Luxor - Wadi Halfa (9.042 km)

loading the dukes onto the ferry

robin's bike by the toilet. much to the joy of the bmw owners!

arriving in Sudan

Matteo trying to keep the bike upright

It was a wonderful morning. we started off at about 6:30. with aim to get to Luxor to see the ruins there. what a sight riding over the nile as the sun was rising. palm trees silhoutted in the morning sky. Luxor was wonderful. it must have been an incredible place once upon a time. still now you can get a glimpse of its grandeur. incredible engraving and reliefs. the place was the pearl of egypt. with every pharaoh adding on to its beauty. we arrived at Aswan in the evening and immediatly found Tom cruising around. we started finding out how the heck we can get the ferry across to Sudan. Note: every thing you do in africa is tough and difficult. every place has its own nonsensical system that changes daily. it is beaurocrosy at its best and we like to call it organized chaos. it is almost as if they are doing it for the first time. 'oh no, someone wants to catch a boat to sudan. what do we do?' so lots of patience and positive attituteds are needed. any way the vibe was this: ferry didnt have any space for our bikes. so we had to wangle them to get ours on. (there were already 4 bikes on the boat). so we sweet talked them into letting us go, and eventually they did. we stayed in a pretty decent hotel there that night and ate dinner with some goats on the street. the next morning we were running around like mad things trying to get our papers stamped, egyptian plates removed etc... we had a fixer help us. we had one hour to do everything and get to the ferry. absolute chaos. anyway we arrived 2 hours late but still in time. loaded the bikes on the boat with much screaming, flapping of chickens and pissing of goats. we then settled down do our daily dish of beans, a goolish substance called Foul (pronounced fuuul). the latter pronunciation describes it best though. the boat trip was great, with a sunset to remember and another dish of Foul to forget. the morning after we arrived at Wadi Halfa and the stranegst thing: street lights in the water. i didnt ask any questions and we proceeded to get our bikes off the boat and then another bout of organised chaos ensued. now Sudan is where the real deal starts - we aint in Kansas no more and our Dukes are looking really outta place here.

Domenica 16/12/2007 ci siamo svegliati prestissimo per andare ad Asswan (N 24 02,743' E 32 55,380') ed assicurarci il posto per le moto sulla barca che ogni lunedi attraversa il lago Nasser per andare in Sudan. Per fare piu' in fretta abbiamo cercato di evitare i posti di blocco, ma al terzo ci hanno fermato e ci hanno costretto a seguire il convoglio scortato dalla polizia. Arrivati ad Asswan abbiamo subito incontrato Tom che ci ha detto che dal momento che in questi giorni si festeggia il grande Eid (una delle feste islamiche piu' importanti) sulla barca non viene attaccata la chiatta per le macchine e quindi non c'era posto per le nostre moto. Nonostante cio' alla fine siamo riusciti a convincere il capitano della nave a farci mettere le moto nella toilette di seconda classe. L'indomani siamo arrivati al porto e prima di riuscire a caricare le moto sulla barca siamo stati travolti da una confusione esagerata tra urla, gente che spinge, gente che tira, animali ed enormi pacchi di ogni genere caricati alla rinfusa. Dopo 16 ore di navigazione siamo arrivati a Wadi Halfa (N 21 48,065' E 31 21,035'). Dopo aver sbrigato le pratiche doganali abbiamo campeggiato nel deserto a pochi chilometri a sud del paese, proprio sulla riva del lago Nasser (N 21 46,096' E 31 20,606') .

Colonna sonora: "Redemption song" Bob Marley

Hurghada - Luxor (8.746 km)

such a sweet and generous family

Valley of the kings

We left early that next morning. we were in a bit of a rush since Cairo to get down to the ferry which left the next monday. we really wanted to do Sudan with Tom from canada. and since our parts didnt arrive we took the oppurtunity. We started off quite early again and cruised off to Luxor to see the Valley of the Kings. a must see in Egypt. we arrived there at about 2pm. visited all the sites. incredible burial grounds. it was wonderful trying to decipher the book of the dead with all their hieroglyphics. saw tutenkamens chamber. where his corpse has recently been replaced there after spending many years in the egyptian museum.

on our way back we spent most of the way talking about how hard it was to open up to egyptians. as 99% of the time all they wanna do is sell you something. just then this guy cruised past and asked us if we wanted to go have dinner at his house. we said yes and went along. the food was fantastic! we sat in his little mud house with his cousins, mother, father, wife and child. it was a wonderful experience and we even named his cows for him. needless to say he took us to a hotel after, a relative.... were the prices were a little high... so we had some second thoughts about whether he received a commission or not. we'll never know. but it was wonderful all the same.

Sabato 15/12/2007 siamo andati a Luxor (N 25 43,140' E 32 39,256'). Alla valle dei re abbiamo conosciuto Kaled, un ragazzo del posto che ci ha invitato a cena nella sua casa di fango dove vive insieme alla sua famiglia, due mucche e tre galline. La mamma Fatima ha perparato la cena per tutti cucinando degli ottimi e gustosissimi piatti.

Colonna sonora: "The man in me" Bob Dylan

Cairo - Hurghada (8.253 km)

Well we started off our day by being invited on an enduro tour with the local biker guys from mohammed's shop (our mechanic there). 30 guys escorted us out of the city! what a way to leave Cairo. about 5 km's out of the city one of my straps busted loose and got wrapped around my rear wheel, in the disc and in the pad. ripping out one of my break pads and blocking the rear wheel for about a quarter of a second. enought to bottom out my rear shock and send me popping along the road. it was a big scare. especially at 120km an hour. a big reminder that everything is to be looked over carefully. even if they're only the straps.

there were long straight roads riding down to the coast, we were reminising about the italian roads with them, much to their envy. we arrived to the red sea which is a wonderful sight. the water is so crystal clear and blue. we sat down to a fine lunch with the guys and ate the best seafood on this trip so far. we then pushed on to Hugarda that afternoon with full bellies. arriving at yet another egyptian Rimini. not such a nice place. so we planned on leaving the next morning early.

Venerdi 14/12/2007 siamo partiti dal Cairo insieme a Mustafa ed altri 30 motociclisti. A meta' strada ci siamo fermati mezz'ora per permettere ad alcuni di recitare la preghiera del venerdi (la piu' importante della settimana). Verso l'una siamo arrivati sul Mar Rosso, giusto in tempo per fermarci a mangiare in un bellissimo ristorante sul mare da dove si potevano ammirare i mille colori che riflette l'acqua cristallina di questo mare.
Uno dei ragazzi, venendo a sapere che non avevo fatto in tempo a comprare un paio di guanti leggeri per il deserto, mi ha regalato i suoi e non ha voluto nemmeno che gli offrissi il pranzo. Tutta questa generosita' mi fa sentire un po' in colpa, mi sembra sempre di ricevere piu' di quanto io riesca a dare.
Dopo pranzo ci siamo separati. Loro sono tornati al Cairo e noi abbiamo proseguito lungo la costa fino ad Hurghada (N 27 13,720' E 33 50,380').

Colonna sonora: "Gimme some lovin'" The Blues Brothers

Cairo

note that black cloud in the background

I had many pre-conceptions of Cairo before arriving. non of them were right, apart from the pollution or the black cloud as they so ominously call it. it is a wonderful city. today i think i truly came to grips with it. the people are wonderful and vibrant and the history fascinating. the ancient egyptians used to worship two gods, Horus (the god of order) and Set (the god of chaos). when shown together they symbolized a balance of the orders. modern day cairo is exactly that, a balance between anarchy and order. there is no order to cairo's traffic, yet when placed together it becomes one flowing organism. when broken down and isolated into smaller fragments one would see anarchy, yet viewing the greater whole, one would see order. this strange balance is replicated in everything that cairo does.

Il Cairo e' una citta' affascinante. Ricca di storia e di cultura, ma estremamente caotica e disordinata. Ci vogliono almeno 2 o 3 giorni per riuscire a capire come muoversi in mezzo al traffico ed ai cairoti. Solo allora si riesce ad apprezzare quello che l'Egitto e' in grado di offrire.

Lungo le strade della citta' e soprattutto nei luoghi turistici si viene letteralmente assaliti da persone di ogni tipo che cercano con ogni mezzo di ottenere qualcosa da te. Diventa veramente difficile distinguere i semplici procacciatori d'affari da chi invece cerca di stabilire un rapporto in modo del tutto disinteressato.

Colonna sonora: "Everybody's talkin' at me" Harry Nilsson

Ras Mohammed - Cairo (7.928 km)

Sabato 08/12/2007 abbiamo attraversato tutto il Sinai da sud a nord e dopo aver passato il tunnel sotto il canale di Suez siamo arrivati al Cairo (N 29 58,510 E 31 08,261).
Il traffico del Cairo e' terrificante. I semafori vengono considerati dai Cairoti come semplice elemento d'arredo urbano. Una volta entrati nel flusso caotico e sovraffollato che scorre per le vie del Cairo non si puo' piu' tornare indietro e non rimane altro che cavalcare l'onda col coltello tra i denti ed i riflessi pronti per schivare tutto cio' che puo' spuntare all'improvviso: macchine impazzite, pedoni con istinto suicida ed animali di ogni genere. La nota positiva e' che qui in Egitto con meno di 2 euro si fa il pieno di benzina!
Colonna sonora: "Crosstown traffic" Jimi Hendrix

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