Things to Do in Sudan in May

The Royal Pyramids of Meroe sit about 200 kilometres (125 miles) northeast of Khartoum in the Bayuda Desert, and in May the only way to experience them responsibly is to arrive at first light. Leave Khartoum by 3 AM or, better, overnight at one of the sparse camps near the site. By 5:30 AM the pyramids emerge from the grey pre-dawn as black silhouettes, then turn amber, then almost white as the sun climbs. The sand is still cool enough to walk on barefoot. You will hear nothing but wind. Over 200 pyramids cluster across three sites here, steeper and more compact than their Egyptian counterparts, many still bearing the carved chapel entrances where Kushite kings were honoured. By 9 AM the ground temperature makes standing still uncomfortable, and by 10 AM you should be back in shade. But that four-hour window at dawn, alone among structures built 2,700 years ago, is one of the most arresting experiences available anywhere in northeast Africa.

Port Sudan is Sudan's window onto one of the least-dived reef systems on Earth. The Red Sea here has not been loved to death the way Sharm el-Sheikh or Hurghada have. Sanganeb Atoll, a UNESCO Marine National Park about 30 kilometres (19 miles) offshore, drops vertically into blue water alive with hammerhead sharks circling in the current. Sha'ab Rumi still holds the rusted cage of Cousteau's Conshelf II experiment, now encrusted with soft corals and patrolled by giant Napoleon wrasse. In May, water temperatures hover around 29 degrees Celsius (84 degrees Fahrenheit), currents are manageable, and visibility can stretch past 40 metres (130 feet) on a clear day. The heat onshore in Port Sudan itself is fierce, the air thick with salt and the smell of drying fish along the harbour. But you are spending most of your daylight hours underwater where none of that matters. Liveaboard boats run multi-day itineraries that keep you offshore and sleeping in sea-breeze cabins rather than sweltering hotel rooms.

Khartoum only becomes habitable for walking after sunset. The city comes alive once the heat breaks. By 7 PM the temperature has dropped enough that the streets around the Omdurman souk begin to fill, the charcoal grills fire up, and the smell of cumin-rubbed lamb shaya and fresh kisra, the spongy fermented sorghum flatbread that is Sudan's national staple, drifts from open-front restaurants along the Nile corniche. This is where you eat in Sudan. Ful medames for the adventurous late supper, slow-cooked fava beans mashed with sesame oil, lemon, and crumbled white cheese, served in a communal dish you tear into with rounds of bread. The jebena coffee ceremony, where green beans are roasted over coals in front of you until the smoke goes from grassy to nutty, then brewed in a clay pot with cardamom and sometimes ginger, is a nightly social ritual, not a tourist performance. The National Museum of Sudan on El Neel Avenue houses rescued Nubian temple interiors and pharaonic artefacts that rival anything in Cairo. In May's low season you may well be the only visitor in the galleries. Cross the White Nile bridge to Omdurman at dusk. The Khalifa's House museum and Mahdi's Tomb catch the last copper light off the water.

Jebel Barkal is a flat-topped sandstone mesa rising 98 metres (322 feet) from the desert floor near the town of Karima, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Khartoum. The ancient Egyptians considered it the home of the god Amun. The Kushite kings who later ruled from here carved temples directly into its base. The Temple of Mut, tucked into a cleft in the rock face, still holds painted reliefs visible by torchlight. Climbing the mesa at dawn, which takes roughly 30 to 40 minutes on a scramble path, rewards you with a view over the Nile's great bend, palm groves, and a scatter of small pyramids at the mountain's foot. In May the rock radiates stored heat even before sunrise. Bring gloves if you are scrambling. Be descending by 8 AM. Karima itself is a slow, sand-coloured town where the loudest sound at noon is a ceiling fan. The Nile here runs wide and quiet enough that you can hear the water moving against the banks. The nearby necropolis at El-Kurru, where early Kushite rulers were buried, receives almost no visitors in any month, let alone May.

Suakin was once the most important port on the African Red Sea coast, the departure point for pilgrims crossing to Mecca and a coral-block trading city that handled ivory, slaves, and spices for centuries. Then Port Sudan was built 60 kilometres (37 miles) to the north in 1909. Suakin was simply abandoned. What remains is extraordinary and eerie: coral-stone buildings in various stages of elegant collapse, Ottoman-era merchants' houses with carved wooden balconies hanging over empty streets, and a silence broken only by waves slapping against the old harbour wall and the occasional call of a fishing hawk. The salt air and humidity off the Red Sea are slightly kinder here than Khartoum's baking dryness, though May is still punishingly warm. The ruins on Suakin Island, connected to the mainland by a causeway, are the core of the site. Turkish and Qatari restoration projects have stabilised some structures. Much of the city crumbles a little more each year. The sense of walking through a place that time is actively reclaiming is unlike anything else on the continent. Go in the early morning when the coral walls glow pink in the low light.