day 12–13-14 / Jebel Angib – Abu Hamed – Bayuda Desert
We reach Abu Hamed. This small village is located where the Nile changes its course and goes south. Here we will take advantage of the basic shops available to stock up our vehicles with fuel, food and water for the following days. We will cross the Nile and reach Mograt Island, a large island, which divides the Great River in two branches. The people here are farmers taking advantage of the very fertile soil and the water from the river. We then cross again the Nile with a little bridge and enter the Bayuda Desert, an area bounded by the loop formed by the Nile between the 4th and the 6th Cataract and characterised by sharp black basalt mountains, most of them volcanic and typically cone-shaped. They alternate with level pebble stretches and large valleys crossed by dry wadis where there is little vegetation. We keep on driving across the desert where we might meet isolated groups of Hassanya nomads, who live in familiar groups in small huts made of intertwined branches covered with large camel wool blankets, near the rare water wells in the area. We will travel among an incredible volcanic area, where nomads gather salt from the edge of a green coloured pool inside a crater, Al Atrun. They will then sell it to markets of the towns outside the desert carrying the salt on camels caravan. An unbelievable place where it feels like the time has stopped to the Middle Ages. We will have a nice 3-hours walk in the central area of the Bayuda Desert till we reach the volcano Hosh El Dalan, it is possible to climb it (this climbing is a bit demanding). We then keep travelling southwards among the flat where only few acacia trees grow and we will also meet a water wells always crowded, as nomads and their animals come here to get water with nice ancient pulleys. Dinners and overnights in wild camp. (B.L.D.)