“Hashish my friend?”

Sudan part 2

Plan A to reach Sudan from Egypt by road had been kaiboshed.

Plan B involved me finding the captain of a boat prepared to take me to Port Sudan. A nice gentle few days sailing through the red sea, writing and working on my tan. Houthi attacks on ships in the red sea were focussed on cargo tankers and commercial vessels perceived to be linked to Israel and the Yemen based Houthis seemed to have stopped laying mines in the area, so local fishing boats were fine.

Right?

Wrong!

I did find one captain in Hurghada who was prepared to take me as far as Shalateen, he wanted 1 million EGP. Equivalent to £15250 and could not guarantee that I’d find a boat to take me the rest of the way. 

War sucks!

By the time I arrived in the Southernmost Egyptian city of Aswan, I had pretty much given up on reaching Sudan. I could have flown from Cairo, if I’d had a spare £1000, which I didn’t.

Aswan is a beautiful city and as I clambered into the ferry that would take me across the Nile to my digs on Elephantine Island I was focussed on the many ancient sites in the area and on experiencing the incredible Nubian society. Ironically the Aswan side of the ferry port is called KFC after the fast food outlet that stands in such contrast to the traditional Nubian side!

I cover Aswan in detail in its own chapter and for now I’m going to focus on a man I will call Mido to protect his identity.

I’d been in Aswan for a couple of days when, as I walked alongside the Nile, I was approached by a policeman.

The further south I'd travelled in Egypt the less I was followed by the state security investigation service police, the SSIS or secret police so I was surprised but not concerned and happily gave the informal greeting merhaba !

Out of the desert I wore a cap instead of my shemag and as this particular cap was a Liverpool FC cap, I looked more western than Egyptian, in spite of my deep tan. (My BFF still maintains I was just dark red!

“Hello my friend”, came his reply. 

At the back of my mind I was thinking, ‘how will he try to get money out of me’! This may sound judgemental but I can assure you that I based this on experience. The Egyptian police are expert at extracting baqsheesh, local taxation, bribes for anything from offering to light your cigarette to giving directions!

What I would never have imagined was for him to offer to sell me Sudanese hashish! I had been offered the sticky / solid cannabis resin in almost every town and city I had visited but never by the police!

I jokingly asked that if I said yes, would he arrest me for possession and to my total astonishment he offered me a joint to reassure me that it wasn't a sting and I guess, to  highlight the quality of his product.

I politely declined, thanked him and escaped with only having to give him a couple of cigarettes and continued on my way.

I hadn't gone 30 meters when Mido approached me with a huge smile and the words, “dont buy their shit my brother, come with me to my cousin”. He also offered me a cruise down the Nile in his cousin's boat but his main business that morning was selling hashish. Good quality, dark brown, almost black, sticky, Sudanese hash.

Ten minutes later Mido and I were sitting in the back, or should that be the stern, of a boat belonging to another of his cousins as we crossed back over the NIle to meet cousin number 1.

Mido struck me as a good guy and I’ve learnt to trust my instincts so I may or may not have handed him enough Egyptian pounds to buy a piece of hash 5 cm long and it may or may not have been exactly as he described it to me.

Mido and I have kept in touch, he has a great sense of humour, knows all the best places to get authentic Nubian food, has a beautiful family, loves dogs and speaks good English.

Oh yeah.

He also helps to bring Sudanese refugees fleeing the war across the border to Egypt.

A service he doesn't charge for! 

Obviously this wasn't the first thing he told me about himself but as we were drinking coffee in his home later that week, surrounded by his many relatives who had come to meet the funny Englishman we got to chatting about my journey and I mentioned that I had been unsuccessful in finding a route into Sudan.

Modi gave me a look that seemed to say, “I may be able to help you there”, then he said, “I may be able to help you there”!

The children were shooed away and the women of the family all moved into another room and Modi told me that once a month, he and another cousin (?) drove a truck ladened with 25l bottles of water across the border into the North of Sudan. On the return journey they carried people.

Refugees. 

Technically they are people smugglers.

In reality they are the only hope some of the 14 million displaced Sudanese civilians have fever living a life free from bombs, bullets and barbarism.

Later that night, as the public ferry took me back across the moonlit Nile to Elephantine Island I thought about what Modi had offered. A 10 hour journey through the desert, hidden under the false floor of his open back truck, 12 hours in the northern town of Dongola and a 10 hour return journey. Again hidden from view.

Food for thought and no better place to think than on the flat roof of the house I was staying in, in the Nubian village.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, Modi was right about his cousin’s hashish.

Good shit !