When a friend asked if I was
interesting in joining her and some friends on a day trip to the pyramids at
Meroe I jumped at the chance. So early in the morning Rachel and I were met by
a van of people, mostly friends, and some new faces. The drive to Bejwarriah
was somewhere between 3 and 4 hours north of Khartoum. Other than a brief visit
to a farm a few weeks ago, this was my first time traveling outside Khartoum.
The scenery on the drive was spectacular. In the morning it was quite foggy and
the grey sky sat on the semi-arid desert landscape which we drove through.
Other than a few check points, gas stations, and a few clusters of shops the
scenery was open, endless flat horizon sparsely scattered with trees. This was
Africa.
We ended up going to three sites. When
we arrived to the first site, we jumped out of the van ready to explore. It was
a bit breezy and not too hot. Its winter in Sudan too making it the perfect
time to visit. The second site was “The Royal City.” It was really surreal to
be at these archaeological sites. I’ve seen many “Ancient Egypt” exhibits at museums
and I really felt like I could imagine the artifacts I had seen in museums in
these places. It also was pretty cool being the only visitors around. At the third site just as the van pulled up, I saw men off in the distance riding camels towards us. They ended up lining up and selling us a ride up to the pyramid site and back(only 20SDG!). Riding a camel was sort of terrifying at first, but my friends mom kept yelling "Relax! Relax!" The hardest part is when the camel goes to sit you are flung forward and feel like you'll go flying off the front of the saddle, but I managed ok. Riding a camel in a skirt is hard!
Brief info about "the pyramids" most of which I got from Google and from what people told me. There are more than 230 known pyramids in Sudan. They are significantly smaller and steeper than the ones in Egypt. Most were built between the 8th Century B.C.E. and the 4th Century C.E. The ancient Nubian people stretched across south Egypt into northern Sudan.They established the Kingdom of Kush. They settled along the lower Nile. Some Italian treasure hunters damaged the tops of most of the pyramids because they were told the gold was hidden there. There was no known major event that ended the civilization (i.e. famine, disease, war) and it is believed it just faded away over time. While doing my "research" I found out the pyramids of Meroe are listed as a UN World Heritage Site, so that's pretty cool too. For more: pyramids, history Wikipedia. K enough blabbering on to the main attraction MORE PICTURES.
