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| Craig : 12 March 2007 : Ferry from Aswan, Egypt The boat's horn has just blasted very loudly a few times...furious volleys of instructions/information/castigation? are blaring from the PA system and we may soon be on our way? (We've been on board for some 7hours now, though we may still be getting off lightly if you hear some of the stories!) We're OFF! Egypt is not officially finished and we have in fact passed through Sudanese passport control already, though believe there is still some red-tape to deal with on the other side! While queuing for the x-ray machine at check-in, I spotted another cyclist with a bright yello bicycle and well co-ordinated dark-blue Ortlieb panniers...he looked very well stocked compared to our pared down packing weights. (Add to that an impressive tan that indicated the numerous miles of cycling he had already undertaken and he seemed a bit daunting as a character!?) He turned out to be Russell Urwin (www.rusty-rambles.blogspot.com), a british cyclist who had started from his home in North London and was en route to visit his sister in Oman and so had to skirt around the Arab Emirates to get there, and dispelled any thoughts I'd had with his immediately friendly, easy-going nature! Russell set up "camp" with us on deck, under a life-boat and we discussed riding through the desert together and on to Khartoum... There was plenty of shouting going on about us...men were shuffling back and forth with impossibly large packages, boxes of fruit, tv's, fridges (!) and personal luggage. Some seemed to be trying to get their parcels back off the boat (?), and most just barged through, oblivious to whoever may be in their path! Already our bikes have ben used as supports for a temporary structure mad from blankets and ropes to keep out the harsh sun. We do similarly and string up my groundsheet to add to our shade... ANAS OSMAN is a dark skinned, grinning, hulk of a man! He is returning from business in Cairo, to his home in Khartoum. He invites me to join him, and his friend Mohammed for dinner and we have a lengthy conversation...discussing differences between Egypt and Sudan (including the better quality of Sudanese teeth!)...ending with an offer of a place to stay when we arrive in Khartoum! Sudanese people seem to me very friendly and helpful people...let's hope it's a good sign for what to expect! |
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Simon : 10 March 2007 : Shadowing the Nile We did little in Qena apart from eat, sleep and hold broken conversations with the locals over tea. Sit down and within minutes you have the first tentative questions, more people joining your table as things warm up. We talk often about football, occasionally Bush and Blair as few people are openly political. Without fail we are asked about our relationships as there isn't the same concept here of dating before marriage. In Qena we are joined by the local stoner, all sleepy eyes and giggles, and as we head south we find we are offered hasheesh more and more often and openly. Either it is our changing appearance after 3 weeks on the road, or life is more liberal away from the capital. Arabic lessons are normally the most entertaining for the crowd, and I now keep a postcard on my handlebars in my own crude phonetics, trying to learn new words as I cycle. We have tried to keep to the smaller 'B' roads on the west bank of the Nile as these follow the twists and turns of the river more closely, are lined with tomato and sugar cane fields, shady palm trees and bisect idyllic little villages. Each village honours its faithful with a proud, extravagant minaret, sometimes 2 or 3, and these are always the tallest buildings. It is the sugar cane harvest and every adult and child is chewing a stick. Donkeys are the most popular form of transport here, a far cry from the lorries that careen down the east bank. It's infuriating then when the police refuse to let us ride these roads, apparently for our own safety. Outside Qena we ignore them and cross at the first unmanned bridge. We do this until our final stop in Egypt (Aswan), and never do find out what it was the police feared for us. Along these roads we discover what it must feel like to drive an ice cream van, as our appearance in every village is marked by hundreds of shrieks of 'hull-looow', the calls of the first children alerting others further down the road until it is all we hear. The road into Luxor offers a foretaste of what we can expect, as the greetings from the children are replaced with demands for baksheesh. Luxor teems with touts and it becomes oppressive. 'You want felucca-camel-donkey ride/taxi/alabaster/chicha/coffee shop/Coca Cola/sunglasses/hasheesh/hat/papyrus...?' A simple 'no thank you' is not enough and it brings out the worst in us. There is a different mentality here and we often see older people hounded 100m down a street until they find refuge in a store, where the next hard sell invariably starts. Guys leer at the girls. Nile cruise boats line the Corniche et Nile, 3 deep in places. Everyone is here to see the Temples of Karnak and Luxor, and on the west bank the Valley of the Kings and Temple of Hetshepsut. None of these disappoint and are among the highlights of our trip. A looming entrance 20m high at Karnak only hints at what is inside. Wall after colossal wall, obelisks and even the stone ceilings are covered in hieroglyphics. Every available inch of stone tells a story. Tiny, ornate etchings catch the eye in some shadowy corner. The giant Hippostyle Hall is a shady and cool, and a good spot to find some quiet from the crowds. I overhear a guide and learn that you read hieroglyphics from the direction the faces of the characters are pointing. Although the meaning of what is written is beyond us, it is enough to get lost in the temples and appreciate the devotion. We cycle to the Temple of Hatshepsut and Valley of the Kings, riding past the Collossi of Memnon where they are still excavating. The Temple of Hatshepsut is impressive for its size and location, sitting as it does at the bottom of sheer cliffs that reflect all the heat and light of the day. The Valley of Kings has to be seen, and although a ticket gives you entry into just 3 tombs, guards will accept a tip to see more. Scuffling down dark corridors, the walls covered in hieroglyphics, you are led to the sarcophagus deep underground. These are tombs that stood cool and silent for thousands of years. Many are not open to the public and the entrances have been requisitioned by the guards who use them for toilets, everything out in the open, stinking in the sun. We follow the west bank to Edfu and Aswan, although the police again insist on an escort. A little farewell toot after they get bored is the end of it and the peace of the Nile resumes. You will know who is deciding your fate at the roadblocks as they always wear aviators. Nissan and Chevrolet pick-ups are the taxis here, and they continually leapfrog us as we cycle. In one stretch a load of school girls gets braver with their waves and smiles each time they pass, but it is only in Aswan that we actually have a conversation with a woman. Women dress more openly and fashionably here too. Near Esna we take a wrong turn into a village at an intersection, and a little boy on his chopper bicycle leads us out of the maze. People have generally been welcoming and warm, but for one inexplicable day near Luxor. Verbal abuse, attempts at sticks in spokes, things thrown. As a result we wave less and return fewer greetings. The road to Aswan is better. There are fewer people and we continually ride the knife edge between the green life of the Nile and the sudden transition to desert, as clear as a line drawn in the sand. Here, hot winds dry the throat as the road twists and climbs more, and we have our hardest day yet. We also have a better idea of what is to come in Sudan as we struggle through soft sand and over cracked roads which shake the pannier bags off. Cresting one barren climb we come across a large dog devouring the belly of a cow, the wretched stench of roadkill more common as the days grinds on. It is touching that at each village clay pots full of cool water stand in the shade for anyone who passes thirsty. Sitting now in Aswan we are waiting for the ferry to Sudan. We have ridden over 1,100km in Egypt and know the hardest is still to come. Egypt can be a difficult place to cycle because of the constant police hassles and restrictions, but it has been a brilliant start to our journey. |
| Craig : 8 March 2007 : Aswan, Egypt After a second complimentary tea (get what you can!) we left the "Hotel Almadina", happy to be leaving! (3rd hotel out of 4 with a terrible toilet...not high on th elist of priorities for local people obviously!) We thought of writing a message in their visitor's book in Afrikaans to warn some people who may think of staying there...but weren't given the option, perhaps they sensed what we had planned!? I could feel that it would be a hard day. It was already hot and my wrist (that I has stupidly sprained the day before) had kept me up much of the night. We stocked up on food fro the fallafel-stall-owner that Simon had befriended the night before and then sat outside the Temple of Horus and ate breakfast. We didn't have the time to visit this one, so we set off from Edfu on the road to Aswan. Soon we were back on a small road full of the character that we'd enjoyed yesterday! At one point the road veered off right and the whole scene changed. The palms and greenery were replaced with rocks and sand, the road became cracked and pot-holed and the temperature went up. As we road along we had a strange contrast of views - to our left was the green world of the Nile valley, and to our right the desert...lifeless and barren. At one stage we passed through a large area being prepared for cultivation. The sand was flattened, prepared to take the truck-loads of more fertile earth brought up from the valley. With the additiona of water, the desert was being claimed back, given life and supporting the the constant strip of houses and towns we could see over on the eastern bank. The image seemed almost impossible, like a scene from the X-Files film...fields of wheat surronded by the desert! We stopped for lunch i the shade of some trees where water gushed out of a pipe and into irrigation troughs leading to the fields. The birds sounded almost as excited about the setting as we were! Cheese wedges, bread, jam and some oranges quickly disapeared and we were back onto the road again, moving ever closer to the Nile again until the Calatrava-esque bridge over the Nile came into view. Another 10kms and we were in Aswan, green by the Nile filled with felluccas, tourist-hustlers shouting at us as we ride past...far from the carcases of cows lying in the baking sand of the desert! |
| Craig : 8 March 2007 : Luxor Temple, Egypt "MARVEL AT THE GLORY OF THE ANCIENT(sic)"...the signs proclaim/demand! Yes there are incredible sights to be see! Yes, you can but only admire the amount of effort and skill that went into making them! But sadly, it's just a big tourism machine with eveyone trying make their buck out of it...out of you! Try to just ignore the vendors, hustlers and touts...and you'll see what you really came for! |
| Craig : 7 March 2007 : Grand Hotel, Luxor, Egypt The "Grand Hotel" is looking less grand every moment...right now I have just had to run out of the toilets to escape the "overflow" as it backed up...now each successive flush from floors above can be heard spilling over onto the floor, even from the relative safety of our room! We seem to be in some bizarre reality-show of the "Worst Toilets in Africa"...get me out of ere! I'm a normal, of-no-importance, ordinary sort of guy...! |
| Craig : 6 March 2007 : West Bank, Luxor, Egypt I woke early, excited about our site-seeing on the west bank of the Nile! I opened the shutters and windows, letting the warm morning sunshine spill in along with the busy sounds of the nearby streets...Simon pulled the blanket over his head and rolled over! When he did rise, we tucked into yoghurts, rice-puddings (our absolute favourite food in Egypt!) and fruit, before taking the local ferry across the Nile, surprisingly narrow for such an influential body of water. We rode past the shops and green fields after them and headed straight for the hills beyond...the rest of what we saw is difficult to decribe well, and still hard to capture in photographs...but have a look at the photos and try! |
| Craig : 5 March 2007 : Luxor, Egypt Despite several reminders in various forms I still managed to forget that today was Simon's Birthday, doh! It probably had something to do with the fact that my filling had fallen out last night...AGAIN!! (This is the same filling I had replaced a few days before I left London, thinking how lucky I was that it happened there and not "somewhere in Africa"!) Sayed (yes another one!), our hotel manager was quick to offer help, walking me down to the dentist that he recommended. As we entered the dirty building and walked up the dingy stairs strewn with litter, I began wondering if this was a bad idea? But the dentist turned out to be top-notch! He took more care than the useless dentist I'd seen back in London and only charged me GBP10.50! Perhaps I should come to Luxor for my dental work from now on...? After returning to the hotel for a sun-creaming session, we headed out to Karnak to see the famous temples built and extended by many of the big names in Egyptian Royal history. It was really awsome, and I won't even try to describe it here...go and see the photos and absorb it for yourself! |
| Craig : 4 March 2007 : Luxor, Egypt We had a slow start to the day...not because we were feeling tired, or even faffing around packing (as we're both very good at!)...but because of the laundry! Being in a town for a day we figured we get some things washed thoroughly while we had the chance. But unfortunately my Helly Hanson baselayer went AWOL and never returned! Now ordinarily it would be such a fuss (apart from the fact that HH tops are rather pricey back home!) But when you're travelling through Africa, and have chosen your equipment and clothing precisely to cover all the various options, losing one item is not good...which I tried to explain to the manager with measured success. He in turn shouted at various people in ever-increasing volume...but still no shirt. Eventually I explained that, should it materialise he could email me and I'd let him know where to post it...and we got onto the road to start our ride to Luxor. After the usual police response to our request to cycle on the west bank, we were directed back to the horrible big road on the east bank...only to sneak across at the first available bridge - we were not going to be pushed around today! Within minutes we were on a small road with strips of green fields on either side, palm trees dotted around, and countless friendly faces and waving hands...this is what we were looking for! If it weren't for the water-pumps noisily irrigating the fields, we could've been in the year 1007! We follow this small road for ages evetually getting lost in a small village. A local boy rides furiously trough the back streets leading us back to the main road to Luxor. Unfortunately it turns out to be the "big road" and we're stuck again, with armed guards at every bridge ready to stop anyone who dares to try and cross! Why all the guns? Why the show of force? And what could possibly be on the other side of each of those bridges that they would want to keep us away...? All frustrating and unanswered questions that we will never get answers to! Ironically no-one stopped us at the checkpoints now, happy to let us ride down towards Luxor and ultimately to Aswan and out of Egypt! |
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Simon : 3 March 2007 : The Red Sea Coast We left Cairo on Sunday, cycling through the dusty City of the Dead, a vast stretch of modern-day tombs sprawling south. The nightmare that was getting into and out of Cairo has been forgotten as smooth roads and strong tail winds have pushed us quickly south along the Red Sea Coast. We have covered almost 700km in 5 days, some days well over 30km/h despite carrying around 30kg of equipment and water. Like sailors superstitious about the wind we don't talk about p********s. Our Kona Sutra's roll easily along the smooth tarmac and every lorry and car toots as they pass. Rounding a corner we find a recently overturned lorry, dead driver covered in a soiled carpet, and wonder if he had tooted further back. To our left the Red Sea sparkles fresh, to the right the desert drones on and on, interrupted by small mountains in the distance. At first it has its charms and I enjoy the novelty: dust devils, cracked river beds, rocky outcrops, complete absence of signs of life. After 600km it is impressive for its monotony, and I fantasize often about swimming if it weren't for the reality of the three lane highway and unrideable soft sand between us. There seems to be a building boom along the coast, and we lose count of the ugly identikit resorts in peach and meringue under construction. Those already built have names like 'Blue Lagoon'. Some serious speculation and it's not clear who will fill these, although we see adverts in Russian. We camp when we get tired, finding a secluded spot away from the road as camping is not allowed. Tents up, we eat what we have carried, usually bread and cheese, sometimes tinned tuna as meat is hard to find. Water is generally available every 80km or so but sometimes further, so we carry up to 5 liters each, bottles strapped to our panniers. Apart from the resorts there are few towns along the coast and we stop in the truck stops as the food is cheapest. Oily parking lots, oily beans. We eat the beans ('fool') with bread and salty feta, and washed down with sweet tea always satisfies. We are always stopped at the frequent roadblocks (leaving one roadblock we see a policeman lying on a wall looking down his sights at the oncoming traffic) and there is a script that gets followed without fail, usually by three different people: "What your nationality/ahh huh, bafana bafana! very good, Mark Fish, Benny McCarthy/where are you coming from/where are you going/how much is your bicycle?" Despite the routine we enjoy the banter and almost everyone is friendly and wishes us well. The problem is the excessive worry over our security, and for 85km we were followed by a police escort until they got bored or tired and left us alone. We try to ignore them but the next time they just wouldn't leave us as we rode up the most beautiful stretch so far. A majestic 35km climb up into the twisted mountains on the road south-west to Qena was set to the hum of a battered police van in second gear rather than Metallica's Whiskey in the Jar, had I written this script. After 50km they refused our protests and forced us into their van, taking us 40km to the next check point where we refused to go with them further. Always civil, the police simply stood guard as we pitched our tents nearby for the night. Such a waste of resources for our apparent protection, but we know the risks and will take them. Now resting on the Nile at Qena, we head to Luxor tomorrow morning. |
| Craig : 2 March 2007 : Qena, Egypt Resting up in Qena, eating a Kosherie (standard vegetarian meal here in Egypt consisting of a mix of small pasta-pieces, rice, lentils, chickpeas and a tomato-based sauce) and chatting to Mohammed, our very friendly waiter...it's a million miles away from that check-point where we started our day... After a terrible night's sleep (between the cold and extreme nausia!) we packed away, our guard again watching our every movement with undying interest! I tried to get some breakfast down, the sweet black tea helping slightly. Todays escort arrived (early) and then left in a huff when they saw we were still eating...?! Finally, ready to cycle out, the guard motions down the road and says "Qena"and we are free to continue!? So after ALL that fuss last night, we now get to ride unaccompanied westwards, to the Nile...what a confusing world of political red-tape this Egypt is! |
| Craig : 1 March 2007 : Checkpoint on the Qena Road, Egypt Ha! After yesterday, you'd be forgiven for thinking that we'd had our "escort" day...think again! We hauled our bikes back up to the road from our rock-strewn, quarry-like campsite and got stuck into another tail-wind stretch of road taking us the 100km to Bur Safaga, the point at which we would turn west and ride to the Nile once more! We stopped at the aptly named "rest stop cafe" to get some food and to shelter from the sun, writing postcards to our friends & loved ones. In the shadow of the new fly-over the building was slowly crumbling and I wondered if it would still be there in another 10 years... Back on the road we cycled all of 300m(!) before being stopped at a check-point! Another "friendly" official called his mythical "general" and then proclaimed our need for an escort as the road was "very dangerous". We had already ridden 100kms, and had only planned to do another 20 before searching out a campsite. But now we were struck with a dilemma: Ride on, hoping the escort would become bored and leave us as they had the day before; or try to ride until the next town where they may let us sleep for the night? These guys were not going anywhere! They stayed resolutely glued to our tails as we wound through incredible scenery and up into the hills... Eventually we had to stop for a meal, thoughts of what might happen next flooding through our minds, as we sat in the back of the police van eating tuna from a can with our cheese wedges and pita breads. We tried vainly to enquire about "camping" or "hotels" but as usual were stuck without being able to speak arabic...so on we plowed into the thickening dusk. The escort's lights made the road more visible, but it was still a nerve-wracking ride with on-coming traffic only turning on their lights to flash them at us, plunging us into temporary blindness! (Standard Egyptian driving technique it would seem?) Evetually, sirens blaring, the Qena chief of police pulled us and our escort over, causing a huge backlog of traffic while he insisted that we climb into the van and we pleaded equally hard to keep cycling. With everyone armed to the teeth, and an angry queue of trucks backing up for a kilometer behind us, we eventually gave in...feeling cheated of the satisfaction of completing the whole route under our own steam. Our bicycles were eagerly pushed and shoved into the van, and we climbed in for the 40-50km journey to the next checkpoint, exhaust fumes coking us all the way! Bundled out onto the side of the road, we were made to wait for a few hours, various people asking us at intervals why we didn't want to be driven to Qena...each one receiving a more curt response from us as we lost our rag! Finally we were led to the side of the road and allowed to put up our tents, all under the constant watchful eye of our adopted guard! We fell asleep amidst the sounds of trucks, hooters and our guard's radio blaring away... |
| Craig : 28 February 2007 : Hurghada, Egypt The phrase for today is "What Nationaility?" We really need to get "South African" written in arabic, as everyone gets confused and often they think we are American? (Heaven forbid!) We'd heard about police escorts, we'd read about them in Alaister's book (Moods of Future Joys - read it!) and now we finally experienced them ourselves. After our first v35kms of the day we reachjed "Ras Garib", looking forward to some food as breakfast on the dunes had consisted of a few pieces of bread and some cheese wedges (or "wiggies" for those SA'ers who remember!). As we wheeled into town a policeman directed us to a check-point where we were met by a rather officious policeman of higher rank. (the higher ranked ones seem to dress in civi's...?) He asked us to wait, called his "general"...and then told us we needed an escort...for our own safety!?! (And not even a cup of tea like yesterday!) Obviously we insisted on first eating some breakfast, though they were almost tapping their feet while we ate... Our spirits rather dampened by our new company, we headed off with a van in tow, three grinning privates in the back (what did they need to protect us against...?) At first they sat on our tail, but soon tired of the idea and stopped now and again, zooming up to us again 5 minutes later. They exchanged with another team after an hour, who seeme more diligent and tailed us all the ay to the next change-over. We stopped for a tea and biscuits, but when we got on our bikes again they seemed happy to stay put! Were we free to ride off unaccompanied now...? For the next hour we kept glancing over our shoulders, but they never came! Eventually we plucked up the courage to duck across the dunes, in between check-out points, and sit down in a hollow until it was dark enough to pitch our tents...another night out under the stars, with the roar of trucks in the not so distant background! |
| Craig : 26 February 2007 : Badr City, Egypt EGYPTIANS are very friendly people! Despite all the hustling, "just look, no obligation"; all the hooting and reckless driving...I've lost count how many times people have said "Welcome to Egypt!" And it all seems genuine...well almost all! However...when it comes to giving directions, it would seem that either people don't want to admit when they don't know how to direct you, or they don't understand maps (fair enough!) or there's just a language barrier (even more fair enough!) But when they send you off down the wrong road with such certainty...well that's just irritating! |
| Craig : 23 February 2007 : Suez Road, south of Cairo, Egypt Somewhere on the Suez Road, Egypt We've just seet up camp for the first time. And although this is how it will be for most days, it's quite a stark contrast from the relative comfort of our room at the Dahab in Cairo, with it's en-suite leaky toilet and lumpy beds...perhaps a welcome contrast? We'd scouted out a spot behind some low dunes (the best we could manage on this landscape) in a vain hope to reduce some of the noise from the massive Suez Road that we had somehow got ourselves onto in all our confusion of trying to leave Cairo...but we could hear the trucks and their hooters ALL night! The day had started pretty well with us getting our Sudanese visas, having a fallafel-lunch, some of our now favourite rice-puddings and then confidently heading out of Cairo through the "City of the Dead", where perhaps more people now lived than were buried...? After some help and directions from the Marriot Hotel, and an englishman by the name of Angus, who pulled out his GPS to confirm our location, we headed out east, once again confident that we were going in the right direction! A good few kilometers slip-streaming an army truck (towing another truck AND a cannon!) got us well on our way again, and when the pace got a bit high for me, we peeled off and looked for our sand dune. |
| Simon : 23
February 2007 : Cairo, Egypt From the sky the browns and oranges of We
unpacked our
bicycles in the airport and despite our haphazard packing everything
was in one
piece and working. Riding out to a chorus of ‘welcome to Egyptian
history
holds a fascination with death and the afterlife, but in Cairo Hello from Cairo! Well, we've only cycled 28kms so far...BUT no punctures, crashes or injuries! (And considering the traffic here..that's an amazing thing!) Cars whiz by in every direction, hooters blaring, switching lanes as they please, pushing through every little gap; only half have their lights on in the night, no-one obeys a single traffic light and people cross as if they are indestructible...hectic! Unfortunately we are stuck here for a while as we failed to get a Sudanese visa before the arabic weekend starts tomorrow. We tried yesterday but needed a letter of referal from the SA embassy! So off early this morning the embassy to request the letter...30 minutes they said...which turned into 1h30min...and more! Eventually Simon rushed off to the Sudanese to try and keep them open while I waited on the letters...and the commissioner, who seemed to be having a ly-in this morning! Eventually I jumped into a cab which proceeded to get lost, so carried on by foot (I new better than he where to go...guess they don't do The Knowledge here then?) and got there as they were going to close...only to find that the next phase of the application was now closed so we'd have to wait anyway...We should have them on Sunday morning at 10am, aparently! So we'll roll out of here ASAP Sunday and head for the Red Sea coast...and our first night's camping! |
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