The 39C degrees in Khartoum, Sudan, is quite bearable because the heat is dry. A little sand storm makes the air dusty -- you cannot see the other bank of the Nile from the top of the Egg hotel built by the Lybian neighbour Gadaffi years ago. For a visitor Khartoum is welcoming and secretive at the same time. The women are gloriously dressed and wrapped, either hailing a rikshaw in a street corner or on a ride on a back seat of an air-conditioned new white SUV. Men are renting out plastic chairs in the evening to sit and chat by the empty plots near the Nile river. River banks ar filled with walkers who walk in a cool evenenig breeze and sip tea they buy from tea women. I am advised not to go out on a walk on my own.
