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23rd December 2006

Location: Ras Sudr, Egypt
Distance Travelled: 16 400 km

In this Chistmas update there are three things we want to mention.

One - Christmas
Two - Egypt
Three - The biggest arrival party ever in the world

Christmas - Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all the team at African Odyssey. Have a great few days off work and eat some great food. Have a BBQ and a beer and don’t do anything stupid in the silly season. We will miss being with our Families for the summer festivities, make the most of yours. We will be on the beach on the Red Sea, its no Ohope but it should be nice none the less.

Egypt in a nutshell - Aswan was sales pitch central "Friend I have something to tell you" or "Where you from? New Zealand, I love New Zealanders, Come here New Zealand, New Zealand! New Zealand". Shouted in to the mire as we kept walking a straight line through the bazaar. Despite its madness Aswan had a strange appeal. The pinnacle for Aswan and the point at which we allowed ourselves to feel affection for the place was during a Sunset Felluca (sailing boat) ride on the Nile. Very calming after the throng of the streets, a nice change to just chill and move in silence over the water.

Five days after arriving in Egypt our bikes were released from customs. Leaving Aswan port we ran in to four motorcyclists heading South into the adventures we had just seen. Couldn’t help but think they would be in for a great journey. With thoughts of the last 15,000km in our minds we hit the road again for the first time in almost 10 days. Our withdrawal symptoms quickly subsided as the roar of our bikes reminded us that we our bikes were still running, we were still riding and we were still in Africa making progress towards London.

We drove past McDonalds and KFC as we entered Luxor the heart of the ancient Egyptian attractions and it would seem the heart of modern development too. We haven’t seen Fat-Donalds since South Africa. We focused on the ancient side of things, valley of the kings, valley of queens, old tombs, articulate graphics, lots of Heiroglyphics, amazingly preserved, colour resene would be proud of if they were around three thousand years later to see it still going strong. Post tombs tour in Luxor we had time to kill and there was alot of thumb twiddling, diary and washing catch up and internet addiction developing. Cops wouldn’t let us go without convoy this time. So we spent another day in Luxor. Hurry up and wait, Twiddle your thumbs some more. Play some backgammon and have a cup of tea down a side street. Thanks Brad (a fellow kiwi) for teaching us the real rules to backgammon as opposed to the African Odyssey rules.

"CONVOY across the universe" well to Hurghada at least, madness, sixty buses and vans all racing to be at the front of the line. First to go nowhere! We could barely keep the pace and felt very insignificant on our little motorbikes, exciting sometimes, scary the rest. Convoy over, relief and a little bit of joy to have been part of an Egyptian institution known as the police convoy. The bane of all overland travelers to have their freedom taken away. It was hard to know if you were safer traveling alone or in the convoy? Considering that the convoy left at the same time every day and was definitely all tourists you felt a bit like a target. There were lots of guns on the side of the road as the convoy burnt through Egypt so there is some protection there, but the convoy kind of puts all the targets together. The convoys are a response to terrorist attacks in the late nineties, so they are not without reason and we can see that Egypt is only trying to protect the income its people depend on. However it would seem the terrorists may have learnt their lesson. After attacks on tourists at Hapsetschut temple in Luxor in 1997 tourist numbers went from 6000 per day to 800. To say the fellow country men were a bit disappointed by the actions of the terrorists is probably a bit of an understatement. The industry that was their lifeblood, crippled.

The Red Sea! We had made it back to the coast after 2 months inland, beautiful, except there is nothing on the shore just rocks and desert dirt, but still, beautiful. Hurghada! Development and tourism on steroids with no constraints on aesthetic appeal or construction methods. Maybe they should have stopped after building the Pyramids. Juls went diving and it was in awe of the marine beauty. To give you an idea of how beautiful, it has made Juls’ seven wonders of the world list!

We snuck along the red sea coast from Hurghada to Cairo with no convoy. Relieved because the convoy left at 2.30am! We would have all fallen asleep at the handle bars as it is 455km, one of the Odyssey’s biggest days ever. The coast from Hurghada to Cairo is oil land, so there was no need for convoys, every couple of km’s on every little rise was an armed base keeping an eye on the pipelines and oil rigs. Also no plants, or people to hide in the plants, as it is barren desert out here, just the Red Sea and oil.

Cairo! smog, hugeness, motorways, metropolitan, traffic rules more of a guide, two lanes aren’t as good as squeezing in three or three and a half lanes of cars. Good concept, maybe Auckland could do that, just tell people to drive more economically and squeeze a couple of more lanes in to the existing space. Cairo central city rendezvous was a bit like this.... confused identities, names corrected, keys collected, directions taken, circles in the city, 34 sets of directions straight back to where we were. 10 more directions, a cup of tea and dinner down a back alley (lost) good dinner for $3 NZD for all four. Six hours after spotting the smog ridden sky-scape of Cairo we were safely in our borrowed accommodation. Thanks to Nic’s friend Mike Hanna from ISV, you rock.

Went to the Egyptian Museum of old stuff chucked in a hall and left there to gather dust while the tourists come and look at it and say, "wow that looks old". Average museum with cool stuff in it, the tutenkahmen exhibit was really quite amazing, to see such intricate design in the jewellery and coffin was almost beyond belief considering how long ago it was. The mummified animals were cool too. You had to pay extra to see the human mummies. Huh, we could hardly afford to get in let alone pay some more! Plus we didn’t want any curses put on us so close to making our goal of London.

Pyramids, arrived after closing. Man we are great tourists! Enter stage left – An egyptian tourist tout offers us a horse ride, stoked. Thirty Egyptian pounds to ride a horse and get amazing views of the Pyramids as opposed to paying fifty pounds to see the pyramids up close where the wonder of perspective is kind of lost. Very nice, watched the light show on the pyramids for free then had a great dinner of falafel, mousaka and babaganou in pita bread. The boys all replete for the cost of one big mac combo back in NZ. Cheap as chips to eat here and we love it. All that in Cairo, Cairo ! If our bikes don’t go another km we will still feel we have achieved.

The Arrival Party – If we make it to London without any curses jamming up our Voyage then we will be four very happy boys. To mark our happiness the Queen has offered to give us a party at Buckingham Palace. We turned down her offer and instead will be having a celebration at the Larrik in Fulham. We owe our arrival party to Stephen Sausage Richards (the best guy in the world, in our eyes). The party is at The Larrik, New Kings Rd, Fulham, London on the 20th of January. We will ride our bikes in should they still be working in such cold weather at 7pm. All and sundry are invited to dress in African Biker Theme, all Pirates welcome too.

We are looking forward to arriving in London as it means we have made it, all our fears of mechanical breakdowns, and sickness and bad things will have been allayed. We don’t look forward to leaving the wonders of Africa and the joy of waking and wondering, "where will my bike take me today?"

Thanks to all who have followed, supported and helped us so far. Wish us luck for the cooler Northern Africa and frozen Europe section of the tour.

Aswan to Cairo Images

Chronicle blurp

After waiting for five days in Aswan, the southern border post between Sudan and Egypt, we could finally collect our bikes. They were held in customs until the appropriate fees, paperwork, licences, number plates and hitting the forehead on a brick wall was completed. We spent time in Aswan being a tourist amongst the other six million that frequent the country every year. We fortunately skipped taking a tourist police convoy from Aswan to Luxor. Luxor held some of the great archaeological monuments and relics known to man. We sampled some of these delights, including the valley of kings and hatshepsut temple. We tried to leave Luxor for the Red Sea only to be stopped by tourism police and made to wait another day to catch the convoy we missed by 5 minutes. The Red Sea held warm water and a chance for Juls to dive. With no place to store the bikes outside we carried them inside the hotel instead. A straight line to Cairo and 450km later we arrived in the mammoth city to taxis cramming the streets and no apparent driving order. Capetown to Cairo complete.