Celebrations on Africa Road

Africa road is arguably the biggest road in town. It runs for about 6 or 7 km straight, along the west side of the airport and then down to southern Khartoum. It has two slow lanes to the South, then three fast lanes to the South, three fast lanes to the North and finally two slow lanes to the North. It totals 10 lanes separated by three islands running down the road. Its design is bordering on genius. To make a right or left hand turn, you need to go in the far left fast lane (you know the one that back home would be reserved for the *very fast* traffic), then make a U-turn into one of the three fast lanes going in the opposite direction, then drive down to the next hole in the island and make your way out into the slow lanes. All this obviously while cars are speeding around you in both directions at about 80-100 km/h.

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This post was going to be about the traffic in Khartoum, but it just got "hijacked" by the news.

Africa road is right now the "Champs-Elysees" for a constant stream of honking and blinking cars and buses, with people hanging out of every possible window or sunroof, standing in the back of pickups, waving Sudanese or NCP flags, laughing, cheering and whistling.

It has just been announced that the Sudanese army liberated Heglig town. Earlier today we got the news that the South Sudan army was withdrawing from the Heglig area. What all this means, no one can tell just yet. But hopefully this is a first step towards peace.

I was going to post a picture of the celebrations, but my 10-year experience in Africa tells me that it is never a good idea to take photos of soldiers waving AK47s at the back of a pickup truck, no matter how happy they seem.