We spent the next four days in Khartoum which was quite a relaxing place. The city itself doesn't have much to see but at least it is easy to get around without being mythered and pestered. We found a shopping mall that had a 'western style' coffee shop and enjoyed our first cappucino for weeks.

On Sunday members of the Sailing Club came down for a spot of sailing and Renchee, Clive and Charllie crewed for them as they sailed off down the Nile in small wooden sailing boats, with their sails tight with the wind. They didn't come back for about 2 hours and eventually they appeared and had a racing finish back to the club. They said it had been a hard 2 hours as where the White Nile meets the Blue Nile the current was very strong. It looked like good fun and a brilliant way to get some breeze and respite from the blistering heat.

Whilst we were in Khartoum we managed to pick up a Daily Mail and on the front page was the coverage of the demonstration regarding the teacher who had allowed her pupils to call the teddy bear Mohammed. We made the assumption that the press had blown everything up out of all proportion as we saw and heard nothing and everyone was still very civil and welcoming towards us. We had a conversation with an Australian woman at the sailing club who was a teacher in Khartoum and she confirmed our theory. Yes there was a demonstration but half of the crowd just joined in and didn't have a clue as to what they were demonstrating about.

We did have one scary incident. We decided to talk a walk one evening and look for somewhere to eat. We had a walk about and couldn't really see anything and started to walk back to the Blue Nile. As there are not many street lights and not many shops and businesses to light up the streets things are a bit dark so we took a torch with us. We lost our way slightly and needed to ask directions and so we walked up to the fron of what used to be the Governors Residence but is now a museum. Peter was holding the torch in front of him when the guard at the front of the museum suddenly took up a shooting position with his rifle pointing it right at us and walking towards us. We stopped moving completely and Peter turned off the torch. He walked slowly towards us pointing his rifle which had a huge bayonet on the end. I was petrified, these guys can be a bit twitchy. He said something to us which obviously we didn't understand and stood as still as statues. He got right up to us and Peter tried to explain we were lost and kept repeating Nile, Nile. He eventually got the message and could speak a little bit of English. He then put his rifle back on his sholder and told us take take the next left turn. He ended up waving goodbye to us but it was a very very scary experience and in hindsight the torch may have not been such a good idea as he probably couldn't see who was behind it. I certainly wouldn't like to get on the wrong side of these guys!!

We also found another great cafe/restaurant in the middle of a grassy roundabout which was full of wealthier Sudanese and UN staff and it was a lovely place to escape the heat which was well in to the mid 30's everyday and enjoy beautiful western sandwiches and cakes you could almost forget where you were.

One evening we took a taxi out to see the 'whirling dervishers'. It was a traditional Friday evening ceremony and we had to arrive at the grave yard by sundown. Hundreds of Sudanese gathered to watch and many joined in as they formed a huge circle and started chanting and performing a sort of ritual dance. In the centre of the ring were the dervishers who are actually part of a religious cult. They were brightly dressed in red and green adorned with animal skin and jewellery and were whipping the circle up into a frenzy. Insence was passed around which they inhaled and those in the centre went round and round in circles sometimes in a complete trance. As the drumming music got louder and louder and the chanting faster and faster the circle of bodies went in and out and the dervishers spun faster and faster. The trance like state that they got themselves into apparently helps them communicate with God. It was a fantastic experience although we left before the finale in case the crowd whipped themselves into too much of a frenzy!!

The next leg of our journey taking us through to Ethiopia is again a notoriously hard difficult stretch of road and we left early to next day to get a good start. The bikers were staying on an extra day in Khartoum and we waved goodbye again.