Meroë was the main reason I decided to visit Sudan. Pictures of pyramids partly submerged in swirling and otherwise empty desert sands. Not another person in sight. It looked like a dream. And so, on my second day in Khartoum, I made the trip.
My original plan was to take the bus/hitchhike. You can catch a bus from Khartoum that will take you fairly close to the Meroë pyramids and there is a town (Shendi) not far away. You can see the pyramids from the highway on the right hand side and it would not be too far to walk to them if the bus drops you off by the roadside. (Take water!) And there are lots of cars that would likely give you a lift to the nearest town to catch a bus back to Khartoum. Easily do-able as a day trip. That was my plan…until the Sudanese consulate in Ottawa said I needed to have a tour booked to get a tourist visa (and that I could only do this through their one approved tour company) so I booked a driver to take me to Meroë and to get my visa. It wasn’t worth the expense, but it got me there and into the country (and hopefully put a few dollars in a Canadian consulate worker’s pocket) so I can’t complain. Much.
To leave Khartoum, you need special papers authorizing you to travel. This is on top of the visa and the multiple registrations that must be done with the police in Khartoum. My tour company arranged the paperwork, and I arranged the multiple copies of my passport and visa that I would be expected to present at the various roadblocks. On the drive there and back we were stopped multiple times by men in various uniforms (berets, epaulettes askew, medals, brooches, etc) who looked at my passport and paperwork and usually smiled at me. I was extra friendly because I was hoping they wouldn’t notice that the tour company had put the wrong date on the document. They didn’t.
When we got to Meroë I was basically on my own. There is a small fee to enter the site (which you should pay, notwithstanding various unscrupulous travelers noting that you can skip by entering from the back). From there was a walk across the desert to a cluster of pyramids in the dunes.
Sudan has more pyramids than any other country. They are smaller than the ones in Egypt or the Mayan and Aztec ones I have seen, but they are steep, pointy, and plentiful. They are also a bit younger; most being built by the Nubians only about 2500-2000 years ago.
The pyramids were used as burial sites for kings and queens. They have been long since plundered and nothing remains of their contents, but what does remain are excellent carvings – like the sort you would see in Egyptian pyramids.
The thing that is best about the Meroë pyramids though is that you have the place to yourself. I saw one guy on a camel who offered me rides and there were a couple guys at the entrance selling crafts, but at the actual site…it’s all yours. And the setting is spectacular. Rolling dunes of various hues set against a blue sky. The sand is slowly filling up the interior of the pyramids and sweeping up the sides. It’s not hard to imagine them being lost altogether. Conservation is important (which is why you shouldn’t skip out on paying the fee).
It was sometimes a little eerie entering the pyramids and having no one else around. Eerie in a wonderful way. I kept thinking of that old Sesame Street bit where Bert and Ernie are inside an Egyptian pyramid and a mummy comes to life and then does a little dance. I found that eerie too when I was small.
It’s not a large site, so I stayed an hour to two and that was it. We stopped at Shendi for some water and coffee.
There is a lovely looking tented camp nearby (the only proper place to stay the night) and I have no doubt that it is excellent, but it is also very expensive, and so I went back to Khartoum and spent my evening with friends from the Acropole Hotel – followed by a cigar of course.
It was an excellent day.
If I had it to do over, I would have booked a driver to take me on a day trip to Musawwarat es-Sufra and Naqa, which are not so accessible on one’s own, and I would have gotten myself to Meroë on my own. Instead, I did a second day trip to those sites with a driver on a different day. Day trips in Sudan are not cheap, but the sites are priceless, so it all balances out in the end.
The next day I would visit the camel market and the market in Omdurman.
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