Day 1
DEPART
Depart the USA.

Day 2
KHARTOUM
Upon arrival in Khartoum you are met and transferred to your hotel. While without frills or ostentation, this is an outstanding example of the traditional African hotel right out of the 1940's. It is run by the Greek brothers George Athanasios and Mikos Pagoulatos with their charming wives who provide you with a haven of cool quiet in a European atmosphere in the heart of this exotic city.

Day 3
KHARTOUM
Today you tour the capital city of Khartoum and its museums, such as the Sudan National Museum, which is regarded as Sudan's main custodian of the country's historical heritage. It is where all of the collected ancient cultural material of Sudan is documented, kept and displayed.

You may also visit the Sudan Ethnographic Museum (a short walk from the hotel) which was built in 1965 and which displays the heritage of the various tribes of the different parts of the country. After lunch take a bus to Omdurman to observe one of Sudan's most famous and bizarre religious rituals. Held every Friday about 4:00 PM, this is the gathering of the followers of the sixteenth century Sufi Saint, Abdel Qader. Join the local crowds to watch the ecstatic dances of the several hundred "dervishes," as they chant and whirl to the beat of drums to seek closeness to Allah. The men are costumed in strange hats and wear multi-colored ragged or patched garments. The performance is unique and unforgettable.

Day 4
KHARTOUM
Today explore Omdurman, the city opposite Khartoum on the west bank of the White Nile. Visit the Khalifa's House Museum, which was the "palace" of the Mahdi's successor, the Khalifa Abdullahi, who ruled the Sudan from 1885 to 1898. It was the Khalifa who wrote a letter to Queen Victoria inviting her to "forsake evil" and become a Muslim. The house provides a fascinating glimpse of the period of the Mahdi's and Khalifa's wars against Egypt and England, and here are kept such colonial relics as the first motor car brought to the Sudan by a British Governor General of the Sudan in 1902. You continue on to one of the refugee camps on the outskirts of Omdurman. These camps house over 2 million people. You will visit some of the projects that the people have developed for themselves which include a clinic and handicrafts shops.

Day 5
KHARTOUM / MEROE
After an early breakfast, you are driven northeast about 140 miles on paved roads to the ancient royal pyramids of Meroe at Bagarwiya.

On the way, you will turn off the road to stop at the beautiful Sabaluka Gorge, where the Nile passes between two granite mountains and creates the rapids known as the Sixth Cataract. From a promontory you may be able to see the wreckage of one of Lord Kitchener's gun boats, still caught in the rocks. You may find one of the local potters at work making the large water vessels known as "zirs". This will afford you an opportunity to see pottery being made in the way it has been made locally for over seven thousand years. You will also visit the ancient market town of Shendi and its traditional weaving workshop. Shendi, perhaps the greatest trading emporium on the Nile in the early nineteenth century, still bustles with traders, donkeys and vehicles of all sorts today.

Continue on to Meroe in time for lunch at your tented camp, situated directly across from the pyramids.

The Meroe pyramids form one of the most spectacular sights in the Sudan. Here you find about fifty small ruinous pyramids - the tombs of the rulers of Kush from about 250 BC to 350 AD. The pyramids lie on the tops of two rocky ridges blanketed by sand dunes about three miles east of the Nile. Closer to the river are the ruins of Meroe, the later capital of Kush where the remains of the royal palaces and temples may still be seen under the canopy of an acacia forest.

Accommodations consist of twin bedded luxury tents accompanied by bathroom huts with toilets and shower. Each tent has a verandah with two comfortable chairs from which you can view the astonishing vista of the pyramids.

Day 6
BEGRAWIYA / NAGA / MUSAWWARAT ES-SUFRA / MEROE
This morning tour the pyramids of the northern and southern groups and their decorated chapels, in which the rulers - kings and queens of Kush - are carved in relief, together with members of their court, in all their finery and superabundant flesh. (Meroitic royalty, especially the queens and court ladies, saw fat as a prized mark of beauty, and the artists flattered them by giving them more than they may actually have had!).

Late this afternoon visit the ruins of the royal city of Meroe where you stroll in the great Amun Temple, the ruins of the palace compound, and the famous "royal baths" (inspired by tales of Roman baths). The mounds of iron slag on the outskirts of the city suggest the places where iron was smelted and forged in great quantity. (Many years ago, one British excavator characterized Meroe as the "Birmingham of Africa"). It is thought that the smelting of the iron resulted in the rapid deforestation of the area, since the wood was needed for the fires. Cutting down the trees hastened desertification, which may have been a contributing factor to the city's decline in the fourth century AD.

Immediately east of the slag heaps is another cemetery of small pyramids. These were the tombs of the minor members of the royal family and secondary queens. Most of these tombs, like the royal tombs on the distant ridges, were all found to have been plundered in antiquity. In 1923, however, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston expedition found one of these tombs intact, containing the coffin of a queen and five of her sacrificed servants, one of whom held a leather bag containing all of the great lady's gold jewelry. You can visit this pyramid as well as the ruins of the neighboring (and mis-named) " Sun Temple" - actually the place where the rulers of Meroe sacrificed to the gods of victory after the return of their troops from war, while the troops paraded before them and gathered the multitudes of the city.

Day 7
BEGRAWIYA / NAGA / MUSAWWARAT ES-SUFRA / MEROE
After an early breakfast, drive southeast about 70 miles to Naga, an important Meroitic townsite that flourished from about 200 BC to 200 AD. The site is located at the base of a small hill about twenty miles east of the Nile in almost complete desert. It is best known for its magnificent temples which are clustered around a well where the nomads gather to draw water for their herds. The sight of hundreds of animals and people in traditional garb gathered at the ancient well, with the temples in the background and no tourists in sight is like a scene out of ancient times.

Recent excavations by a German archaeological team in the temple of Amum have revealed spectacular statues and stelae, and a painted altar with the paint in pristine condition. A smaller temple closer to the well is that of the Meroitic lion god Apedemak. The walls are carved with this deity and other gods as well as with images of the royal family: king, queen, and prince. What is fascinating is the very African appearance of the royal family, even to the point of exhibiting the same facial scars that some of the nomads at the well are still wearing. The warrior-like poses of the queen, as well as her extremely stout figure, are in dramatic contrast to anything one sees in Egypt.

Adjacent to this temple is the so-called "Roman Kiosk" which has a number of unique architectural features that are actually not "Roman" but locally invented. The temples are the only standing structures of an ancient town that was once crowded with spacious villas.

After a picnic lunch you drive just 20 minutes from Naga to another extraordinary Meroitic site called Musawwarat es-Sufra. It lies in the center of a plain surrounded by black stony hills where ancient quarries can still be seen. Here you see another magnificent temple of Apedemak, adorned with sumptuous carvings, a huge "hafir" or man-made lake for catching and storing water running off the hills during the rainy season, as well as the sprawling complex called the "Great Enclosure." This vast and mysterious structure is a labyrinth of courtyards, ramps, and causeways leading between several small temples with walls covered with hundreds of ancient graffiti and incised drawings. Recent excavations in the courtyards reveal that some of these spaces were used for gardens. Current opinion suggests that this monument was used in ceremonies having to do with the lion god Apedemak and that living lions may even have been kept in some of these courtyards. The graffiti even includes the inscriptions of the first European explorers to visit the place in 1821. The site is also famous for its elephant statues, which are about 2/3rds life-size. Return to the camp for overnight.

Day 8
BAYUDA DESERT / TENTED CAMP
From Meroe proceed north to cross the Nile at the junction of the Atbara River and the Nile. Continue on (in comfortable Toyota Land Cruisers) across the vast Bayuda Desert, off road the entire way. Speed through this sprawling moonscape which is interspersed with ranges of black, barren hills, huge boulders, scattered acacia trees and thorny bushes. Try to imagine the ancient caravans that once bore the rulers of Meroe on their journeys northward from the capital Meroe to the site of the greatest religious sanctuary of the kingdom at the mountain known as Jebel Barkal (which is also our destination). During the drive which takes most of the day, you will encounter small groups of nomads riding their camels and donkeys, or watering their animals at their wells. Each tribe has its own stories and its own wells and lands, and if there is time to question them (through interpreters), you can discover some surprising local customs, beliefs, and stories. For example, they will tell you how to identify (by brand or unique ear cuts) how to distinguish the animals of their tribe from those of another. While on your desert tour, you also should see some splendid mirages and "dust-devils".

Days 9-12
JEBEL BARKEL
After breakfast this morning, proceed to Karima, the modern town that occupies the site of ancient Napata, the major religious center of the kingdom of Kush. It is here that you will spend four nights beside the ancient "holy mountain", Jebel Barkal. Accommodation here is a very comfortable and charming Italian rest house built in traditional Nubian architectural style. Guest rooms have an individual bath and the bed is under a traditional brick dome which keeps the rooms cool and comfortable.

The ancient Egyptians and Nubians called Jebel Barkal the " Holy Mountain" because they believed that their supreme god Amun lived within the rock, seated on a throne. The hill is only 312 ft. high, but it rises from an otherwise flat desert plain, and so has amazing prominence in the local landscape. It also faces the river with a soaring vertical cliff, 260 ft high. It was this hill that marked the site of Napata, which for a moment in the late eighth century BC, can actually be said to have been the capital of Egypt. During the Egyptian New Kingdom (ca. 1500-1080 BC), Jebel Barkal marked the official southern limit of the Egyptian empire in Africa. It was the site of the southernmost Egyptian temples.

Ancient data reveals that the Egyptians, and probably the earlier Nubians, attached sacred significance to Jebel Barkal because of its bizarre form. The most distinctive feature of the mountain is its enormous free-standing pinnacle, nearly 245 ft. high. This gigantic monolith was imagined as a natural statue having many different forms and meanings. Most importantly, the people imagined it as having the form of a rearing cobra (uraeus) wearing the tall, knobbed "white crown," which symbolized kingship over the south. Since the uraeus was the emblem worn on the king's crown, and since the mountain itself looked like a great head or crown wearing such a uraeus, the Egyptians came to believe that Jebel Barkal (after they had discovered it) was the very place where their Creator god Amun brought kingship to earth and where he still conferred the crown upon his earthly sons, the kings. The Egyptians thus built here a coronation center, which was visited by the pharaohs many times, and later restored and used by the Nubian kings for their own coronations to the third century AD.

During your stay beside this fascinating site tour the many ruined temples and palaces that lie below the Jebel Barkal cliff. Here you may wish to climb Jebel Barkal, which takes about 15 minutes and offers a spectacular view of the Nile. Once on top of the mountain, anyone can come down in seconds by "skiing" down the sand "glacier" on the west side of the mountain. This is exhilarating and hugely fun. From here (or by car, if you haven't climbed up) you then walk or ride to the Meroitic royal pyramids on the west side of the mountain where stand the best preserved pyramids in the Sudan. These are the tombs of the select rulers of Kush who chose to be buried beside the "Holy Mountain" in the mid-third and first centuries BC.

While staying at Jebel Barkal, you will take one day and visit el-Kurru, the nearby site of the tombs of the Kushite kings and queens who conquered and ruled Egypt as its 25 th Dynasty from about 750-660 BC. El-Kurru not only contains the burials of four of the great Nubian-Egyptian kings: Piankhy, Shabaqo (his brother), Shebitqo (his eldest son), and Tanutaman (Shebitqo's son), but also those of their queens, their horses, and their ancestors going back to about 850 BC. The painted tomb chambers of King Tanutaman (ca. 664-656 BC) and his mother are especially outstanding.

On another day take a picnic lunch and visit the nearby Oasis of Ghazali ("Gazelles"), which is the site of a ruined Christian church and monastery, dating from the seventh to the tenth century AD. The place is extremely picturesque and the ruins are a delight. It is fascinating to find familiar Christian architecture and art motifs in what is today one of the most ardently Islamic nations on earth!

Day 13
KHARTOUM
Return to Khartoum by charter plane. Afternoon at leisure.

Day 14
KHARTOUM
Today you visit Ahfad University in Omdurman, a private university for women, several of whom are on scholarship from the refugee camp. You also visit the old Omdurman market - a bustling souk where we can find anything from dervish costumes to python skins! After dinner on the Nile transfer to the airport.

Day 15
DEPART
Depart on your international flight home.

NOTE: This is just one example of many custom itineraries we can do for you in this diverse country.

GENERAL INFORMATION

There are no set departure dates for this trip. Please contact EXPLORE as to the time you would like to travel and we can book this itinerary or another customized itinerary for you.

Tour Includes:
All air charters; all ground transportation; accommodation; all meals; all soft beverages with meals; guides; entrance fees and all activities in the itinerary.

Tour Excludes:
U.S. Domestic and international airfare; airport departure taxes; passport fees; visa fees; laundry; medical immunizations; individual transfers; accident/baggage/medevac & cancellation insurance; excursions deviating from the scheduled tour; excess baggage charges; medical expenses; gratuities, meals not specified in the program itinerary; dishes and beverages not part of included meals; telephone or fax charges, room service; and other items of a purely personal nature.

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