South Sudan: writing up the world's newest country

(Picture: Levison Wood; secretcompass.com)

We sailed across the Nile to Opekoloe Island early one morning, the tiny boat scattering river birds as it crept through the still-cool waters. Somewhere in the shallows a crocodile was lurking, though it kept a healthy distance, and a family of hippos wallowed near the bank, taking their first dip of the day. There was a cacophony of noises as creatures approached the river to feed and to fight: male baboons hooted and screeched to show us who was boss; vibrantly coloured Red Bishops and Little Bee-eaters filled the air with their squawks and tweets; and from the long, dry grass came the constant, excitable rasping of hundreds of horny crickets. A family of elephants, the remarkable survivors of years of unrestrained poaching and conflict, calmly lumbered towards us, as unconcerned by our presence as we were transfixed by theirs. Nowhere else we have travelled requires quite as much perseverance and tolerance of physical hardship, but nowhere else has offered quite the same combination of natural wonders and solitude.

Writing South Sudan was never going to be easy. The absence of historically settled communities has led to a shortage of man-made sites, while civil war and underdevelopment have hampered academic research that might have enhanced understanding of the area’s history, anthropology and even botany. This guide, therefore, is our starting point in understanding South Sudan. It’s an invitation to you to travel to the world’s newest country, to explore it, and to discover and ultimately share with others what for now is still largely unknown.

• Sophie and Max Lovell-Hoare are the authors of Bradt's 'South Sudan', the first mainstream guidebook to the world's newest country, which was published this month.

Sophie and Max Lovell-Hoare, the authors of the Bradt guide

Telegraph Offer

Bradt is offering Telegraph readers a 40 per cent discount on the South Sudan guide (including free postage). Order through the website (www.bradtguides.com^[1]) and quote the discount code TELEGRAPH40.

If you’re inspired to go to South Sudan, post-conflict travel specialists Secret Compass^[2] are running a 14-day expedition from February 2-14 2014.

Five of our highlights

Boma National Park

The largest reserve in Africa has a seasonal wildlife migration that rivals even that of the Serengeti. We watched awe-struck as well over a million antelope sprinted east in the spring, and elephants, giraffes and hippopotamuses followed on in their wake.

Jonglei Canal

The Jonglei Canal was one of the largest irrigation projects ever envisaged: 25 million cubic metres of water carried the distance from London to Paris. Each digger was larger than the Channel Tunnel’s boring machines, and the canal was two-thirds complete when civil war broke out in 1983. Bees have now colonised the bucket-wheel excavator, and a leopard lives in the pilot’s cabin, making for a surreal, somewhat apocalyptic scene.

Bor Wrestling

South Sudan’s tribes pride themselves on prowess in the wrestling ring, and as the sport takes its first tentative steps from traditional rivalry to professional sport, you can join in the action each weekend at Bor’s Freedom Square. Like us, you can expect to be pulled into the ring and to end up face down in the dust: defeat is inevitable, so just laugh and enjoy it.

Dinka Cattle Camps

Cattle are central to South Sudan’s herding communities, and their possession denotes not only wealth and prestige but is also central to the marriage contract. We visited herds in Jonglei up to a thousand strong, tended by young boys who take them to pasture.

(Picture: Levison Wood; secretcompass.com)

The Nile

Our visions of the Nile typically come from Egypt; in South Sudan, it’s a different beast entirely. White water winds down from the hills and through lush, jade-green surroundings before splitting a thousand ways into the marshy wetlands of the Sudd, where fisherman and diverse birdlife thrive.

References

1. ^{^} www.bradtguides.com (www.bradtguides.com)
2. ^{^} Secret Compass (www.secretcompass.com)