Greatest shoes ever. I got the goatskin ones for their functionality in lieu of the more expensive and less functional cobra, cheetah, giraffe or leopard skin ones.

Well, there were some ethical and legal concerns with all of the other ones too.

Except the cobra ones. I hate snakes. It's my duty as an archaeologist.

You can burn my house,
Steal my car,
Drink my liquor
From an old fruit jar.

Do anything that you want to do, but uh-uh,
Honey, lay off of my shoes
Dont you step on my Sudanese shoes.
You can do anything but lay off of my Sudanese shoes.

So when I was a kid in Mississippi a scorpion bit me once when I was climbing a tree.  Didn't hurt too bad but it left a bit of a welt.  Most people I've told this do not believe me.  The number of times I've been told that "there are no scorpions in Mississippi" had left me believing that I may have been seeing things.  Well, I was right.  There are scorpions in Mississippi and they're common name is either "The Southern Unstriped Scorpion" or sometimes "The Southern Devil Scorpion."  The scientific name is Vaejovis carolinianus. There is a picture an a little more background about these scorpions on this web page.  From my experience, I remember the sting being not very painful, like a dirt dauber, but less than a yellow jacket.  The one that got me looked exactly like the one in the picture.  Was about an inch or and inch and a half long, and we had a relationship that lasted about 10 milliseconds (place hand in wrong spot, get bit, flail arms, scorpion went for an unexpected aerial vacation).

Which brings me to the scorpions I'd seen in the Sudan.  I had been thinking about them and wondering what they were.  I saw two kinds.  Two that were very light green or kind of yellowish in color, these were very slender and gracile looking (to me) - very skinny claws and tails.  One was about five inches long (this one was by the water basin we used to wash out hands at the house - circa 10:00 at night - we played with it for a while and then sent it to the great desert in the sky with a shovel) and one was about two inches long (and sitting on the back of the "seat" of the latrine at around midnight - glad I noticed it before I squatted down, I would have been very unhappy - dispatched with shovel and then dumped into the seething and smelly hole where it was hunting at the time).  R also killed one of these in the "shower."  The other variety I saw was small and grayish - I encountered these among the rocks at the cemetery at al-Widay.  'Bout an inch long.   I wanted to find out what these things were and if they had been dangerous.  I have as of yet found no information on the second kind. 

I wish I hadn't found out what I did about the first kind I described.  First one I saw I thought, "wow, that thing is huge, but it looks really skinny."  Its tail was straight back, not curled over its head.  We watched a while and then I poked it with a stick.  The tail went up big time.  R flicked sand at it.  It ran toward him at full tilt.  He spent a little bit warding it off with a little stick while I went to get the shovel, then I killed it.  The thing was really out for blood.  Poking it with a stick set something off in it, it had plenty of opportunity to run away, but it did not want to.  It wanted to sting R and just wouldn't give up, when he turned and walked five feet to the let, it followed him.  I hit it with the flat of the shovel, which didn't work, so instead I chopped it into three or four pieces with the tip and then threw it over the wall of the house courtyard. 

Searching Google for "Sudan scorpion" the first page is The Scorpion Files: Leiurus quinquestriatus.  On this page we get the following quotes:

"This scorpion is usually known as the Death Stalker."

and

"This is one of the worlds most dangerous scorpions, with a very potent venom. This specie is medically important, and causes several deaths each year. LD value of 0.16 - 0.50 mg/kg!"

Damned if the thing in the picture at the top of that page isn't EXACTLY what we were playing with that night.  I had thought about taking a picture of my own but the light isn't so good for that at 10:00 on a moonless night.  Looking up Leiurus quinquestriatus or Deathstalker on wiki, you get a rather well written article that I'll link to here.  The following quote is relevant after you've read the above description I have given of my own:

"L. quinquestriatus is straw yellow in color, and can grow 3.5 to 4.5 inches in length. Compared to other scorpions it is fairly lightly built, with a long, thin tail, and relatively narrow claws." 

The real kicker is this one:

"It is considered the most venomous scorpion. Fortunately, whilst a sting from this scorpion would be extremely painful, it would be unlikely to kill an otherwise healthy, adult human." 

While I'm talking about the things, I know of at least three locals who were stung while we were there, including one six year old girl.  None of them perished, but all did declare that it was a very painful experience.  Two of them were working for us and they both stayed home on the day after they were bitten.  The little girls father also worked for us, and he took the next day off to watch over her.  I do not know what species did the biting in those cases - from what I was told there are a couple of dozen varieties in the area, each carving out it's own little niche on the ecological food chain. 

Anyway. There you have it folks.  In another instance of what Justine would call my "drunken guardian angel" I have seen,  poked with a stick, flicked sand at, been with six inches of and killed, a rather large specimen of the most venomous species of scorpion on the planet. 

So there's a travelogue in which Michael Pailn recounts his experiences in the Sudan here.  It sounds a lot like our own trip, except he stayed in all of the nice hotels, and pretty much took the luxury tour, going to the Khartoum Hilton and the Sudan Club instead of heading into the backwaters.  Weenie taking the easy way ;).  A two month stay gave me and Justine a new definition of roughing it. 

A few quotes I can relate to:  "I place my thermometer in the sunshine on the window-sill of my room, where it registers 128 Fahrenheit, fifty-four Centigrade. I have been nowhere hotter in my life."  "Fraser has found a scorpion in his room and killed it with a shoe."  (except my scorpions were in the courtyard by the water jug, on the top of the latrine hole, and under random rocks I moved in excavation - all killed with shovels) "As we step off the train in the cool of the evening at another Nileside stop, I watch a roof passenger unwind his turban and lower it down to a water-seller who ties it around the handle of a bucket, which is then hoisted up again." "I look down onto a green and pleasant garden, in which a pair of security guards are fast asleep. They are not just asleep at their posts, they are asleep in their beds, at their posts." "For them, and even for me after half a week here, Khartoum ceases to feel remote or difficult, or dangerous. It is where we are. It is home."

That's the way I felt after my first few days in Khartoum.  I'd never been anywhere else.  Two weeks after we had left Khartoum for the fourth cataract, even that seemed like a distant memory from childhood, and America seemed like a strange dream.  It was strange there.  Time passed quickly, but events that had taken place five days ago seemed like they were years in the past.  I never wear a watch anymore, and I had no newspaper or computer or television to remind me of the date.  Quickly I forgot even which day of the week it was, except on Fridays which are the Muslim sabbath, and which was our one day of rest each week.  One of these days I'll finish the tale of our time there that I started a few weeks ago, but not tonight.  The events are still with me every moment, and I'm severly torn over what to say and what is better left unsaid.  That said, it is a place that is wonderful and heartbreaking at the same time,

I'm glad to be home, but I'm also looking forward to next years trip.

So I'm not the best cinematographer, but here's a video from the end of the season party that I've placed on you tube. After the last day of excavation we killed a goat, cooked it, and invited everyone to come over to our house for dinner. This is in the veranda of our home.

After waiting around for our solar panel we left pretty late in the day on Wednesday, January 31^st and headed out from Khartoum to Karima.  Took the direct highway up.  Initially we were traveling through a type of savannah that was more on the desert side than the savannah site.   Lots of little trees and bushes separated by sand, with very little grass.  There were many villages by the road, and also termite mounds.  These things you have to see to believe, pictures don't do justice (I don't have any pictures anyway).  They're ten to twelve feet tall, and at the base are quite literally big enough to make a one room hut out of.  As I understand it, this is common in some parts of Africa.  Also we saw many goats, donkeys and camels.  There is much road construction in this area, so going was slow as we had to leave the main highway and go around through the desert, which is noticeably slower than the pavement. Bonneville salt flats, these deserts ain't.  We had to stop once at a khawaja checkpoint and show our travel permits.  Simple and easy. 

After a few hours, we ended up in the Bayuda Desert, which was much more stark.  No animals, not even camels.  No plants. No villages, with the exception of Tam Tam, which is a work base for the power lines that go through the area from Karima to Khartoum.  At the moment, they're supplying all of the power to Karima.  Soon, it will be the other way around with power coming from Hamdab Dam to Khartoum and places beyond.  We stopped in Tam Tam for tea at sundown, this was the halfway point of the journey.  Heading north again, we made it to Abu Dom, where we turned right toward Karima.  After a couple more hours and after passing through several military checkpoints which seemed entirely pointless, but which I'm sure are very important, we made it to Merowe on the south side of the Nile.  The ferries were not there, they were all up in Karima, and it was 10:30 at night.  The bridge is not yet finished, so we had to do the ferry.  After we walked around on the banks of the Nile for a while hoping that one would show up, our trucks all lined up in a row and began honking and flashing their lights in a fruitless attempt to wake the ferrymen.  We didn't get a car, but eventually what I would consider a very large canoe powered by a 5horse Johnson came over and picked us up.  I kid you not, we took a moonlight cruise across the Nile in an open topped canoe and it was gorgeous. 

When we arrived on the Karima site of the river, we took about a ten minute car ride up to the city, where we stayed less than 500 yards from Jebel Barkal.  Our first views of the mountain and it's associated pyramid field were under the light of the full moon.  We were staying in the home of Murtada Bushara Mohamed, Antiquities Director of the Northern State and Curator of Jebel Barkal Museum.  He has a wonderful house!  It was very gracious of him to rent it to us for a few days.  Murtada's a great guy, and we've been talking back and fourth to each other some using the limited knowledge we each have of the other's language, and with Inspector Mahmoud as a translator.  There was a wedding party going on nearby our first, second and third nights which was loud and went on until early in the morning – sounded like a fun place to be and the music provided something nice to fall asleep to. 

On the morning of February 1^st, I went out Barkal early and snapped a few pictures from afar, then came back to Murtada's house for breakfast.  Later Justine, Deborah, Megan and I went to the mountain for a while and explored the opened temples.  This was nice, with two exceptions. One was the kids throwing rocks over the side of the mountain, the other was the gaffir who showed up out of nowhere with a policeman and demanded our permits to be there.  All was fixed when I said the name Mahmoud.  Everyone up here knows Mahmoud, and with him we're welcome at any archaeological site.  Not much later we went back to the house to go get lunch, then made it out to the Museum which Murtada runs.  Looked around there for a while, then we went to see the Naga temple at the base of Jebel Barkal, which is the only one for which a key is needed.  Bruce, Deborah, Justine and I walked all way around the mountain and visited the pyramid field, then we went back to the house where we met Geoff, Randy and Megan, who had just been about to leave to climb the mountain.  Justine and I joined them.  Left the mountain at sundown and went out for dinner. 

On February 2^nd we drove to el-Kurru, which at one time was a very nice place, but which now is heavily ruined, with only one pyramid remaining.  Spent some time looking in the two locked tombs there, then explored the site.  We were looking for a supposed massive city wall and cistern around a settlement site that Reiser mentioned having seen in 1917 with the intent of perhaps making a long term excavation there, but could not find any such thing.  Made friends with some of the kids down by the river.  One of the little boys thought we were picking up interesting rocks and kept bringing us fossilized wood and round pebbles until we finally found a few sherds and showed them to him.  After that we got thousands of sherds from him.  Perhaps he will be the next Murtada or Mahmoud. 

That afternoon I kind of took it easy for  awhile, until later when a few of us walked through the palm groves to the river.  Found a pottery production area where the guy was making aziri right by the river.  

February 3^rd we walked up by Barkal a little bit, looking for sherds again, we went to the souk to meet the Poles, and while we were there my friend Ali the Darfuri helped me find  rockin' pair of handmade Sudanese shoes.  Ali was a shoe merchant specializing in Chinese imported flip-flops and tennis shoes, but he was glad to practice his English talking to the khawaja and he took me to the back of the souk to another shoe merchant who didn't have his wares out in the open.  In the back of a dark warehouse cell, there was a box full of shoes.  I know my Arabic numbers just well enough to pick out my shoe size, and I came out with some good ones.  Finally the Poles showed up and took us out  to Hosh el Geruf.  The trip to Hosh el Geruf is about 30 miles.  It takes roughly two or three  hours by truck, over first the sandy Bayuda, then over the incredibly rocky terrain of the Fourth Cataract.  The site at Hosh el Geruf is good.  It's a settlement site that has Neolithic, Kerma and Christian period remains so far as we have seen.  Supposedly some Levoilois material has been found in the area as well, and we saw a chopper that looks.  Perhaps we'll find some really cool stuff like that.  Came back to Murtada's house for another night. 

Now it's February 4^th, the day after our trip to Hosh el Geruf.  Mahmoud, Geoff, Bruce, and Bomba have went back up there to get a house and other things like that set up.  Justine, Megan, Deborah, Randy and myself are all sitting around Murtada's house waiting on them to come back.  They left at 9:00am, it's now 5:45pm, so it looks like we'll be spending another night here under the shadow of Jebel Barkal.  I am actually a little worried.  It was very cold and windy this morning, and has been noticeably cooler today than in recent days.  Mahmoud said there may be a sandstorm.  We did not get one in Karima, but I am worried they may be trapped in one out in the desert.  

UPDATE:  They got in at 6:15

On the 5^th we rented a truck (imagine a large U-Haul with the box removed in favor of a flat bed with a cage) to take us from Kariema to Hosh El Geruf – it showed up at 1:00.  Actually we've rented a house about 2 km north of there in Manasir country.  Hosh El Geruf is kind of like the dividing line between the Manasir and the Shaggiya tribes.  The truck seemed fairly well equipped, sand pads were there, shovels, a water jug – all the things you need to survive in the desert.  SEEMED is the word.  We got our start heading north at around 1:45 pm, for what should be around a three hour trip.  Took a while to get out of Kariema.  Had to stop for gas and cruise around a bit to see if anyone wanted to go north with us.  One taker, and we're off at 2:15ish.  Geoff and I are riding on the bed of the truck, with the rest of our group in the Land Cruiser.  There are also three guys who came with the truck, Murtada, and our passenger.  Not far outside of town we dropped off the passenger and now we're in the rocky volcanic terrain of the cataract.  About 3:15 I hear the tire come off the bead of the wheel, and try as I may to ignore this dreaded sound, Geoff says "What was that noise?"  To which I reply "One of the tires is flat."  We stop the truck, the guys get out to verify that their tire is indeed flat.  They do have a spare tire.  What they don't have is a lug wrench.  This is no ordinary lug wrench.  Geoff doesn't understand why Bomba's won't work.  Well, Bomba has 20mm lugs.  The truck has like 50mm lugs.  A phone call is placed (we still get cell reception here), and the lug wrench is sent from Kariema.  We'll be waiting for it for maybe an hour.  A boksi comes by and the youngest of the guys who came with the truck gets in to go and try to intercept the car coming in with the wrench, so that he can show them how to get to the truck.  We tool around for a bit and it is decided that the Land Cruiser will go on while Geoff, Mahmoud and I wait with the truck for the wrench.  We sit.  For hours it seems.  Chit chat, look at rocks.  Whatever.  Finally Mahmoud makes a call for see what's up with this wrench.  Well the car delivering it got stuck in the sand.  Bad stuck, but they think that they've seen the truck and they aren't far away from us.  Another car has been sent, but it will take a while.  Murtada decides to go and try and help get the one near us un-stuck.  I decide to follow him after I realize what he's up to, but he's too far gone for me to keep up with.  I turned around after walking about three or four miles, with him always a mile ahead of me.  It is now getting close to dusk.  Eventually the car with the lug wrench shows up, BUT…….there's no lug wrench.  The guy who had left with the boksi had reached the stuck car and decided that it would be quicker if he took the wrench and hotfooted it back to us.  He has gotten lost in the desert with our lug wrench.  This is quickly becoming a very surreal dream.  It is now dusk.  The car that once had a big honking lug wrench in it goes to the top of the nearest closeby hill and starts flashing its lights and honking its horn.  Native desert dwellers go out and look for this kid who has evidently never left the big city of Kariema (pop. 30,000).  By the time it gets really dark he is found and we have our wrench.  Here's where it gets REALLY surreal.  The wrench is broken.  No way that wrench is getting any bolt off of anything.  The car that brought it takes it back for another one.  It's about 7:45.  It's time for me to just go to sleep.  I get a quarter of a cantaloupe thrust into my hand.  I eat it and fall asleep.  At about 8:45 another wrench shows up (the wonder that is the cellular telephone ensured that one was on its way before we sent the broken one back).  The truck is fixed.  We're on our way with a  very bumpy starlit ride through the desert.  We drive for a couple of hours, passing through towns that are being demolished to make way for the flood waters.  At one point we pass a dozer and I wave.  A car follows us quite some distance after that.  Uh oh.  Nothing came of it though, he followed us a few miles then gave up.  We hit Abu Haraz, home of our Polish benefactors at around maybe 12:15, the trip takes longer in the dark.  Got about an hour left to drive now.  "Hey wait a minute, isn't that our car?" We stop to see what's up and it's a good thing we did.  Our team members in the car had gone up to the house, where one of the Manasir tribal leaders had been waiting for us.  He had made it very clear that we were not to live in that house.  We were not to unload.  We could stay the night so long as we left at first light.  The team decided to split and head back to Abu Haraz.  When they got there certain illicit liquids were broken out.  They waited for us, getting drunker and more worried by the minute.  When we finally showed up we had whiskey thrust upon us and were told we could sleep in an abandoned house on the edge of the village.  We have a meeting with the Omdeh at 8:00 the next morning, don't be late. 

The rest of the story will have to come at another time,  probably it will be at least another week before I get anything up.  Excavations, fires and political intrigue

Just got back from Omdurman Souk, where we got gifts for friends and family and Justine got a thob and I got a shisha. 

So I was thinking of keeping this rather impressive beard that I seem to have developed somewhere, but last night Mahmoud's neice said that I look just like Chuck Norris.  This makes me think I may have to shave it off.  Chuck Norris may find out about this and kill me.  He is after all the most powerful force in the universe.

I'm currently posting a small selection of the over 1200 photos we've taken over the past two months.  See them here.  I'll label them and putthem on the flickr! map and whatnot as I get a chance.

That means "All finished."  Strangely enough, when I hear it I always think "Cthulu Halas" which is obviously not right.  Cthulu can never be finished. 

Got back to Khartoum last night later than we'd hoped and took a long shower.  The water from it was brown the whole time.  I'll use up all the hot water again tonight and hopefully that'll get all the Sahara cake off of me.  There are still a few dirty patches. 

I went forth into the desert and came back a lessser man.  About 35 pounds lighter, and bearded.  First time I've weighed 180 pounds in quite some time. 

Lots of adventures to be told of in the weeks to come including taking a moonlight sail across the Nile at 10 at night, Gebel Barkal, El Kurru, getting stuck for eight hours in the desert, getting kicked out of a village that I never saw, excavations at a boring site, excavations at an exciting site, fighting a fire in the village of Al Widay under the blood red moon of a total eclipse while hoping that our home wasn't the next to burn, safecracking, the Geopolitical implications of the fire and other political intrigue surrounding the fourth cataract of the Nile, KULTEP ATTACK!, swimming in the Nile, the trip back to Karima, the awfully long and bumpy road to Kerma, Tumbos, Nuri, and many other things.  For now I'l leave it at that and say tune in in a week or two for more of the story.  Gotta go to the National Musuem now.  We'll be back stateside late monday night.

Last night we got our first taste of Sudanese cuisine in Omdurman, which was great.  We've been eating in the hotel exclusively and it's mostly Greek or Italian inspired dishes.  We went to a local restaurant with some of our Polish collegues, the ones who are lending us a site until the Manasir problems die down.  At the restaurant, they brought out a variety of spicy meats and raw vegatables, along with bread loaves.  No plates or forks.  The idea is you rip off a peice of bread and use it to pick up some meat and vegatables, which you then dip into a sauce.  It was great!  Kinda freaked out some of the other guys though I think.

Caught a minivan taxi back to the hotel.  Left Omdurman ok, nad as we were getting on the bridge to cross the Nile back to Khartoum, the van started to slow down.  Right in the middle it stopped.  Sat ther for a second and it became clear that the van would no longer be moving that night.  Six of us got out and walked amond the traffic until we made it to the other side of the bridge.  Geoff steered the van, while the proprietor pushed.  Made it off the bridge ok and actually got the van started again.  We decided to pay the man and walk the rest of the way.  It was nice and cool at between 65 and 70 degrees.  A very plesant walk for about a mile or two, and then we decided to catch another cab, as it was getting late and we didn't want to walk through parts of town at 10:00 at night. 

We leave Khartoum today for parts to the north.  Looks like we'll be staying in Kaerima until Friday, and then (finally) getting out to our site.  We're now working on a Kerma settlement site, and unless things calm down in Dar al-Manasir we'll stay there the whole season probably.  If there's a written agreement between the Manasir and the Government, we may go ahead and go up to Shirri to do the survey.  Much is up in the air right now, and I'm told that this is normal. 

To other less urban parts of as-Sudan!