Just downstream from the bridge was a slightly tired looking amusement park, normally this wouldn’t have been somewhere we would have visited, however after spying the ancient Ferris wheel slowly turning towards the sky an idea started to form in our heads, so we paid our entrance fees to the sleepy man behind the gate and made a beeline for the rusty attraction…

Pockets full of cash, we headed deeper into the airport complex towards the alien registration department which was counter-intuitively located in the departure hall.  Thanks to a helpful chap who had followed us from the money changing office, we were able to swan through the various security checkpoints with a combination of smiles and elaborate handshakes until we came to the correct office, where we were introduced to a stern looking soldier with a chest full of medals and impressing looking epaulettes…

Our luck had seemingly run out, and it looked like we would be spending our first night in Sudan sleeping on the streets of Khartoum.  If I was more of a religious person this might have been the time to send up a quiet prayer for guidance; instead I decided to employ the tried and tested combination of chronic optimism and the genuine belief that the universe has a way of ensuring that everything will work out in the end…

We knew that today’s journey was going to be a lengthy one; not only did we need to cross a potentially tricky international border, but we also knew that in order to get our visas fully validated we would need to get to Khartoum which was over 750km away from where we currently were, we weren’t even sure if it was going to be possible, but if nothing is ventured, then nothing is gained, so with bleary eyes we headed out into the dark streets to look for the first of many of today’s transport types...

We clambered into the rugged Toyota, and headed for the park gates along the now familiar bumpy, dusty roads.  It took an hour or so to reach the park gates, and as soon as we entered the park we weren’t disappointed.  Almost immediately we drove past the endemic Gelada baboons, only found in the Ethiopian highlands.  These hilariously fluffy species of Old World monkeys were beautiful, but paled in insignificance to the scene which had appeared before us... 

Embracing the unexpected is one of the best things about travel and adventure.  Accepting that even the best laid plans will often not work out exactly as expected can be difficult, but the resultant experiences are often some of most interesting and most memorable, like the time I became a pool shark in rural Ethiopia...