I can’t remember seeing a car outside the city. The only way for us to travel was in the back of the trucks that supplied towns and villages in central and southern Sudan with essential supplies like grain and petrol. This seemed to be the way most people got around rural Sudan.

There was no set price to travel in a truck and there was no booking office. You went to one of any number of depots where the trucks assembled, found out where they were going, bargained a price with the driver and climbed into the back of an open truck. Most of them seemed to be carrying sacks of grain because I remember sitting on them.

I don’t know how it would have been traveling in summer in those open vehicles, but it was warm enough in the December we were there. I remember us driving through a swarm of locusts. Caught in the airflow of the truck as it travelled along roads of sand and compressed earth, they were dragged over the truck’s cabin and bombed us. They hurt. I remember sleeping outdoors under a sea of stars. I remember going through villages and buying guava juice to quench the thirst. I still have a soft spot for it. I remember eating a lot of pumpkin, unleavened bread and meat which I’m pretty sure was horsemeat. I remember in those villages seeing tribespeople (men as I recall) with deep scars on their faces, I suppose from some form of initiation ceremonies. Westerners in Sudan were a little unusual back then and we did stand out. It’s cliché to say that whilst we were something of a curiosity, I remember how kind and welcoming people were to us strangers. Good people are welcoming everywhere. I remember a little of everything.

At some stage I ran out of time. I was committed to returning to Australia to continue my studies. I remember being so disappointed that I couldn’t continue my travels with Noel and that I had to turn back. I knew I was in the middle of something good and I was cutting it short.

And cut it short I did. I caught trucks and a train back to Khartoum and got really sick from something. I had been sleeping on the floor of an overnight train, from where to where I can’t remember, but I know when I arrived in Khartoum, I was unwell. I turned 22 on that train. I flew straight back to Athens. There, I stayed in a cheap hotel in the Plaka, got better and flew back to Australia. What would have happened in my life if I’d stayed in Africa and travelled on to Kenya as Noel did? Who knows.

Egypt and Sudan: 1979

EGYPT PICTURES

SUDAN PICTURES

Egypt and Sudan: 1979

EGYPT PICTURES

SUDAN PICTURES

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