Sand, Blue Skies and Tough Biking

30 September: Egypt – Cairo, Oasis route via Bahariyya, White Desert, Farafra, Dakhla, Kharga and Luxor

By now we have reached Luxor safely and I’m chilling out at Rezeiky Camp that is very popular with overland tour groups – but there is no one but us here at the moment. As we went off on the desert route, we missed the ferry on the 9th which the German biker took, along with another couple of bikers. Our ferry to Wadi Halfa is booked for 16th and so far there are no other bikers. I guess what we need more than the company of fellow bikers is actually a truck that will take my luggage or even better, my luggage, my bike and me over the first part of Sudan until we get to roads that resemble roads. Humph. I need to keep on believing that things will work out insha Allah.

So we spent the weekend in Alexandria (which is Friday and Saturday) getting things done in Africa time and style. I felt we’d become a little trio and followed Omar around and did as he said like a couple of puppy dogs. He is that kind of guy. He has charm and charisma and seems to have everyone under his spell. It felt like there wasn’t a person in Agamy (the suburb we stayed in) that didn’t know Omar Mansour. It amused me tremendously the way he’d treat the world as if it belonged to him.

On Sunday we made our way to Cairo. I was quite excited about seeing this monster of a city. Omar had decided to come with us as he needed to sort out some bike parts. With Omar we never knew exactly what he’d do next and I think most of the time he wasn’t always sure himself. I liked that about him even though it made life chaotic, it was more interesting. Once again it meant that we didn’t have to figure out things like public transport nor deal with touts and we got to meet his friends and experience so much more than the usual tourist-tick-box package. Although I think Paul missed doing the touristy things and snapping photos of them, I didn’t mind missing the sites and found the change from heavy duty tourist travel was most welcome.

I should mention that during this time I’d been trying to participate in Ramadan. This is an entire month in which Muslims fast during the day. Fasting all day makes them ratty and fatigued and then they stay awake nearly all night which means an entire population is suffering from sleep deprivation and hunger. Breakfast (literally break fast) is at about 5.30pm which brings everything to a standstill. Don’t expect a thing to happen for the next hour. And believe me, you will be relieved when every one goes home to eat and comes back in a better mood. Business as usual continues from 7pm and will go on until about 3am when everything stops for the pre-dawn snack. Then everyone goes home for a sleep from 4am until about 9am.

Ramadan is a really special time. Firstly, it is to help people understand what it is to be poor and be hungry. It is a time that rich people should be generous and understanding towards those who are less fortunate. The next thing Ramadan does is draw people in the community together and creates an opportunity to celebrate eating together and deepens bonds of friendship. There is also the aspect that fasting brings you closer to God. And finally, fasting makes you a stronger person. For me, I fasted to understand what the people around me were experiencing. I realised just how special a time it is and how friendships can be born from sharing suffering. Importantly it made me truly understand what it is like to be disorientated from fatigue. I realised that all those comments about the poor like “they should help themselves” are extremely naive. I assure you, it is incredibly hard to do a thing when you are starved of food and sleep.

I’d had a look at the famous pyramids on google.earth and so I knew that they were situated in the middle of Giza which is an urban setting. From one direction you have these mystical monoliths set against a backdrop of sand and sky but from every other angle, they are surrounded by an ever growing urban sprawl. I loved the drive around Giza with the mental traffic whizzing about, tourists walking around in bunches, camels loping down the road followed by donkeys trotting past and Arabian horses galloping most elegantly by – all the time with these extraordinary pyramids in the background. Instead of going in the usual tourist entry point to see the pyramids we had a hairy 4x4 drive ala Omar across the sands to get the “perfect sunset pyramid photo”.

In the evening we met up with Omar’s friends to hang out and play some pool. I am not particularly good at pool – never have been. It was really nice to be in a crowd of people having a normal night out. I was sitting on the sofa wedged between two people, having a fun time, yet I was missing my friends: in particular I really missed Anna who was my partner in crime, drinking buddy and silly-bugger friend. In a crowd, having fun and I was lonely. Then Omar asked how I was and I admitted that I was feeling lonely. He asked about my friend and I explained about the Big Chinny face we liked to pull. Then Omar leaned over and pulled a Chinny. I couldn’t help but break into a big smile. That gesture of kindness created, bonded and sealed our friendship forever.

The time for morning snacks was approaching and so Omar and I were on our last game of pool versus a Tunisian couple. They’d been teasing Omar that there was no way we would win… and with a handicap like me, it seemed very likely that they would beat us. Omar teased back, “Hey, anything is possible.” We had about five balls on the table while they were trying to sink the black. Omar then got into first gear and sank a few balls leaving us one ball and the black. I looked at the situation and told myself, “Langton, come on. It is time to focus.”

What followed is probably my greatest moment in pool and will probably remain my greatest moment ever. It was a difficult shot but I sank our last ball. The tension was tangible. I’d left the white ball in a very good position for our competitors so I had the choice to knock it into a difficult position to disadvantage them or to just wing it and see if I could sink the black ball. I decided to sink the ball. It was a nearly impossible shot that required hitting the ball to the extreme side with enough force to make it move sideways at ninety degrees and into a pocket. I could feel everyone watching me intently as I awkwardly took the shot. The black ball moved to the side. It teetered. It almost stood still at the brim of the pocket and then miraculously dropped in. I would have cheered had I not been so surprised. There were hugs all round and our competitors stood there with mouths hanging open in disbelief. I have seldom gloated more. Omar and I talked about that game and recounted it in detail for days afterwards. It still makes me smirk.

Fun aside we had paperwork to do and so the next day we woke up early to go to our respective Embassies to organise getting a letter of recommendation that is required for the Sudanese visa. Omar, yet AGAIN, went beyond the call of a good host and woke up early to drive us around Cairo. We dropped Paul off at the British Embassy and then I went on to the South African Embassy that proved quite a bit harder to find. The SA Embassy is really small and there is no hassle with security getting in and out. I so enjoyed hearing a South African accent that I had the urge to hug the woman behind the glass window. In a few minutes I had my letter of recommendation, free of charge and hassle. I loved the letter. Even though it’s a standard letter it made me feel like a very special South African. In the meantime, Omar was outside in the car and was being treated as my driver. This amused him no end and he played up to security saying, “Sorry I can’t move the car because my Madam will be very angry with me.” And in another part of Cairo Paul was facing the British Embassy that has a complicated security system, long queues and they don’t issue letters of recommendation. He had to pay £20 for a letter stating such.

Then, as you all know, we spent the next day in the Sudanese Embassy getting our visas. This visa cost 100USD and is not always possible to obtain. I am very thankful that that last piece of the puzzle was in place. From that point onwards we had all our visas sorted out.

Hey, time to get back on the road! I couldn’t wait. Omar had organised to take some time off work and drive with us for a few days through the desert. This meant we would be free from the hassle of convoys, getting lost and carrying luggage. Two of his many relatives would be joining us. It felt like an unreal situation as Egypt was supposed to be so hard but things were running smoothly and I was having tremendous fun – I knew I had Omar to thank for this.

I have mentioned in previous posts that I’m not particularly good at off road biking. Well. The truth is I’m seriously crap. I’m terrified of speed and hate to feel out of control. Taking a motorbike off road is a particularly nerve-raking experience for me. It is a real catch 22 because when the bike looses control, it is important to increase speed. This is something my brain can’t comprehend and every fibre of my body goes into a state of extreme panic. I become so stiff that I fear my body will shatter on impact. I have neither style nor finesse and I just take on every off road experience as it arises, as best I can.

So when Omar said we’d drive to those dunes over there and camp I really strained my eyes to see the white mounds on the horizon. “Ah. The ones on the horizon? How far is that then?”
“About twenty klicks.”
Omar then pointed out that I should just drive off the nice tar road and through some sand to reach hard sand, “Okay?” I fell silent (one of those rare times in my life when I can’t find my tongue).
Needless to say, I dropped my bike as soon as I hit the soft sand. I didn’t even manage three meters in the sand. I didn’t say anything: I had nothing to say, my mouth was dry and my body had gone rigid. Omar got my bike out of the soft sand and I got back on. I listened to his instructions. Fortunately the hard sand is much like driving on a badly gravelled road so the rest of my twenty kilometre off road experience was not that bad. I did finish and thanked God it was over for the day.

The guys set up a typical Bedouin camp. I’d read about Bedouins in the Lonely Planet and they are described as nomadic desert people who live in the harshest climates but are becoming more settled due to tourism and pressures of modern life. This description conjures up images far from what we were experiencing. I guess some tourists would seek a Bedouin experience and expect it to be some what on the “primitive” side because of Western assumptions of society evolving from hunter-gathers to farmers to capitalist 9 to 5 paper pushers. We really shouldn’t make assumptions like this. It’s just wrong! I realised that Omar was an exceptional person and clearly a man who’d be as comfortable in the desert as he’d be in New York city. The stereotype just wouldn’t fit. Not him nor his friends or relatives. All the people I met seemed to be intelligent, funny and generous people – I didn’t feel any “us versus them” between us. We were just people and having fun as friends.

For me the Bedouin experience was: a soft sand dune, the sky turning from a pink sunset into starry black, food cooked over a fire, a colourful windbreak to lie behind, watching a desert fox sneak around our camp in the moonlight and falling asleep lying next to my friends after an evening of talking, music and tea. And in the morning waking to find that the naughty desert fox stole my flipflop.

The next day I did some more off road practicing. Omar insisted that I improve my skills. I preferred that I just did what was absolutely required of me and no more. All the same… I did some practicing and we took photos and joked about. I saw a photo of me on my bike. I have a little petite body that is so distinctly feminine. What was I thinking in Aleppo when I cut my hair thinking I’d pass as a man? Any fool could tell from miles away that that was a girl’s body. The little bit of practice was worth it and my confidence levels went up a few small notches.

Back on the road I finally met another biker girl! I was the first biker girl she had met too. We had a look at each other’s bikes. Her bike was a lot smaller and lighter than mine. She’s a tiny scrap of a girl from Japan who had just come up Africa and I was going down. Damn! I would so have loved to travel with a girl. She’d been travelling with a South African guy who told us about the appalling roads in Sudan and muddy floods in Ethiopia. Not exactly what I’d hoped to hear!

We route we took went via Bahariyya Oasis to the White Desert. This is one of the most attractive places in the Western Desert. There are white rocks shaped like mushrooms or faces or animals poking up every where. The sand is very soft and at times deep. There are patches of white rock, followed by a sandy patch, then a patch of slightly firmer sand and patches that look firm but are like puffy talcum powder… All that makes it unbelievably difficult to ride a motorbike across. Paul did quite well but I fell twice and then asked Omar to ride my bike (which he did with such ease that it just annoyed me). I could have been stubborn but there was no point in crashing my bike to pieces. Paul was then able to follow Omar which made it easier for him follow and learn. As much as I love my F650GS, it is very heavy to handle. At times I found it impossible.

We spent two days in the White Desert and I practiced riding in sand and trying to go as fast as possible without having a stroke. I realised that if the roads in Sudan were as sandy as we’d heard they were, there was no way I’d be doing it on my bike. I decided that for the really bad bit, I’d hitch a lift on a truck or have to do it by train. I have managed to do half the trip and was not about to break the bike or myself for the sake of crossing 100km of sand.

When I got back onto the asphalt road I stamped on the lovely hard surface and blew it kisses. I had read other biker’s travel accounts where they actually knelt down and kissed the tar. I wasn’t quite there yet but not far from it.

We passed through the Oases of Dakhla and Kharga and through more extraordinary landscapes. Unfortunately the time did eventually come when I had to say goodbye to Omar. I’m not a big one for saying goodbyes which is stupid because I’m such a rolling stone I seem to always be leaving. When I got on my bike, heavy with luggage again, instead of feeling happy to be on the road again, I felt as if my heart was breaking.

So here I am in Luxor and back to looking at ancient stones, ticking tick-boxes and Paul is in a happy snappy frenzy. I admit that the Egyptian ruins are pretty cool and thankfully very different from Roman ones. I didn’t realise that Luxor was the centre or capital of ancient Egypt – and so has miles and miles of temples all over. Fortunately we decided to have a guide take us to the West Bank to see the Valley of Kings and some other tombs so I’m a little bit more informed about “Egyptology” but if you want to know more, visit Egypt yourself!

I’ve done a basic service on the bike including oil change, air filter change and battery top up. I’ve check that all the bits are still there and nothing has worked loose or broken. I’m feeling ready for the road Jack!

I have my feet on African soil which is a wonderful feeling. I have the Youth Centre in Uganda expecting me and friends in SA waiting for my return. I have a future to look forward to, people to meet and projects to become involved in…. I am the girl on the bike; living the dream. But hey, just sometimes, I’m also a girl that is just a girl and nothing more.