Penryn pensioner Tony Clarke is back on his travels, making his way south to Africa and is keeping Packet readers up to date with his exploits in a series of articles. This is his fifth instalment.

Many times during my enforced stay in Aswan, Egypt, I was promised that the Land Rover would be loaded onto a barge heading down the Nile to Wadi Halfa in Sudan. I waited 30 days, and finally the vehicle was squeezed onto an already overloaded vessel and set off on its three-day journey downriver. I was to follow a few days later on the overcrowded and dirty passenger ferry.

The passenger ferry to Wadi Halfa is notorious both to locals and to overlanders alike. It is supposed to take 18 hours but in reality it takes two days. Below decks are hard wooden bench seats which, I was informed vehemently, were only for Arabs; I was directed to the bare top foredeck, where I resided and tried to sleep.

Upon arrival at Wadi Halfa I was pleased to see my Land Rover still on the barge. However, the vessel had been moved away from the unloading stage to allow the passenger ferry to unload, and as this was a Thursday I realised that it was not going to be a speedy exodus into Sudan. I was right - even with the efficiency of my fixer, Kamal, the unloading and formalities took five days. I had already come to terms with the lack of urgency in this world of heat and sand.

I checked into the best hotel in town. It was filthy. There was no running water, and of course no air conditioning - not even a fan. At night the room was hot enough to cook bread. I had no option but to take the old dirty mattress outside into the yard and sleep there, along with a visiting football team.

The water that was used in the town came straight from the Nile, and was brown in colour. I boiled it in my small electric kettle - it killed the bacteria, but the colour remained brown. I subsisted on the coffee and biscuits I had brought with me, as I'd already suffered with intestinal problems twice and did not want a repeat.

Eventually the Land Rover was released, and this time at no great expense. I was very happy to be back on the road again. It was only three miles to the Nubian desert road which would take me on to the capital, Khartoum.

On my 69th birthday I found myself in the interior of the scorching desert, with the Land Rover up to its axle in fine white sand. With the air temperature over 40oC, I felt my physical strength sap away. I had reached an age when, without doubt, I should know my limits. By sheer luck I was rescued by a maintenance team from a nearby power plant, who helped me get the vehicle back onto the strip dirt road, and I was able to set off once more on the long road south.

When I reached Khartoum, I found a city that has a modern downtown with high-rise tower blocks, but the majority of citizens live in the suburbs in a hotchpotch of single storey homes and makeshift slums, surviving without running water or main sewerage. The roads are a chaotic maze, the atmosphere sultry, hot and humid; a fine red dust hangs in the air and covers everything, turning the sunsets a deep crimson.

Huge tracts of Sudan are dry - not just without water, but also without alcohol. There are serious consequences for anyone, tourists or locals, who buys, sells or consumes alcohol. It is difficult to think of anything cheerful to say about Sudan; it is a serious place where ancient laws apply and misdemeanours are punished with amputation or public whipping.

After Khartoum the landscape transforms dramatically from dry dusty desert to a rich black dark earth with green, fertile pastures and huge fields planted with vegetables. It is obvious that from here to the Ethiopian border all farming activity is run by corporations or government. There are few villages or communities of any kind. I am told by locals that, with single cropping and a shortage of natural predators due to the vast land clearances, more and more chemicals are being used in an effort to control the indigenous bugs.

Eventually I arrived in the border town of Metema. It was hot, dusty and boisterous, teeming with people and traffic, the roads full of potholes. Touts ran after the Land Rover offering their help to clear customs and immigration.

With all the formalities complete, my fixer Ali and I shared a drink on the Ethiopian side; at last I was able to enjoy a cold beer. Ali, being Muslim, had to be satisfied with a coke. I paid him US$5, and we parted promising to be lifelong friends.

How different Ethiopia is now from when I first visited it in 1974, in the final days of Haile Selassie's rule. This country is an agricultural miracle, a symbol of human resilience. With 90 million people, and half as many cattle, goats and sheep - most of them on the road, it seemed, reducing my speed to 20mph - the countryside is green and fertile, with numerous mud hut villages lining the excellent tarmac road. The sounds and sights of family life and friendly communities were evident everywhere, the people well fed, with their small agricultural holdings and livestock; children waved to me as I passed; smiles on faces showed a contentment I had not seen since leaving Europe. But the victim of this prosperity is the wildlife, which has been pushed either to extinction or to national parks.

By contrast the capital city, Addis Ababa, is shabby and unmaintained, where any quality of life and spirit of humanity lies buried beneath the ugly sprawl of concrete, the open drains, and piles of building waste which block the roads - clear evidence of ongoing corruption.

And now I face a new, serious challenge - Ebola. As an overlander, how will this affect my journey? Will I be allowed to cross borders, will they close behind and before me? I am soon to find out.