Waking cold and stiff on top of the rumbling southbound train I found that we were once again in semi-fertile land along the Nile river. Later that day the train from Wadi Halfa arrived in Khartoum, and I went walking to try to find affordable lodging.
But first, of course, I had to see the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, the "raison d'etre" for Khartoum. I marched there, carrying my backpack. The White Nile, flowing out of Darkest Africa, was definitely pale chocolate brown, and the Blue, flowing down from the Ethiopian highlands, was a different color, less brown, but certainly a long stretch to call it blue. Across the river, on the Omdurman side, I could see the white dome of the Mahdi's tomb. Although it is empty, (the mahdi's bones having been thrown into the river and the skull sent up the Nile as a macabre present for Victoria by Kitchener) it still attracted some Sudanese "pilgrims".
Big parts of Khartoum, at the time, were not too filthy, but in May, in the afternoon, the place gets REALLY hot. You can see heat shimmer on every street. I finally found the youth hostel in Khartoum. It turned out to be two low dormitory buildings, without screens, and a dusty packed-earth courtyard with a high wall encircling it. Unfortunately, I found that Egyptian students, exiled to Khartoum because they couldn't get into a better school, lived in the youth hostel year-around. They had permanently booked every bed, ignoring the "rules" of the international youth hostel association. So I checked in anyway, my bed being a dusty piece of the hard-as-iron courtyard. After dusk the mosquitoes were quite a problem, as, in the open courtyard, my burning mosquito coils were not too effective. There were a few other young overland vagabonds sleeping on the ground in the courtyard, a Canadian couple, and an Irish lawyer. I stayed in Khartoum for about a week.
Khartoum doesn't have too many sites of historical interest. The confluence, the Mahdi's tomb, and the palace stairs where Gordon Pasha was killed complete the list. Having seen them, I needed to decide which way to head. I knew that I eventually wanted to see the East African game parks, and the coast, and the amazing historical sites in Ethiopia, and I wanted to ride the Nile steamer. Since the steamer between Khartoum and Juba, in deep southern Sudan, was said to take up to 7 days with the current, and up to 11 days against the current, I decided to ride it south, "with" the current. To accomplish this I needed to go overland to Juba, near the Ugandan border, and then ride the steamer through the world's largest swamp, the Sudd, and then back to Khartoum.
Khartoum was, however, an interesting town for people watching. It is just about exactly the crossover point between the northern Semitic Arabic-speaking Moslems and the southern Black African Amimists/Christians. The Sudanese black Moslems in that region are, as a class, the BIGGEST people I have ever seen. Many of these guys were six foot three or four, very broad and very powerfully built, wearing loose cotton robes. Happily, few people carried weapons on the streets.
My days there were spent eating boring cheap food, mostly beans ("ful") and coarse bread, walking around until it got TOO hot, and then sitting somewhere debilitated until the evening breeze brought life back to the city.
Motivated by the enervating midday heat, I inquired if Khartoum had anything resembling a municipal swimming pool. That seemed to be a concept a little bit too progressive for that hot, dusty African city, but I heard that there was a swimming pool at "the American Club". Getting approximate directions to the place, I walked that direction the next day about 10 am. I did manage to find it, on a dusty, broken up, partially paved street, with a bored Sudanese man sitting in a box beside the gate. I asked if I could come in to have a swim, and showed him my US passport. Nope, but I could get a "guest membership" for only $50. Ouch, my vagabonding budget was $50 per week for transport, food, lodging, entertainment, film, everything, so that was considerably too steep. I chatted with the gateman, buttered him up, gave him cigarettes, (no, I don't smoke, but always carried cigarettes for presents) but he had truly "heard it all before", and I failed to get in for a free swim. No "silver tongue" this time.
Disappointed and discouraged, I walked back towards the center of town. By that time it was really hot, and walking was a pain, through pounding sun with squinted eyes, all dusty colors everywhere limited to dun, gray, and brown. After half a mile I saw a vision. There, across the littered street, between the huge robed black men, nearly lost in the heat shimmer, was a spot of blue and gold. As it approached me it slowly separated from the glare and resolved itself into a small blond young woman wearing a pale blue cotton summer dress.
Now let it be known that usually I do NOT think quickly "on my feet", but in this one instance, I did not miss the opportunity. I crossed the street, confronted the pretty vision, and said in English, "Please excuse me, I'm trying to find the American Club, do you know where it is?". A hit. She happened to be going there, and would show me the way! Turned out to be a 17 year old Californian gal who we will call Lucy. Her father was an American oil company intl. troubleshooter, and had been transferred to Khartoum for six months. Lucy had already been in the Sudan for three of those months and was BORED OUT OF HER MIND. For me this was a good situation.
When we reached the American Club together, I was relieved that my buddy the gateman did not say anything to give me away, though he did give me serious stink-eye. Lucy invited me in for a swim as a guest on her membership, and everything seemed to be going along quite well. There were a dozen white folks lounging around a small swimming pool, and she introduced me to several, including a couple of small fit young men with suspiciously short haircuts. The cool water was wonderful, almost a new experience, and sharing it with a pretty gal in a brief swimsuit made it all even better. Then, lying on a borrowed towel beside the pool, things went rapidly to Hades. The short-haired, fit young men, now increased to a party of three, came over to sit close to us, and proceeded to harry, annoy, and harass us. They, of course, were part of the local US Marine Corps consulate guard, and they took immediate and serious dislike to my shabby clothing and long hair. Lucy was on a first name basis with them, but clearly was siding with me in the verbal conflict which was heating up. I was winning the war of wits, but it wasn't making any impression on them. These guys were determined to start a fight with me. They really REALLY wanted any excuse to pound me senseless, to demonstrate their testosterone-poisoned superiority. They insulted me, they insulted Lucy, and were generally agressive and obnoxious. Finally it reached the point where they were deliberately nudging and pushing me, trying to get me to take a swing at one of them. Now, mind you, I am not that big a fool. I know they train all of those quarter-wit little banty marines to kill with their bare hands. So I spent a very unpleasant hour swallowing their gibes. It seemed rather strange and paradoxical to me that there in Africa, all of the local people were being very friendly to me, while my own countrymen of my own age were posing a very real and immediate danger. I figured that I understood what was going on in their underdeveloped minds, and to some extent I sympathized. I imagined that they had all been "bird dogging" Lucy for three months with no apparent success, and unexpectedly a new beau shows up on the scene, with what appeared to be a much closer relationship than they had achieved. As you can imagine, pretty, unmarried white women were an extremely rare quantity in Khartoum. That would have been plenty of reason to hate me, even without considering the lightning-rod-effect of my shoulder-length brown hair.
Lucy and I finally left together, I walked her home and was introduced to her parents. They viewed me with undisguised and abiding distrust. Fair enough. For the next few days we spent most of each day together, even going back to the swimming pool once, to be hassled by a different set of marines. There was nothing "naughty" going on between us, mind you, I was a paragon of gentlemanly behavior the whole time I escorted my innocent little friend. Strolling beside the Nile, under the fragrant flowering trees, late at night, I discovered that Lucy was the quintessential "city girl". I was pointing out some of the constellations to her, and explaining them in true astronomy-nerd fashion. I remarked that the pole star was out of sight this far south, but that all of the stars rotate around it. Lucy said, amazed by a new idea, "Do the stars move?"
Yes, America is a really wonderful place !! You can get to be 17 years old and still be completely insulated from nature and the real world.
I ended our little tryst by inviting Lucy to accompany me to the wilds of southern Sudan and back to Khartoum, and she thought that would be a wonderful idea. Of course, her folks put the kibosh on that plan, and I don't blame them one bit. A few weeks later I was quite grateful that she hadn't come along, as I found that just taking care of myself was plenty to worry about, without a cute little dependent to protect.
(Flash forward)
I did write to Lucy sporadically from various exotic ports. Four years later, having completed my vagabonds world-tour, I tracked down Lucy in California, and she drove down from her university to visit me for a long weekend. I then got to hear the other side of the story. Seems that the Khartoum marines had been sniffing around her just as I suspected, but with unimagined success. Prior to my arrival she had been taking three or four of them to bed in rotation and my presence was cutting them out !!! The clever little woman had arranged herself a regular stud farm. NO WONDER the random vagabond freak was cordially despised by the Khartoum contingent of U.S. marines !!I did see some interesting things at the bleak youth hostel. There on Thursday night I was treated to the best display of belly dancing I have ever witnessed. Unfortunately, it was many male Egyptian students belly dancing for other male Egyptian students. They were really quite good at it, and the loud, scratchy recorded music was wild and wanton. I wasn't shocked, already being acquainted with the fact that many (most?) Arab men are bi-sexual, and being denied any access to their own women when young, they take romance where they can find it.
The guy who manned the gate at the youth hostel was a nice Dinka tribal, bright and always cheerful, speaking tolerable English. His Christian name was Charles. The Canadian couple had brought with them on their African tour a thin book of photographs titled "Canada in Pictures" or some such. I had looked through the photos, and there was one in there that I was sure would be a "Charles stopper". Therefore I watched Charles intently, without seeming to do so, as he looked at the pictures. I was correct. He turned a page, and SLAMMED the book shut, wild eyed ! . He opened it again, and slammed it shut again ! Then he very slowly opened the book a third time, and began to count, his eyes wide with amazement and longing. The picture was of a huge herd of Canadian cattle, photographed from the air. To the Dinka, cattle are both ultimate wealth and holy religious objects. I'm sure Charles had an epiphany right there sitting on his stool at the youth hostel gate. He carefully counted every one of the thousands of cattle in the photograph. His eyes were all misty when he finished.