When we woke up this morning we saw a few incomplete buildings surrounding us but no one was working on them which was a relief as I had left my mark somewhere nearby. Not much time was wasted and we packed up as soon as we had breakfast watched by a couple of girls on donkeys.

As agreed Renee led the way in search of the Temple of Nuri. We drove in towards the ruins but ad to stop because of a sharp drop. Renee wanted to take photos of us with Tuah for his website and just as we finished we saw these two guys in uniform followed by one other person in civvies. One of those in uniform had a sub-machine gun and he was waving it about while gesturing to us.

When he got closer he asked for our tickets and of course we didn’t have any. Then he said that we have to pay 20LS because we had taken pictures. We argued that for that kind of money we should be allowed to go into the tombs and we didn’t fancy going as we had seen enough. He told us to wait while he called someone else to come. We were not prepared to wait and while keeping our fingers crossed, half expecting our tyres to be shot to shreds, got into the cars and drove off.

As we had been told that the road to Atbara was not in good condition we decided to take the road to Korti and Abu Dom. It was a good tarmac road and smooth all the way to about 2 kms from Khartoum when we had to go into muddy patches as the police had blocked the road with tyres and drums. We wished we could take photos of the blocked road but didn’t dare for obvious reason.

During lunch break we had agreed with Rene’ and Andrea that we would follow them into Khartoum and the Blue Nile sailing club as they have the Garvin and the coordinates. They were thinking of camping somewhere outside Khartoum and would ask the price fro camping in the Blue Nile. We were so near and yet so far from the club when we stopped to ask for directions. Just then Gerrard and Sandra appeared behind us as though by prior arrangement.

Gerrard had been driving around Khartoum for 4.5 hours going to the Ethopian embassy and then looking for campsites. They were not impressed with the facilities in the Blue Nile sailing club and suggested we look for the International Residence camping with the help of a Mr A Salam. We almost got there when we lost sight of Rene’ who was following our guide. That was it as far as Gerrard was concerned and he wanted to go back to the Blue Nile sailing club. As we didn’t know our way round we decided to follow suit.

When we arrived at the club we were greeted by Minhat and then Mr Salam came back having arranged to meet Rene’ in the morning. We had burgers for dinner at the club’s restaurant and after a cold shower and a barely good scrub it was time to turn in.