"All aboard the Wadi Halfa - ..." a Wadi Halfa' Travel Page by maykal

There was a noticeable air of excitement that first afternoon in Wadi Halfa. The cafe in the square was doing a brisk business in bowls of fuul, the tea ladies were rushed off their feet with orders for tea, coffee or kerkedeh, local youths lounged around bemused at the steady stream of ferry passengers rushing from hotel to hotel looking for a spare bed. Upon locating a room, they invariably sent one of the men running across the sandy wasteground to the grand old building were train tickets were apparently on sale.

Rumours abounded in that cafe. "The train will be here in an hour," said a middle-aged man in a woollen suit. "Tsk tsk, no, the train will come tonight," countered the old man sipping tea in the corner. "The train is stuck in sand!" cried an over-excited Egyptian woman, her headscarf almost slipping off her head in excitement. "I know, because Ahmed said." "La, la, wallahi the train has gone back to Khartoum, Abdullah told me," a young boy selling cigarettes piped up.

In between all these truths, untruths and half-truths, shifty-looking characters would sidle up to one of the travellers and mutter "I can get you good seat on train, you want?".

Tantalyzing titbits of information were tossed out in that cafe, and saw men and women leap to their feet, almost skipping to the ticket office, only to return glum-faced and empty-handed, resigning themselves to another glass of tea. Hours passed. Flies buzzed. People sighed, rumours continued to be spread, tickets were available, then they weren't, then they were again. But still nobody could answer the main question. Where was that train?

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Early the following morning, a little after dawn, a local wag thought it might be funny to ride his donkey cart round the town, shouting "the train has come, the train has come!" Women screamed and wailed, while men ran across to the station building in various states of undress.

Still no train.

Morning became afternoon. The sun became stronger, the flies more irritating. Tempers were beginning to fray.

Without warning, a man approached a group of travellers who had been slumped around a table nursing unwanted glasses of tea and lazily swatting at flies. "Got your tickets yet?" he asked casually. The travellers scoffed. They'd already lost count of the times they'd been fooled by rumour and gossip, and none of them paid him much notice. The man rummaged in his jacket pocket, and with a great flourish produced a crumpled bit of paper. "I'm going second class", he said with a grin. Heads raised, eyes pored over this scrap, and suddenly one of the travellers was on his feet.

In a place like Wadi Halfa, it only takes one man to run to cause a stir. Within seconds, another man was following in his wake, then another, and another, until chairs were being kicked backwards and almost the whole town were falling over themselves in their haste to get to the ticket office.

Flies had been buzzing round the cafe, but now it was the travellers doing the buzzing, all round the ticket office. Neither the Sudanese nor the Egyptians specialize in queuing. No, their strength lies in the melee, the huddle, the scramble. It was every man for himself that afternoon outside the ticket office, but it was the covered women who had the sharpest kicks and the meanest shoves. Just like it doesn't do to be between a hippo and water, it was a brave man who stood his ground between the fat women in a tobe and the ticket office window. Some of the more devious characters managed somehow to get inside the ticket office, and those outside could see money being handed over, tickets written out. Pushes became shoves, shouts became screeches, the mild-mannered became raging bulls.

Within minutes, it was all over. The green shutter slammed shut over the window, and the ticketman made a discreet exit out the back. A new commotion broke out down the platform when it emerged a local man had bought up a number of seats, and was selling them at a nice profit. Seeing my disappointed face, a railway official came up and said "don't worry, you can still board the train and sit on the floor." I knew that was possible, but after spending 18 hours crouched on the floor of a similar train between Port Sudan and Atbara, doing the same over 36 hours was the last thing I wanted to do. I could have wept.

Tickets had been sold to a lucky few, but still no sign of the damn train!

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Those with tickets rejoiced in the cafe, some splashing out on a mouthful or two of grilled gristle and fat on top of their fuul. The ticketless drowned their sorrows in lentil mush and more tea. More than a few were led on a merry dance round town in search of possible tickets. "Blind Hassan in the Nile Hotel is selling one for second class, hurry!" "One-legged Fatima is too sick to travel, she's got a first class ticket for sale over by the Farmers' Bank". Some came back victorious, but for most, it came to nothing. Judging by all the sad faces, competition for floor space was going to be fierce.

Music played in that cafe, as the jovial and rotund owner dished up the last of the fuul, a couple of latecomers making do with the fuul water to make their bread soggy, a poor-man's fuul known as "Bosh" after a well known and little liked American president. Travellers and locals alike sat chatting over tea, travel information and tales of journeys swapped until the tea ladies began to pack up their stoves. One by one, we drifted off back to our homes and hotel beds. A second night in Wadi Halfa.

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Morning did not bring a train, but it did bring some birds of prey who swooped over a rocky outcrop. They might have been eagles or falcons, but in that sorry excuse for a town, they appeared like vultures ready to pick the flesh off the bones of those who couldn't stand waiting for the train any longer and died of boredom overnight. I climbed to the top of a rocky outcrop, and watched them soar. The rocky outcrop gave a view over town. I hesitate to call it stunning, as it was not, but there is a certain beauty in the barren landscape. Flat-roofed concrete houses almost blending into the flat, dusty brown desert, blue-black expanses of water, the ferry languishing in the distant port, it too waiting patiently for the train.

Behind the cafe, was a hive of activity. A bus had arrived. I say bus, but in fact this was more cattle truck, a real bone-crusher of a truck with metal seats and iron bars instead of windows. I'd ridden a similar bus along a bumpy road to Kadugli in the Nuba Mountains, way to the south. If passengers didn't have a limp before they got on, they did by the time they got to Kadugli. That was a trip along a road, but Wadi Halfa has no roads to the outside world, just a makeshift track across the desert following the course of the Nile. This vehicle of torture was making the mammoth trip down to Khartoum in as little as 24 hours. Faster than the train for sure, but not many bladders can take it. Desert bus drivers prefer not to stop very often, in case they get stuck in sand, so relief stops are few and far between. No, I would balk at boarding this bus even if gun was held to my head. Most of my fellow travellers must have had similar fears, as the bus driver was getting increasingly desperate with his sales pitch. "Please come by bus! The train will not come for days, train is very uncomfortable, bus nice and quick!" Nobody took any notice. "Bus leaving now, tomorrow we in Khartoum, come now!" Not a flicker from anyone. "Train very dangerous, many thieves! Murder on the train! Terrible terrible, yes yes, better by bus...!"

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Finally, we heard the sound we'd all been straining for. "Choooo-choooo! Choooo-chooo!" Could it be...Is that the....Wallahi, it's here! A very tired looking Wadi Halfa-Khartoum Express limped into town under cover of darkness, and there were smiles everywhere. Moments later, bedraggled passengers stumbled towards the cluster of hotels, and began their own search for beds. Life had been sucked out of them, mouths hung agape, hollow eyes peered out from faces covered in flies. Some of them didn't even have the energy to brush the flies away.

It became clear that the train was not going to move another step until morning, so there was a mixture of elation and disappointment in the cafe that night. But at least our interrment in Wadi Halfa was no longer indefinite, and that was cause for a small celebration. I stirred two sugars into my tea...

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There was a flurry of activity in the morning. Donkey carts jostled with three-wheel trucks carrying luggage to and from the station. Women in tobes shrieked orders at men who, in turn, barked orders at local boys. Railway officials strutted up and down the platform, looking terribly important but not really doing very much at all. The lucky ticket-holders were able to board, their luggage and even some of their children being passed through the train windows.

The platform was transformed into a market place. Wadi Halfa must have been much bigger than anyone had previously thought, as thousands of traders magically appeared, selling all sorts of trash to extended family groups come to say farewell to relatives. "Biskaweeeeeeet! Biskaweeeeeet!" cried the biscuit man. "Moya baaaaaaaarida!" screeched a woman with a bucket of ice and a few bottles of water. "Tasaaaaaaaali! Tasaaaaaaali" chirped a young boy, packs of roasted watermelon seeds piled high on a tray balanced on his head.

At some ungiven sign, the unlucky ticketless began to jostle for floorspace. Easier said than done with a hefty backpack and a suitcase in my hands. Just getting through the train doors was a challenge in itself. After flattening a stray child against a compartment, nearly de-clothing a woman when her tobe snagged on my backpack, and being trampled on by a man with a mobile supermarket on his back, I managed to grab a small patch of floor between two second-class carriages. I was soon joined by a soldier from Nyala, two students from Khartoum and a salesman from Atbara. Amid the melee outside, I spotted a young Egyptian I'd met on the ferry a few days before. Fahd had never been to Sudan before. In fact, he'd hardly been outside his luxurious suburb of Zamalek, an exclusive area of Cairo. Sudan had proved to be a little more than poor Fahd could bear, and he'd decided to cut short his mini-trip. He'd long since given up any ideas of visiting Khartoum, and was pleased to tell me he'd just got himself a ticket back to "civilization", which, according to him, began at Aswan. "Come back to Egypt! You can find a job there, and life is good. Here, you live like animals, not good. Come to Egypt!" I smiled, but no. It may be poor, it may be chaotic, it may lack comfort, but Sudan was a far better place for me. If only the corridor was just that little bit wider...

"Chooooo-Chooooo!" The train began to tremble and creak, then ever so slowly, hardly visible to the naked eye, we began to move. Last minute passengers threw themselves towards the doors, hurling bags and goats and kids into the carriages, and fighting their way onto the train, as wellwishers and traders scrambled in the opposite direction trying to get off. People were still dropping from doorways five minutes into the trip, just as we were leaving the outer limits of Wadi Halfa behind. Then the houses stopped and the desert took over, a transition barely noticeable.

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An hour had passed. The novelty of being out of town had worn off, and I was bored with looking at flat barren desert. Forget all images of rolling orange dunes, the stereotypical image of the Sahara. This desert is rock and white sand. Nothing to excite, nothing to break up the monotony. No signs of life.

I was uncomfortable. The corridor was barely wide enough for a young child to sit without bending his legs. On one side, I had my rucksack, on the other crouched the soldier, his head wrapped in a scarf to protect his eyes from the dust. My knees were beginning to ache, my toes were tingly, about to "go to sleep". There was nowhere to go to stretch my legs, as the corridor was blocked with passengers in exactly the same predicament.

"I am so happy to leave Halfa!" The soldier raised his head to grin at me. "It is like hell."

"How long have you been up there?"

"Six months. I'm going home to Nyala for Eid, and will come back for another four months." This depressing mood took its toll on the soldier's grin for a brief moment, then smiling once again, he asked, "You are here to make tourism?"

"No, I'm going back to Kassala. I'm a teacher there."

"Ah, Kassala! You know Totil? Very beautiful women there," he chuckled, and the man next to him joined in.

"Yes, Kassala is very nice. Good for honeymoon, you know?!"

Soon, half the carriage was talking about Kassala, the other half were discussing this rare beast crouched in front of them...an Arabic-speaking khawaja! Biscuits and some dried dates were pressed into my hands, and a glass of sweet tea appeared from somewhere. Sudanese hospitality is not just in the home. It travels too.

In the compartment behind me, twelve plump Halfawi women were squashed into seats designed to hold eight stick insects. two of them had given up fighting for bum space, and were reclining lengthways on the floor. Despite the crush, they were all in high spirits. One of them had brought along a little hand drum, and proved to be quite a talented percussionist, tapping out complicated rhythms for the rest of them to sing Halfawi wedding songs to.

At the far end of the corridor, someone had brought along a tape recorder, one which had seen better days. I couldn't work out whether it was the state of the tape recorder, or the fact that the tapes were warped beyond help, but it was almost impossible to distinguish a tune, although I suppose there must have been one in there somewhere. That didn't matter to the owner, for as long as the tapes could be played at top volume, his tape recorder was doing the job.

No chance for sleep, then.

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Station Number 10 passed us by, a collection of ten brick huts built by the British. (Photos of a similar station on the Atbara - Port Sudan route can be seen in my Port sudan travelogues. They are all the same.) We didn't stop, and indeed there didn't seem much reason to as all the huts stood empty, not a living soul for miles. Station Number 9 was much the same, with the addition of a few soldiers. The train paused for quarter of an hour, much to my relief. The doors were blocked by luggage and people, so I followed the soldier's example and launched myself through the window.

Amazingly, there did seem to be people other than soldiers living here. There were women selling sandwiches, little boys with individual cigarettes in their outstretched arms, even shoeshiners. What on earth do they do out here? Is it a type of punishment for the traders who find themselves stuck on the train, dumped at Station Number 9 until the next train passes through? Or maybe there was a town nearby? But where? No roads, no water, no trees, just sand.

Stations 8, 7 and 6 were all in the same vein. No matter how remote, a walad would always try to sell me a packet of Baraka Biscuits or a bag of peanuts.

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