Gareth
Never heard of Bir Tawil? Well it is the “only” unclaimed piece of land on earth. Partly. Now whilst no government claims it a hell of a lot of weird folk do claim it. Ironically it is thus probably the most claimed piece of land on earth.
You will read a lot of people talking smack about Bir Tawil, either how they own it, plan to claim it, or just fake expertise. We’re gonna tell you the real story about Bir Tawil. We know because we’ve been there. We also know the people that live there. If you were thinking of visiting, or seizing Bir Tawil then you probably wanta read this.
What is the background of Bir Tawil
You can read an in depth analysis of that here, or we cam do you the dime store version.
At one point Sudan and Egypt were both British. Two maps were drawn whereby Bir Tawil was part of Egypt in one and the Hala’ib Triangle part of Sudan. Another map was drawn later whereby this was reversed. Turns out Bir Tawil is the shit bit. If you claim Hala’ib you don’t claim Bir Tawil, hence its moniker of the only unclaimed piece of land on earth.
Of course life is rarely that simple.
Lots of people claim the only unclaimed piece o land on earth
The world of Micronations is a funny one, but it is also home to people who take things very seriously. There are currently at least 5 groups that seriously claim Bir Tawil. All of them argue with each other and at least two threatened us after our trip.
To read more about the claimants to Bir Tawil click here.
The original who now styles himself King Heaton did it to make his daughter a princess. Cute eh? Well now he claims he is taking Saudi mercenaries there and said we should have paid him to visit. Never meet, or talk to your heroes.
Why did you plan a trip there?
I’m into weird places, it really is that simple. I am also involved in Lets Buy An Island, a project whereby we have crowdfunded buying a tropical island. Oh we also run it as a Micronation. Did I want to plant my little flag? Yes, I have to admit that I did.
Like funny countries click here.
Thus 8 fellow geeks were summoned and we headed off to be the men in no mans land.
Pyramids and stuff
We had kebabs in Khartoum before heading off to see pyramids. Turns out they got good ones in Sudan and even more than Egypt, but we were here for adventure and adventure would be coming up really soon.
A few days in we were speeding in our trucks through the dessert and onto the promised land of Bir Tawil when one of the cars broke down. Whilst sitting in the pipping hot heat of the dessert for 4 hours I remember thinking this was probably the worst things could get. Turns out I was wrong.
We eventually lost a car and ended up in a weird border settlement we called Mad Max Town. Why did we call it that? Because it looked like straight outa Thunderdome.
In hindsight though it was not only a cool little place, but set the mood perfectly for what was to transpire afterwards.
The final leg to Bir Tawil
With hindsight the final leg to Bir Tawil was relatively uneventful and we arrived just before sunset. We took some amazing photos and armed with our GPS knew we were the first tourist group ever to sleep in no mans land. The plan was to stay one more night and then leave.
I remember sleeping quite soundly that night and also in the knowledge that I had achieved something few had. Things were looking good.
People live in Bir Tawil
Not only do people live here, but they also have gold. People with gold tend not to like to share it. Whilst planting flags the next day an armed truck pulled up and told us to follow them. We did what we were told.
Around 30 minutes later we were in Bir Tawil town. Is it called that? Well it is by us. This was slightly more developed than Mad Max Town and had places to eat and even satellite phones. We were told to wait for the rival elders.
Waiting for said elders based all night and eventually we camped agin in the dessert.
Meeting the tribe
The tribe explained this was not only their land, but they did not fancy sharing it with anyone else, and was we there to steal their gold? In these situations just saying no isn’t enough.
I’ll leave out the real juice in the hope you buy our book “The Men In No Mans Land”, but eventually we had all made friends, a goat was killed (rather than us) and I got t play with a Russian assault rifle.
Alls well that ends well
So I cannot just claim Bir Tawil?
Assuming you’ve read this properly, no, no you cannot. the Ababa Tribe own it, they don;t want to share it and they have rather large guns.
Not gonna lie though, was a pretty epic trip…..
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