Explorer: Pyramids by the Nile. Egypt? No, Sudan.

Ashraf Shazly/Agence France-Presse

An Italian explorer removed the tops of pyramids at Meroe in 1834 in hope of finding treasure.

"HOW much for your fastest camel?" I asked the tall man with the large turban and the drooping mustache.

Abdrahman smiled at me. "Come," he said, and hurried off behind a mud-and-stick shed. There, regally posed, with a golden coat, stood Abrusa.

Abdrahman lowered the camel to his knees and pointed to me. "You ride," he said, waving a wooden switch in my face. With little choice I threw a leg over the great beast — and remembering Lawrence of Arabia — wrapped my left knee around the saddle horn and hooked my instep behind my other knee. Abdrahman snapped his switch, and Abrusa lurched to his feet. Suddenly we were tearing across the desert.

Abrusa had a smooth gait (for a camel), and after finally heeding my incessant yanking on the reins, he spun and returned to his master. Abdrahman greeted me like a proud father.

"For you," he beamed, "only 5,000 pounds."

In a world of troubled places, Sudan, Africa's third largest country, has a reputation as among those most troubled. The mention of Darfur conjures immediate images of atrocity and starvation. Border and oil disputes with the newly created South Sudan have been perpetuating strife that has continued virtually unabated for more than 50 years. Late last month, the presidents of Sudan and South Sudan signed an agreement that is expected to lead to the resumption of oil exports, though just about everyone who watches the area closely expects tensions to continue.

No danger seeker, I'd come to Sudan with Will Jones, who, with his company, Journeys by Design, runs a guiding service to many of Africa's top destinations. He was on an exploratory trip to Sudan, and I had come to tag along.

We were intent on exploring the remote — and safe — northern region of the Nubian Desert, clustered with more pyramids than Egypt and nearly unvisited by outsiders. But more than any particular destination, I was interested in the people. I was curious to see how they lived with so much strife for so long. I wondered what effect it might have had on them.

A hot, dry wind blew as I stood under a large mahogany tree on the banks of the Blue Nile in the heart of Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. Not far off to my left, at a bend in the river, was the confluence of the Blue and White Nile that would flow like an umbilical cord through the desert north to where we were headed, then into Egypt and eventually the Mediterranean. My first impression of Khartoum was of order and a cleanliness on the streets that I hadn't often experienced in other parts of Africa. The roads were well paved and the ubiquitous plastic bags that litter so much of the continent were nowhere in sight.

"Believe it or not," Will told me as we strolled along the river, "Sudan is a real emerging destination."

But since South Sudan seceded in 2011, reliable tourism numbers for the two countries are hard to find. I saw only a handful of obvious outsiders during my entire stay. A report submitted to the International Council on Monuments and Sites indicated that just 6,000 tourists and visitors a year came to Meroe, the location of the pyramids.

We walked past taxi drivers kneeling beside their battered cabs on small rugs, supplicating themselves in prayer. Under a bridge, on a dirt plateau, dozens of low plastic tables and stools were filled with women in colorful dresses and head scarves, and men in short sleeves or white djellabas, drinking tea; many were smoking, all talking quietly. We took a seat at the informal cafe, and a small boy brought us two glasses of the oversweetened tea that was served everywhere in Sudan. In the water below, two men sculled up the river, their oars in unison, while up on the far bank an old man silently herded a dozen bony cattle.

"This is not what I expected," I said.

Will nodded. "Quite peaceful, isn't it?"

We headed over to Souk Omdurman, the city's largest market. The narrow alleyways and covered passages swarmed with life. Old men sat beside piles of shoes and garlic and heaps of bananas. Young boys bent over sewing machines. Gas cans were filled with drinking water for anyone thirsty. An old lady served us tea, heaping three tablespoons of sugar into a tiny cup. Men swatted flies away from countertops covered in meat — a typical East African market lacking only the tension of similar bazaars I had experienced in Ethiopia or Tanzania.

Late in the day I headed alone deeper into the Omdurman. The streets were more chaotic, and dustier. Men were piled into the holding beds of small white pickup trucks that belched black smoke as they went. Donkeys pulled carts loaded with wood, or scrap metal. Outside the tomb of the medieval Sufi sheik Hamed al Nil, the late afternoon sun slashed across a dirt lot beside a dusty cemetery. An informal crowd was gathering.

ANDREW McCARTHY is a writer and actor who is the author of "The Longest Way Home: One Man's Quest for the Courage to Settle Down" (Free Press 2012).

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