Swapping Wadi Rum for Egyptian Rum - 17th Jan 2002
Trying The Easy Way
Ship's Entertainment: The Hot Rockers
Disembarkation at Nuweiba
Chilling in Dahab
Mount Sinai
Industrious Hippy
Egyptian Rum
Before setting off into the wide blue yonder that is the Gulf of Aqaba, we decided to find out how much it would cost to freight the bike to Kenya should we have problems with Sudanese visas.
After trogging around sundry grotty offices, we found the right guy who had clearly done this plenty of times before. He looked at us and simply said "there are no passenger births on the ship, you must hire a complete container unless you can find someone to share..." He must have been asked these questions many times before. The upshot was not too pleasing - $1,000+ to ship and the possibility of a huge wedge for the paperwork at the other end.
We set off to Egypt with new resolve to overcome all difficulties and bike it all the way and save the money.
Ship's Entertainment: The Hot Rockers
We had met Sculley faffing around in Aqaba and he seemed to suggest that the ferry left much later than the claimed 12:00 and so we didn't rush to the port too much. When we arrived, the big red truck full of climbers was there again. It seems that our paths are destined to cross all the way to the UK in a few years time.
The paper work was all explained in perfect English on the wall of the port office. Everything went very smoothly for once and the only thing slowing down the process was the number of windows that I had to stand at. When we eventually had all relevant bits of paper stamped, I wheeled the bike behind the big red truck and waited to be summoned onto the boat. Unbeknown to me, everyone had already boarded and there was no one waving me on board.
Once we knew the score, we got loaded in no time but were somewhat scuppered by the lack of ropes for tying the bike down. Fortunately, I had had the foresight to pack a reasonable length of climber's tape with me and we soon had our baby trussed up against a bulkhead. No doubt Sculley would have just wedged his bike in with an old oil drum or somesuch!
Well, Pat happy that Bertha the bike would have a safe journey, we headed for the deck only to be faced be a bottleneck of passengers in the gangway. The crew were relieving all and sundry of their passports. Were they expecting trouble, in the way that ferries to Amsterdam confiscate the passports of staggers?
Feeling a little uneasy that we were minus passports we had by now bumped back into the HotRockers and joined them on the deck. Their truck, I might add, was still on land. It seemed that there was no rush to load the boat that was already half an hour late on departure. It seems that we are now on 'Just now' time. The lads and lasses had gone to the deck prepared with a few beers and were settling in for a relaxed journey.
John, a tester of Rolls Royce engines, was on entertainment duty, but first he had Jordanian pounds to relieve himself of. To the gathered throng's delight, the shop on boat sold Heineken at 50p a tin. John found a home for his spare cash returned with a tower of beer (5 cases of 24 cans) and a builder's toy set complete with dumper truck which delighted Wayne.
This immediately attracted the attention of the other passengers. Within minutes we were surrounded by onlookers. Not wanting to disappoint the audience, entertainment was laid on led by John and Stuart with an active ditty by the name of 'Father Abraham'. This, if you don't know, culminates in a 'dying fly' action, now multiply this by about 20 people and you can imagine the excitement that it created in the gathered onlookers.
By now Pat was having concerns about the stability of the ship since all the passenger on both decks were concentrated in one corner at the rear of the boat overseeing a bunch of foreigners looking very peculiar.
I found the attention a little too much, as I tend to like to blend into the background. I think their boss, Stuart, sussed my unease and beckoned me over for a discrete confab, where he inquired how I felt about it and what I thought the locals thought. In fairness it wasn't my cup of tea but most of the locals were thoroughly entertained with only a splattering of disdainful looks from some older men. All of the gathered throng, of course, were men. I did wonder what the women thought about the cheers and noise emanating from the area.
I was getting a bit porked with the drinking on the decks. I don't know why, it just didn't seem very civilised - besides which, spillage kept dribbling across the deck under my helmet. In the end, the afternoon was actually reasonably ambassadorial. The Arab nations were treated to a bunch of westerners making complete wallies of themselves and you could imagine them walking away from it all saying "Told you so". Besides, the arm wrestling was mostly won by the locals even though these were supposed to be the cutting edge of climbing and honed perfect bodies.
Arrival in Nuweiba was delayed, unsurprisingly, by the same amount as departure from Aqaba. The result being a twilight exit from the ship before joining the growing throng of foreign vehicles being ignored by the customs officials.
We got the help of a tourist policeman who led me through the paperwork aspects of Egyptian immigration. Regrettably, he did not manage to get a reduction for me on any of the fees that are involved. The usual fee for having the form filled in was the one that really pissed me off. We also had to pay import tax even though the carnet de passage is supposed to avoid that. In short, we ended up 2 and a half hours and 100 USD delayed on hitting the night highways of Egypt. God knows what Sculley had to pay not having a carnet at all.
The road down to Dahab was quite pleasant although a bit corrugated in places. There is a story going about that Egyptian drivers do not use lights at night. Tosh. They used them entirely correctly, even dipping when oncoming traffic was present. I think my 100 Watt headlamp pointing directly in their eyes because of all of the weight on the bike upset a few of the other road users, but we made it safely to Dahab in quick time.
The main problem with night arrivals, as I see it, is that it is impossible to make out the lay of the land and get orientated. Eventually, the nice guys on the gate of the Hilton pointed us in the direction of the bargain basement hotels. We didn't bargain too hard as its hard to get the energy to knock someone down when they're only charging 2 pounds fifty for a night in a double room.
Very little to say about the next few days as we simply chilled in the Red Sea sun. We did bump into a lot of useful people, though. A couple from Germany on a pair of BMWs, a Swiss who had cycled down the west and up the east of Africa, a couple of guys travelling from Kathmandu to Kilimanjaro in a Landrover along with several folk who we've met on and off throughout the middle east. I get the impression that most north to south overlanders stop here for a while to recharge their energy. It's a pretty cool place to do it.
It seemed appropriate as we're in the diving gurus most recommended diving area to at least take a quick peak at the fishes. Hippy had come by a pair of prescription swimming goggles in Blighty before we set off and we decided to see how effective they are. She effected a snorkel-free method of snorkelling, which means taking a big breath and floating face down for a bit. She seemed pleased with the results and agreed that the fishes were indeed truly colourful and diverse. My snorkelling didn't get me much further as the water were perishing cold like.
In a frenzy of load shedding, we ditched a pan (what's the point in having more than one when you've only got a single burner stove?), forks (knives and spoons will suffice), games board (more on that later), Hippy's motorbike trouser liners and other small items. We decided that we needed to shed as much load as possible as the rough roads are coming up soon. The couple of Germans with two bikes set off and we were amazed by the amount of gear that they had. Their reasoning was that as they had the capacity, they might as well take a few creature comforts with them to keep spirits up.
We had an aborted trip over to Mount Sinai. Hippy had not got her head round the scale of our latest map which ahs the whole of North Africa on it. Looking at the trip to the home of the Ten Commandments looked feasible. But when we discovered that it is in fact 150 km, the idea of a day trip there and back including a trek to the summit (2250 metres) lost it's appeal. When we got within 30 miles, we could see that the top third was covered in snow and as we were clad only in summer biking gear, the prospect was chilly.
On the way back, I noticed a bit of rumbling from the back wheel and so I looked it over to discover that the tread was coming away from the carcass of the tyre. Something like those chunks of rubber that you see on the hard shoulder when a lorry remould has given up the ghost. It seems that Allah was with us as the tyre had held out at 70 mph until I noticed the problem.
A nice young man at a vulcanising shop fit the spare that we had carried from the UK in about 10 minutes. Now we have the task of finding a new spare. Oh, goody. At least I know that these things can be fixed with great easeÖ
Matze had had a bit of trouble with his bike and was at a loss as to what the problem was. In the end, I pinned it down to his alternator rotor. It pleased me no end to be able to outsmart a native of the land of BMW motorcycle production. Not much consolation for him though as he did not have a spare. He is intending to make it to Cairo by recharging his battery each evening and running it flat. I wish him good fortune! Just after he left the site, he returned to tell me to never run the bike with no rotor fitted. It seems that the bolt in the rotor seals the end of the crankshaft and stops the oil feed peeing out all over the place. I would have laughed, but there for the grace of God go I.
As we were holed up enjoying some sun Pat felt it was time to overhaul the bike and do whatever blokes do to bikes. Meanwhile I decided to turn to a serious bit of sunbathing and reading interspersed with my next project.
Now that the lucky scarf is pulling draws with the top teams and robbing them of 3 points (sorry JP) I had itchy fingers for my next bit of craftwork (not the Australian group). [Webmeister: Er, shouldn't that be German group Kraftwerk?]
We had been struggling with a very tinsy little chess and backgammon set, which was very compact and I had struggled for a while with how to have something bigger that packed down smaller, impossible you may say. Cloth is the answer. Then what could I butcher to create this material games set?
Our rucksack had been annoying us by having too many silly pockets and padding bulking it out between sections. So it was time to dismember it - I'm sure that Karrimor would not be impressed, but it seemed like a very sensible solution to me.
While Pat was up to the boy-thing I sat calculating how I could fit all the bits for a backgammon and chess set out out these random shaped bits of material. It would have been nice if Karrimor's design team had been a little more thoughtful and colour coded their pockets so that I had two colours for the pieces, but I suppose world travellers can't be choosers. If I was on the design team I would insist on a chess board being woven into the outside of the bag.
We've got quite a bit of good-bye saying to do in Dahab, although we'll probably bump into a lot of people again as everyone seems to be heading the same way down Sudan and Ethiopia. We have found that the best value drinking is to be had if one stick to the Egyptian brewed rum. Considering the country is supposed to be Islamic, they manage to turn out a reasonably potable version of this top beverage.
We set off into Africa tomorrow. In my opinion, Africa starts at Suez. I'm sure there are plenty who disagree. Cairo has to be visited in order to get the Sudan visas. That'll be fun.