The Pyramids of Meroe

My Swiss friends Dominik and Marianne from the Wadi Halfa ferry showed up at the Blue Nile Sailing Club and so we decided to visit the Meroe Pyramids together. They are situated about 3 hours drive north-west of Khartoum on a hilltop, looking much like a row of crocodile teeth. The pyramids are in fact a royal burial ground dating from the period800BC - 280BC built by the Kushites. Meroe was the southern capital of the Kushite Kingdom. They are smaller and more numerous than the Egyptian pyramids, on which they are based.

We arrived in darkness just after sunset and walked in what we hoped was the right direction until we found a suitable place to camp on top of a sanddune. It was a perfect, warm, cloudless night and before getting into my tent, I took great pleasure in staring up at the Milky Way - looking like a big smudge across the sky. We guessed the pyramids were somewhere nearby, but it would not be until sunrise that we would find them

Sure enough, the sun rose and we spotted the pyramids about 500m away from us. We spent the next few hours playing Indiana Jones. It really felt like that, as we had the entire site to ourselves. Afterwards, we headed to the main road and flagged down a bus back to Khartoum.