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King Air wing over the south of Sudan. Beautiful Green... Swamp! "Sudd" in Arabic means "Swamp" and/or "Barrier".
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Every square meter of land needs to be reclaimed from the swamps. Every road and other brownish patches are man made.
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Exploratory drill rig
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Tar Jath camp with the airport hangar in the background.
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Bomb shelter with attendants..., an omnious reminder that a war was fought in this area recently.
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A swamp "buggy", the pontoons float if need be. On top is the helicopter landing pad.
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No. Not Everglades... South of Sudan.
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Cute... Weird swamp vehicle. About the right size for a Hippo snack...
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On the flight back to Khartoum... Hills! Whoa! So the whole of Sudan is not completely flat.
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An Mi-26T at Khartoum airport. The biggest helo in the world. Just look at the people standing under the tail-rotor...
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Say again callsign...?
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I have no idea!
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The 2nd exploratory drilling in the Dinder area.
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Container's bedroom at the Dinder drill rig camp. All you need for life in the middle of nowhere.
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Anybody got a spare?
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Drill rig being broken down....
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... and two weeks later up and running again 50 km away.
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The lakes in front were created by excavating the soil neccesary to raise the Thar Jath main camp in the back.
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Big time construction.
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Power station that will power the whole Thar Jath areas wells and separation facilities.
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A new oil well being connected to the extraction pipeline.
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The pipeline taking the crude to Port Sudan 3500 km away.
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Swamp....
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Swamp...
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... and more swamp. The reeds are tall enough to hide adult elephant bulls.
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Papyrus reeds are collected, dried and shipped up to Khartoum on barges.
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A fishing family. They build up a raft to live on, as it rots away they just add more
reeds on top.
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UN collecting drums?
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Another white elephant... A clinic and school build in the middle of nowhere... Probably some dogooder's idea of aid.
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Rhubkona. "Home Sweet Home" for a while.
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It's not as if a long line was going to "protect" me should the 450 kg of powder decide to blow...
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212 moving the portable recorder (1100 kg)
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An unwilling passenger!
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Smile everybody.
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