DOWN (UP) THE NILE

The Nile River puts an image into the head of even the most geography-ignorant person on Earth. It's amazing length and location put it at the center of human interaction and development since the beginning. Kingdoms and empires have fought for it and its lands as far back as history goes. The pyramids and treasures of Egypt will keep it on the tourist trail for as long as tourists keep touristing.

(Dhows on the Nile. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons/Jerzy Strzelecki)

It will not be hard to travel on the Nile in Egypt, for there are plenty of tourist cruises and hopefully less fancy boats further upriver. The Nile and the Egypt-Sudan border might create the most problematic aspect of this trip, but one that I cannot avoid. Even if I am able to secure a visa to Sudan while in Cairo (a process that could take weeks), the whims of a border guard could also set me back. And according to state department advisories, I should not even be thinking of such a thing to begin with.

(The greeting on WikiTravel.org)

Now, I am never one to listen to state department warnings, I feel like half the countries I have visited have had these blanket warnings on them from a racist and ignorant government bureaucracy just trying to cover its ass. I'm obviously not going to Darfur, but the Ethiopian border is one that I also have to cross, so I am guessing I will just have to do this by bus and not on any boat like I had originally thought to explore the possibilities of, at least up to the border.

Khartoum is a place I look forward to seeing, for sure. But I think I might actually consider getting into it from Egypt and out of it to Ethiopia as quickly as possible. More research is in the offer of course, and situations on the ground will ultimately dictate what happens, but for as much of its length as possible I will be in a boat traveling upriver.