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barkhamossae
- Nov 10, 2021
- 6 min read

And the country with the most pyramids is...?

SUDAN! (not Egypt.)

There are a handful of countries which have a tight grip on my imagination. The Sudan is one of them. I cannot explain why Sudan. Perhaps it's because it's the country I researched eagerly for my high school MUN presentation. Or the country that Jacques Cousteau adopted as his base to research the Red Sea. Or simply, the fact that it's one of Africa's (many) centres of history, ancient history.

I know I'm romanticising the country, which remains one of the poorest and most troubled in the region. At the time of writing, the hard-fought people's revolution, which saw the people of Sudan overthrow dictator Omar Al Bashir through Gandhiesque civil disobedience in 2018-19, has now been jeopardised by the military takeover of the transitional government by General Burhan. Protests against any kind of military rule - which represents a betrayal of the essence of the people's revolution - were violently represented by General Burhan's military. The coup led to Prime Minister Hamdok resigning, after being held hostage and after trying to enter in a compromise deal which he ultimately felt was unviable. My heart breaks when I hear of countries that have been nodes of culture and trade and Africa's history - like Sudan, like Mali - being destroyed by people on the dark side, by bad governance. Aaanyway.

I've wanted to go to Sudan for a while, but something always came up: the revolution, unrest, climate change, the pandemic... and the attempt at a coup d'etat literally on my birthday, until a friend told me there will never really be a good time to go. It's up to me to weigh the risks and go if I wished to.

So I went, and it was nothing short of drama. When I went to apply for a visa, the dive centre (Red Sea Secrets, one of only two centres operating from Port Sudan) messaged to say domestic flights between Khartoum to Port Sudan had been suspended and I might wish to reconsider my weekend travel plans. I decided to go anyway and, miraculously, the airport reopened and I purchased flights online between Khartoum and Port Sudan...

The next day was even more chaos. People who hadn't been able to get on the flight when Port Sudan airport was closed were clamouring to get on the flight, and I had to fight my way across the crowds and through the bureaucrats who insisted on all kinds of papers - a tourism authorisation, a regional authorisation, authorisation for everything between breathing and landing on the moon...

Somehow, I managed to make it to Port Sudan (where I spent more than an hour at the airport managing more paperwork). I was knackered, but also eager to be in the water. The weather was so nice and warm that there was only one thing to do: get on the boat and in the water.

As we sailed across the port, I felt a sense of awe at the thought that other than Mostafa, the dive instructor, I'd be literally the only person diving in the Sudanese Red Sea. I fancied myself one of the explorers of old and also wondered how the world would be charted differently if women instead of men went off exploring throughout history.

Port Sudan is Sudan's main port, operating since 1909, when Sudan was still under British administration as the "Anglo-Egyptian Sudan". It is now the main hub for cargo, petroleum, gum, senna, and other vital products, and is key to the movement of goods inland in Sudan, and to land-locked countries such as Ethiopia and Chad. It's by no means a touristy town, so don't expect hotels. Still, all port towns have a charm of their own; the roads are wide and were quite empty, but here and there, coffee ladies made cardamom and ginger spiced coffee. At night, the port-side area comes to life with men coming to play pool while some women sit by the water to chat.

The Umbria Wreck

As time was limited, we had scheduled two dives for the same afternoon, and I was excited, despite my tiredness. We'd be diving the wreck of the SS Umbria - considered one of the best wreck dives in the world. SS Umbria was an Italian vessel that was secretly used to carry troops and ammunitions to supply the war effort. In May 1940, Italy was still "neutral" in the war when the SS Umbria left Port Said in British-administered Egypt. However, by the time it sailed into Sudanese waters, the British navy attempted to corner the SS Umbria under suspicion of "smuggling". That same night, Italy was to officially enter the war: before the ammunition could be captured by the British, the Italian captain decided to scuttle the vessel.

Diving the wreck is spectacular - after all, you are experiencing a piece of history. You can see the ammo, and I wish I could grab one of the bottles of wine that were left behind... it's comparable to the Thistlegorm further up in the Egyptian Red Sea. The night dive in the SS Umbria was just as magical.

SS Umbria, at the time of sinking, was carrying 6000 tonnes of explosives. It is believed that, should the bombs and missiles on the Umbria ever detonate, the ensuing impact could engulf all of the Port Sudan.

Sanganeb and Rumi Reefs

After the epic trip to the SS Umbria, I was curious to dive the fabled reefs of Sudan, which had enchanted Jacques Cousteau who built his research station Conshelf II there. The next day, we took the boat out to the Sanganeb lighthouse, and the reef was LUSH. Every single coral was alive, and colourful. A massive tornado of barracudas took my breath away, but there was much more to see - huge shoals of fish, and it was 30 degrees water so it felt like slipping into a bath.

During the surface interval, we stopped by the lighthouse, and climbing up gives you the most breathtaking view of the Sanganeb marine park. The Sanganeb atoll, a network of stunning coral reefs surrounded by water that can drop off to 800m, supports a rich diversity of marine life - over 260 species of coral, 300 species of fish, 11 species of marine mammals and over 20 species of birds. It is truly remarkable and pristine, and I recognised the privilege I had in being able to witness it.

I was keen to see the Rumi reefs, which gained in popularity as a result of Jacques Cousteau who apparently blew up part of the reef to create a man-made straight, around the time that he was setting up his futuristic underwater base to prove that divers could live several weeks under water. I must say that to make the trip there as a solo diver is expensive, and took over an hour. But the reef was gorgeous, and seeing the ConShelf II was the cherry on the cake - it was slightly creepy, a structure forgotten from half a century ago.

Back on land, the next crazy (and utterly impractical) part of my trip consisted of taking the bus at 4am to Khartoum (I couldn't fly, because of diving, and also, I love long bus rides). The road was chaotic, a tire burst, and I did what no sensible human being should do and got off the bus at the sight of the pyramids of Meroe.

Thankfully the dive resort had ordered a car for me to hop on to from here to Khartoum, though, again, this was a more expensive option and it takes about 4 hours either way.

The pyramids of Meroe... I'd wondered so much about them. I doubt there's a single human being who hasn't been fascinated by ancient Egypt at one point in their life, at the exploration of tombs and pyramids and temples. That child-like dream of exploring a lost civilisation came up again as I came up to the island of Meroe. The caramel-coloured sand is interspersed with various Nubian pyramids, smaller and steeper than the ones in Egypt, built between 2300 and 2700 years ago.

It was completely, completely quiet, except for the warm breeze flowing over the sand dunes. As if this were a movie, a small scarab scuttled over the dune. I rented a camel (more to help the camel owner than anything)to reach the "island" of Meroe, and both camel and camel owner left me to wander on my own, and I enjoyed the solitude and silence as I walked on the land where the ancient Cushite kingdom used to be.

Sudan is home to more than 200 pyramids and temples, but many of these are being swallowed by sand, time and neglect. In 1830, some assh*le named Giuseppe Ferlini came to loot Sudan and blew off the top of many pyramids to access the riches and gold within the tombs. And now, the lack of capacity to protect the pyramids and restore them adequately (some of them, you'll see, are plastered over with concrete).

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The carvings on the pyramid walls, what's left of it, are amazing.

Despite the neglect, some of it is surprisingly well preserved.

Kings and queens from millennia ago were buried here.

As the sun set, my camel ride came to fetch me; we didn't have time to visit the temples further afield and the statues which also comprise the temple complex of Sudan, but I was already in a contemplative mood after the experience of witnessing these structures from an ancient time.