February 19, 2008
Meroe pyramids: My favourite place in Sudan #1
It has taken a while. But I am finally starting to collect a small collection of “Favourite places in Sudan” to add to MeskelSquare's running list of “Favourite places in Ethiopia”. (See Ethiopia #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6.)
Here's the first. Meroe pyramids, about three hours drive out of Khartoum. You can stay in a beautiful but pricey Italian camp with breakfast and dinner thrown in. In the mornings and evenings, you can walk out across the desert, hike up sand dunes, kick at the strange metallic desert stones, explore the pyramids and try and read the 18th century graffiti mixed in with the ancient, ancient hieroglyphics.
As good as Lalibela in the way that, at any time of year, you can have a major historical site pretty much all to yourself (Sudan doesn't really do tourists).
Not as good as Lalibela in the way that the site is not still in active use. Also not as good as Lalibela in the way that nowhere can really be as good as Lalibela.
Posted by aheavens at February 19, 2008 3:53 PM
Comments
hey what happened to your links? bummer
Posted by: gedl at February 22, 2008 9:38 PM
wow, nice pictures!! meroe has historical importance to the ancient axum in ethiopia also. i believe axum empire controlled parts of that west, all the way east to yemen.
what you said about lalibela is sad but true. sadly there is virtually no tourism in ethiopia. we could have gained millions, almost as much as egypt, if our government invested on tourism.
some ethiopians do make good points with cultural shock and the negative cultural, moral affects of tourism (aka sex tourism) in india. should ethiopia avoid opening up lalibela because of that fear?? i don't know. what do you think about this dillema in third world nations??
thanks for the meroe pictures.
here are some nice pictures of lalibela http://jimmatimes.com/slideshow.cfm
Posted by: Ethioman at March 2, 2008 3:57 AM
I remember learning about Meroe back in grade school in Addis. Awesome. So there're pyramids from the Meroe.
Posted by: Tobian at March 9, 2008 2:23 AM