We were awoken at 1am by donkey. The electricity in Wadi Halfa had just gone off and there was obviously one poor donkey scared of the dark. This place is crawling with donkeys. There are less camels, partly due to us eating one for lunch yesterday. Not quite beef, not quite lamb, and fairly chewy. After breakfast on the boat it tasted like the finest sirloin.

On the ferry we had been ousted from our deck space next to the bridge after 15 hours of being there. Rick staged a sit-in protest. In other words he remained doing what he had for the previous 15 hours. Breakfast on a metal tray of beans and oil with salad and an egg was unpleasant. We had our passports collected off us by Sudanese officials in a small cabin and added to an enourmous pile of passports on a bed. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason for this but we were promised them back in Wadi Halfa.

The boat docked and we waited. Ian went fishing and we waited. After an hour there was movement and we headed for the gangway over loose baggage, humans and other debris. We then found out we needed to collect our passports on board. Back we went over the debris to mayhem in the dining room with officials trying to find owners of 300 passports. It took a while.

So much for my concerns about being out of touch in Sudan. There was a huge phone mast and Wadi Halfa has more mobile phone shops than Weymouth. There are two hotels in town it seems and unless we have missed a Travelodge or similar, we are in the better one. Let me rephrase that. We are in the slightly less gruesome one. When you are paying under 2 pounds for a bed and still feel you are over paying, you know it can't be good. Mud brick walls and, by the feel of it, mud brick mattresses. We chose the Deffin Toad Hotel over the Wadi Halfa Hotel because it had showers. Well, it has the pipe work in place but no water. The alternative was a bucket of cloudy water in a squalid dark room. After a few days without a shower it was a necessity.

With the expected lack of nightlife and the previous disturbed night on the ferry I settled down early for another disturbed night. We have no glass in our window, just metal shutters. The streets are full of chatting Arabs, dogs and other noisy wildlife.

The following morning we were met by Mazar Mahir some sort of Sudanese fixer. He took us to show us the delights of the local police station. It costs you 60 Sudanese pounds and 2 hours of your life for the honour of registering as an alien. I am now a bona fide alien as confirmed by the chief of police. As I waited, they treated me to half an hour of the Sudanese version of songs of praise. Its a bit happier and clappier than our version with Arabic scripture and pictures of Mecca instead of Shrewsbury Cathedral and their Aled Jones has a better tan.

In the afternoon we went shopping to the local market looking for sunglasses, shorts and leaf springs for a Bristol VR. As Bill wandered round the back of a building what did he stumble across but some discarded leaf springs! Now we just need a bus to fit them to. I'm sure it will arrive soon, they did promise this evening.