Aqaba - Ras Mohammed (7.123 km)

some very strange and wonderful architectural pieces on entering the reserve

long straight roads with lots of sand.... where my office job?

africa! (well according to the egyptian border officials africa starts in sudan)

entering egypt has been our biggest headache ever since we started thinking of doing this trip. its the hardest country to enter into with a bike in the world. we got off the boat at nuweiba after dropping 150 usd on the ride. we were in a big group, 6 of us. so we got some attention. it all happened pretty quickly actually. 5 hours we were done. we got our new number plates (in arabic) and we were off! some folks went on to cairo under an armed escort and the rest of us just cruised on down to sharma sheik and ras mohammed. the sinai is just beautiful! large desert spaces mixed with some dramatic rocky mountains... its a dreamy landscape. the roads are just wonderful and the views are to die for. loads of security check points. the monitored everything about us. knew us when we arrived and even told us to slow down! total control. sharma sheik was a weird place. europe in egypt. with loads of russians cruising around. was like being in a film set. ras mohammed was just great. we slept in some bedouin tents on the coast of red sea. matteo had a desert fox enter his tent and i watched the most beautiful sunrise ive seen in years that morning. that next day we drove 700km to cairo. a long push but we made it. spent 3 hours driving around the city which is just absolute chaos. got hit on the leg at 40km/h by a taxi. no damage but it shook me. there are no rules here and nobody gives way to nothing. we subsequently booked into our hotel. 300 metres from the giza pyramids and the sphinx. what a view from my balcony i tell ya! did a lot of the tourist stuff, organized our visas (on which i could write a book about) sorted our bikes out with mohammed, bought new knobbly tyres and tomorrow were off for aswan and our ferry to sudan. that leaves monday morning. so we got a lot of ground to cover from now until then. 1000km.

Mercoledi 05/12/2007 siamo finalmente arrivati in Africa! (anche se alcuni dicono che l'Africa inizia dopo il canale di Suez). Abbiamo passato mezza giornata alla frontiera in balia della pessima burocrazia egiziana. (Resa ancora piu' complicata dagli innumerevoli funzionari alla caccia di bakshees). Alle sette di sera siamo riusciti a passare con una patente egiziana, una targa per la moto in arabo e 200 euro in meno nel portafoglio.
Giovedi 06/12/2007 ci siamo spostati verso sud. La prima notte abbiamo dormito a Na'Ama Bay (N 27 54,766' E 34 19,789), mentre venerdi 07/12/2007 siamo andati a Ras Mohammed (N 27 47,345 E 34 13,174').
Li ho dormito in riva al mare in una tenda abbandonata che viene saltuariamente utilizzata dai beduini. Quella notte ho anche fatto il primo incontro di questo viaggio con un animale selvatico: proprio mentre stavo per andare a dormire ho visto due occhi illuminati dalla mia torcia uscire furtivamente dalla tenda; ho seguito questi due puntini luminosi fin sulla cima della duna di sabbia chiedendomi che cosa ci facesse un gatto nel bel mezzo del deserto, ma all'improvviso il contrasto del cielo stellato ha delineato perfettamente il contorno del corpo di una bellissima volpe del deserto che con la coda misurava piu' di un metro di lunghezza. E' stato davvero emozionante. Quella notte mi sono anche chiesto cosa provero' tra qualche settimana quando, nel bel mezzo della savana, la luce della mia torcia illuminera' due occhi spuntare dal buio.

Colonna sonora: "Louie, Louie" The Kingsmen