Nubia Sudan

Overview

This time, Maya Tsoclis takes us to Sudan, the biggest country of Africa, unfortunately connected only with wars and humanitarian crises. The journey begins from the capital, Khartoum, situated on the confluence of the Blue and White Nile rivers, in a strategic position. When Mohammed Ali conquered the region, he appreciated this position, and contributed to the city's development to an important trading centre in the mid-19th century.
Maya will explore Khartoum and meet with the ever-present Greek community. She visits the school which now houses only 40 children and meets Greek entrepreneurs who seem optimistic about the future.

Soon after, she takes off, riding a 4x4 to the north, for a journey that will last ten days and will lead her to Wadi Halfa, near the Egyptian border. This journey has many things in store: cross-desert trips, visits to villages with wonderful architecture, night-stays in the homes of hospitable families and unexpected archaeological sites, since Sudan was, for thousands of years, the meeting point between the people of central Africa and the Mediterranean world…
In ancient times, today's northern Sudan was known as Nubia. Maya Tsoclis travels to this unknown, to most of us, region. Nubia had been conquered by the Egyptians, who left their indelible mark in the region, and led to the birth of the Kush civilization, which survived until the 4th century B.C. Later, there came the Christian missionaries but also, the Muslim Arabs, who established Islam. African tribes settled in these vast expanses before the Egyptians appear once again, during the 19th century, together with the English.

The program crosses the Bayouda Desert, offering landscapes so pure that they sweep away the garbage of our western routine; Maya visits Byzantine excavation sites full of Greek inscriptions, climbs up Amun's Throne in Jebel Barkal and discovers the fascinating architecture of this region. It's an adventurous journey reminds us the real meaning of hospitality.
Maya travels to northern Sudan and visits the most impressive archaeological excavation site in the world: in Kerma, the renowned Swiss archaeologist Charles Bonnet oversees dozens of Nubian workers who, with modest tools, uncover the history of their country. The journey continuous through villages of extraordinary architecture. Maya crosses the Nile, visits Egyptian temples and after many adventures, she arrives in Wadi Halfa, the frontier Sudanese town, which sank under the waters of the lake Nasser. The lake and the Aswan Dam, which created it, are thought to be the greatest achievement of Egypt, that managed to harness nature while, at the same time, it saved many temples, such as Abu Simbel or the monuments of the Philae island. However, no one's talking about the consequences that this dam has brought upon the cultural wealth of Sudanese Nubia, where monuments and villages disappeared forever. Our show sails across the lake, makes a tour around Aswan, in Egypt, and sails up the mythical Nile until it reaches the popular tourist site of Luxor.