Unfortunately just when I needed creature comforts most, we went to Sudan. For 10 days we were never clean (I only once even attempted a shower). Sudan was a country of cold water, drop toilets, thin wirey mattresses, and dust. This was inconvenient timing because I entered Sudan clouded by a lull drum of self-diagnosed travel fatigue. I’d been feeling depleted since the second half of Ethiopia and apparently my illness was contagious and Tom was beginning to suffer from symptoms too. Ten days in a country that was, by every practical standard, our most difficult, was going to be tough.

​Luckily, Sudan was also a country of immense generosity, silliness, delicious food and effusive graciousness. Covered in dust and funky smells, Sudan would not be defeated - it slowly lifted us out of our slump and rapidly became our favorite country of the trip.

We were in Khartoum for only two days, but the capital city set the tone for the rest of its country. First, it was a precursor to the difficulties, starting with the fact that we moved hotels after one night in an eerily empty German guest house where one of the walls in our room was actively decaying. The internet and shower, even if our new hotel, were shoddy at best. Everything was dusty and huge gaps in the sidewalks could emerge at any moment. Then there was the stress of navigating around the busy city streets, around donkeys and minibuses and men with carts selling fresh juice and peanuts and leather sandals. I constantly felt disoriented in Khartoum which I soon realized was because my headscarf narrowed my field of sight and interfered with my interactions with everyday life. As I tripped over curbs and turned my head 90 degrees every time I crossed the street, I mourned the loss of my peripheral vision.

But Khartoum was also a precursor of all the good things to come. Getting stopped on the street by locals eager for conversation was the norm. Everyone was interested, friendly and excited to show off their country to the few Westerners who passed through (of which I think there were three varieties: government/ngo workers, archeologists and the few tourists motorbiking, cycling or driving their way between Cairo and Cape Town.) A man stopped us on the street and before we knew it he was singing Madonna to us - his favorite song, Frozen. Everyone shouted hello as we passed and waved furiously. Desensitized by Ethiopia, we expected the friendly overtures to be merely the prelude to the long list of requests for money, pens, candy, or literally the clothes off our bodies. So it was a pleasant surprise to discover that in Sudan the waving and hellos! and hand shakes were motivated by the genuine excitement to say hello, and the unfettered curiosity of actually wanting to know how we were doing, nothing more. The greatest difficulty in Sudan (minus of course everything mentioned in the paragraph above) was learning how to turn down free invitations for tea and coffee and entire meals in people’s homes.

We spent most of our time in Khartoum walking around the sprawling city. We sat outside the central mosque during afternoon prayer and walked to see the convergence of the Blue and White Nile. We walked through the Souk Al Arabi with hundreds of stalls selling gold jewelry, belts and brightly colored hijabs. I especially loved the rows of men’s shoes, made from leather so fresh the fur was still attached to their soles. While walking around, I realized that my most modest attire likely wasn't modest enough for Sudan so I bought a demure black dress in the market that covered by chest and dusted the floor below my ankles. However we soon learned that my attempted modesty failed. Turns out I had bought Sudanese sleepwear, scandalous because of its short-sleeves and mild side cleavage.

After my failed shopping attempt, we went to a big cafeteria style restaurant for lunch to recharge. The menu had no English and we had no clue. We happily ended up with shawarma sandwiches and I charaded my way to a cup of fresh fruit juice for dessert. Afterwards I bought a small bag of sugar cane pieces and spent the rest of the day sucking them dry of their sweetness.

The food in Sudan was a surprising and wonderful relief from traditional African food - we had entered the Middle East. Falafel and fish koftas and fresh pitas. Salads with tomatoes and cucumbers soaked in lime juice. Eggplant with garlicky yogurt. Grilled meat stuffed inside other grilled meat like a Russian doll. Karkadi tea. Hummus. Dates. Mint lemonade and spiced coffee. For breakfast, feta cheese and boiled eggs and tomatoes and cucumbers. For dessert, fruits and hookahs.

On our final night, we ate dinner under a small gazebo on the bank of the Nile. We were thirsty for human interaction because we had spent that day (a Friday) walking around town trying to find signs of life as the entire city shut down to observe the Sabbath. We’ve traveled through a number of religious cities on this trip, but there’s been nothing as striking as leaving our centrally-located hotel on Friday morning to find the streets completely still. The day prior, navigating around the sidewalks just outside our hotel meant sidestepping around large groups of men drinking coffee and jumping over blankets on the ground displaying an array of books and tee-shirts and towels. Crossing the accident-ready streets was the worst: only successfully accomplished by leeching onto locals and crossing exactly when they did. Suffice to say, downtown Khartoum was busy. But not on Fridays. There was not a sole in sight when we left our hotel Friday morning. Not a vendor on the street. No wind in the air. It was dead still. After a few hours we started to notice some people emerge, but all dark skinned African, seemingly immigrants or perhaps South Sudanese. On Fridays, the streets belong to the non-Arab undertone of Khartoum.

Anyway back to the Nile River dinner on Friday night, when everyone was done praying and the streets were once again populated. We headed to Nile Road and found a long stretch of neon lit gazebos selling food and seats with river views. We picked a restaurant based on the fact that it had a banner with pictures of food on it - which meant we could employ our fail-proof “point to it” method of ordering. Unfortunately they didn’t sell any of the items pictured on the banner. We ordered two Syrian hot dogs because that was either the only thing they served or the only thing our waiter knew how to say in his broken English. A Syrian hot dog turns out to be a hybrid between a pizza and a quesadilla with a smattering of macerated hot dog mushed in between. It was filling whatever it was, and our waiter’s kindness shone through his lack of English which made up for the mediocre food he cooked. He brought us a nutella and banana crepe for free for dessert once we had finished our Syrian quesadilla hot dog pizzas as a token of his gratitude - he was visibly proud to have Westerners in his restaurant. He was young, no older than 25 and I wondered if he had emigrated to Sudan from Syria and why. Moments later he came back to our table with his cell phone opened to a youtube page and asked us to pick the soundtrack for the restaurant (luckily we deflected and asked him to play his favorite music. I thought blasting Lenny Kravitz wouldn’t be sticking to the “flying under the radar” plan we had for Sudan). While we were enjoying our complimentary crepe and our waiter’s favorite Arabic tunes, we noticed a man enter the restaurant wearing traditional clothing from an unidentified middle eastern country: puffy white sleeves, a small black vest with red tassels and intricate floral embroidery and black billowing harem pants. He was carrying an ornate silver container probably 5 feet tall strapped to his back like an oversized backpack made for the child of an ancient Meroitic king. I watched him lean over, as if bowing out of respect to the customers, and pour tea from his backpack into cups. We pointed to this man across the restaurant, and asked our waiter what he was selling. Instead of answering, our waiter rushed over to the costumed tea man and bought us two cups so we could try for ourselves. I don’t know what the tea was but Tom said it tasted like a blue jolly rancher and he wasn’t far off. Our waiter wouldn’t let us pay for the tea because, again, we were his guests. We sat a bit longer and watched as groups of men played cards, friends smoked hookahs, and headscarved little girls played in a makeshift amusement park down the street. When we were ready to leave, Tom tried to give our waiter a hefty tip to make up for the gifts but he wouldn’t accept - he shoved the money back into Tom’s hand shaking his head no no no and wagging his finger, it was his treat.