We had to say goodbye to our travel companion Alan because his Land Cruiser was too long for the ferry into Sudan and suddenly we were no longer in a team. Before us still lay though, unemotionally, the Nubian desert with its 600 km of sand. Late that night we've got the Landy out of customs and asked ourselves the perhaps most important question of this trip - can we cross the desert on our own? Of course we can.

To gain some cold hours we left Wadi Halfa early in the morning and headed straight for the train station, there are no roads in the desert and having no GPS with us the only reference was to follow the railway. We soon found out that the sand was too soft for our tires (mud terrains) so two alternatives were left: to try to drive quickly with less air in the tires but still get bogged sometimes, or literally drive on the railway at the speed of 20 km/h.

After 11 hours of rattling railway driving we achieved 197 km, two millimeters per hour on the Michelin map. So we stopped at Station Six which at least was in the map with the promising mark "good water". It turned out to be a tiny village with 10 inhabitants who take care of the station and its weekly train, very friendly people who welcomed us with tea and were happy for us spending the night there. And there we were, slow but steady.