08-Jul-2005 -- Having visited two Confluences in India, I was looking forward to one more, especially due to the fact that this was in another country and another continent, viz. Sudan, Africa. I am here as a part of the United Nations Mission in Sudan as a Peacekeeper. Being based at al-Ubayyiḍ, and having settled in, the closest Confluence was this one.

Friday is a holiday and so three of us, viz. Jorund Skaali, a senior citizen of Norway, Sajish and me (from India) planned the trip for this day. The region is a semi-desert as you can see from the pictures posted and off-road driving, too, is not much of a worry, as the ground is pretty firm. We started off in the morning at 0700 hours and followed the road that leads out of the town, due south.

After travelling about 30 km, we got off the road, as the GPS was indicating to move west. There had been some rainfall here, as was evident from the softness of the ground and some wet patches. Our pickup cruised on the terrain and we made easy progress except for a few detours that we had to make to avoid the farms and a few hutments. The terrain was flat and the going was very easy.

We stopped about 100 metres short of the point and then proceeded on foot. Finally, we arrived at the point. We shook hands, clicked the pictures and also met up with the locals who were grazing their camels. The only fauna that we saw were tame camels and sheep. The flora, too, was mainly scrub bushes with an occasional tree. On the road back we stopped along side the road to click a picture of a huge tree which appeared to be pretty old.

All in all, it was a nice field trip and we can claim that this visit was a nice outing for the peacekeepers. This was also a very good way of going around the countryside to meet the locals and increase the knowledge of the area and the people that live here and make them aware of the United Nations presence.