We thought we had the problem solved after being given a contact in Sudan who would officially invite us. Howver, it appears that this person is 'out of favour' with the current government. By a massive stroke of luck we met the son of the former sudanese ambassador to egypt outside the embassy. He's an extremely interesting guy who has gone out of his way to help us and we hope to collect the visas tomorrow.

If this goes according to plan we'll head to luxor for a bit of sight seeing, then down into Aswan. This is where another hurdle appears. To enter sudan by car we need to get a cargo ship down the nile. Not exactly romantic as it is a cement boat that operates at no fixed timetable and charges an incredible 1, 300 english pounds for the trip. We need to find equally insane people such as ourselves to cut down the expenses as it is way beyond our budget.

One major concern since early on is Landy. Ever since the early breakdown in Switzerland our confidence in him is never 100%. We broke down in the western sahara and luckily managed to steer him to an army check point. If it happens in somewhere like Sudan or Ethiopia we might not be so lucky.

Route wise we have a basic plan through to Tanzania, after which we have 3 choices, depending on what roads are open, time and money etc.

As with any trip we both have our ups and downs but having been through so much just to get to this point we are both more determined than ever to finish. It's strange spending so much time together (pretty much every waking day and night)and we pretty much know when one of us wants to be left alone. Obviously, we miss family, girlfriends and friends and general home comforts that are not associated with sleeping in the back of a landrover.

We did have some serious concerns about travelling in the middle east and, at one point the trip looked doomed, but we have travelled through without any hassel from anyone. In fact people in this region, especially Jordan, are so genuinely helpful it is unreal. We have had people take hours of there time just to help us out with a number of things. Mr bin laden is generally viewed as the guy who destroyed tourism.