Aswan to Wadi Halfa: One epic journey, to say the least

Leaving the comfort of our hotel in Aswan on Monday morning, we headed for the ferry port on Lake Nasser, went through the immigration formalities of leaving Egypt, and braced ourselves for the hours to follow.

The ferry runs only once a week and this is the only way to cross over from Egypt to Sudan, unless you are flying. You can actually almost drive the whole route but due to uncompleted roads and authorities this is not legally possible at this stage. Plus the ferry must be hugely profitable...


Vehicles go on a separate barge, so Athena had been loaded the day before (not as simple as it sounds – ask Rogan!), along with a landrover, 2 4x4s, a digger, 2 motorbikes, a merc and a camper-van, but she was still sitting in port when we arrived to board our ferry. As the day unfolded, we saw that a tractor without an engine still needed to be loaded and this provided a fair bit of entertainment – chains were eventually used to hoist it up.

Waiting to board

Manouevering through the port

Just as well Athena has heaps of ground clearance!

How to load a tractor with no engine...

We joined the masses getting on the ferry around 11am. Every man and his luggage trying to push his way onto the ferry. This was only the beginning. We were hopeful that the captain had reserved space for us on the upper deck, but it was basically a free for all. Territories had already been marked out by bags and goods and we tried to settle in what little space was left. Carlos strategized and tactically helped himself, Colleen and Neil to secure some shade under a lifeboat. (Carlos is a great negotiator, being able to throw in Arabic phrases here and there, and give us a running commentary or a story about anything we ask– we’ve even coined a phrase to be used when in doubt “what would Carlos do?”)

Every man and his luggage

Neil, always with a cup of tea

The rest of us set up make-shift shade, and took turns to visit the air-conditioned dining hall while we still could, but as the hours passed more and more luggage was loaded and by the end of the day it was virtually impossible to move between decks and even between different areas on the deck. Finally, 7pm, we departed.

Staying out of the sun

Here’s where the territorial side of human nature came out – luggage and sleeping space were being fought for and territories defended. It was said that the boat was fuller because of Sudanese returning home from Libya, but judging by the amount of goods, many of the passengers were tradesmen bringing goods from Egypt to Sudan. TVs, blenders, phones, belts, t-shirts, underwear, fridges. We did the best we could to settle down for the night, but for most it wasn’t the best night’s sleep at all. It seemed wherever mattresses were, became walkways, personal space was encroached upon, and the combination sounds of snoring, cell phones, talking, spitting, and calls to prayer were ever-present.

Early days, when there was still room to walk

Later on...

Activity started again at first light, with packing and re-packing of all the goods, selling, hiding, organizing. We passed Abu Simbel at about 10am – awesome sighting for all of us and something to look forward to as we knew we were getting closer to Sudan! We finally docked around 2pm – 19 hours of sailing, 27 hours on the boat, and a bit more time to get off.

Stunning desert scenery

Abu Simbel

But what a wonderful warm welcome we got from the Sudanese in Wadi Halfa. The customs officials seemed happy to have us, people here in Wadi are very friendly without being pushy, and there is some delicious food to be had in the local restaurants – shared platters of fish, meat stew, okra, bread, beans and salad. Wadi Halfa has a good vibe.

We have very basic hotel accommodation while we wait for the vehicle barge to arrive – pit toilets and bucket showers, but in comparison to the night on the ferry this is definitely a step up. It is baking hot so we are minimising our time in the sun, passing the day with card-playing, reading, resting, and many soft-drinks.

The latest update on the arrival of the barge, is that it got stuck on a sandbank in Lake Nasser, so has been delayed... so we will ‘hurry up and keep waiting’ in Wadi Halfa until it does come, this afternoon, tonight or tomorrow, Inshallah.

I think the ferry trip and events of the past couple of days have reminded us to remember a few things about overlanding in Africa: It’s not always ‘plain sailing’, TIA – This is Africa – things happen in their own way and own time, often beyond your control, and sometimes ‘African Time’ takes over, and all you can do is have a cup of tea go with the flow.

On that note…