Travel: Secret of the Nile (Nubia)

“The road is tough,” Aiyman, my 30-year-old driver, said with a grin, as we hammered over another bump on a dirt track on the southern edge of the Saharan desert. I’m not sure what he was grinning at, except possibly the ridiculousness of our situation – off-road in a tiny Hyundai that was designed for the minuscule parking spaces and smooth roads of Seoul, we were in Sudan and miles from anywhere. My guide had convinced me he could easily get me to my destinations. The plastic eagle’s head stuck proudly on the bonnet should have served as a warning: this was obviously a man who overestimated his car.

My journey that week had started a couple of hundred kilometres south in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. For the past few years I’ve been fascinated by the country’s history. If it wasn’t for political problems, Sudan, like its northern neighbour, would probably be one of the world’s tourist magnets. Sudan’s stretch of the Nile is teeming with monuments from ancient Egypt; in fact, it has more pyramids than its northern neighbour. For much of its history, Sudan was controlled by the pharaohs to ensure that a steady supply of slaves and elephants flowed up the Nile. Later, the local “black pharaohs” dominated their former masters. After being thrown out by invaders, they retreated south and continued to build distinctive pyramids for several more centuries.

The sights, when you do find them, are some of Africa’s hidden gems – untouched by the throngs of tourists and unrelenting salesmen that can make Egypt’s famous remains such hard work. The greatest of these sights was the reason for my trip: Meroe, a pyramid city that covers a remote mountainside on the banks of the Nile. Dozens of steeply walled pyramids gather in clusters across the rocky desert. Given its vastness, we have a sketchy knowledge of Meroe’s history because its script hasn’t been fully deciphered, but its scars bear testament to its violent past. In 1834, the pyramids were the victim of an Italian treasure hunter who systematically blew their tops off in search of riches, leaving the decapitated remains in the Saharan sands.

Luckily, the Pharaonic ruins are all located in the north of this massive country, within a couple of days’ journey from the capital. The country’s two-and-a-half million square kilometres provide Khartoum and the north with enough insulation from ravaged Darfur in the west and the unstable south. A rare incursion occurred this year, when rebels reached Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman, on the opposite side of the Nile. The rebels were quickly dispersed by the army.