Goodbye to Cairo - On the road again - 29th Jan 2002
Trying to Escape
The Monastery of St Paul
BMW Missing Some Key Parts
Leaving Cairo City was not the palaver that one might believe. The traffic was again accommodating and once we got onto the correct flyover (recce the previous day), it was plain sailing out to the ring road. But... there seem to be no road signs on the ring road and so we struggled a bit.
We stopped at a junction to ask directions only to witness the most remarkable bit of emergency braking by a police motorcyclist. He was approaching a break in the central reservation where a side road met. One of his traffic police colleagues waved out a van from the side road and because the biker was 'filtering' between two vehicles at about 50 mph, he failed to see the van coming out. With both wheels locked up he managed an impressive stop about 2 feet short of the van.
The most amazing upshot of this near miss was the conversation between the cops. There was no 'What are you doing letting that van out?' or 'What are you doing weaving through traffic at 50 mph?' In fact, it seemed that this happens all the time and they took the opportunity to catch up on gossip.
Our chosen route out to just south of Suez from Ma'adi was not signposted so even with the help of passers by, we couldn't be sure that we had hit the right road or whether we had missed any turnings, so we stopped in for petrol and checked once again.
The garage proprietor was very helpful. "Take a right after 25 metres, follow the road to the end and take a left along the main road."
Again, we were not sure that this was the right road as we turned off the garage forecourt onto a beautiful new road. 25 metres later we turned off onto a strip of gravel which had the remains of a barrier across the end of it After about two miles of this road that was clearly under construction. We spied the other main road (dual carriageway) in the distance. Much relieved, we were now only faced with the crossing of the central reservation to turn left. This is where doing like the locals comes in handy. I will spare you the gory details.
The road from here turned out to be terminally dull with two exceptions. A stretch of about 4 miles of gentle curves down Wadi Bad (sic) and another set of bends on the coast road down the West side of the Red Sea. At least on the first ones we had the entertainment of blowing off a copper on an FZR 750. It seems that there are so few corners on Egyptian roads that they never learn the noble art.
Our destination was the Monastery of St Paul, which we knew naff all about apart from a quick mention in our guidebook and it was at a sensible point the break the journey to Hurgada. To our relief the road off the main coast road up to the monastery was nice and curvy. We had heard that it was possible to stay the night with prior permission from the parent monastery in Cairo, we of course had failed to be that organized.
The place was a hive of activity and a chap in a tracksuit who guided us to a guest wing approached us. He hurried off to get Father Simon. Now Father Simon had a striking resemblance to an ordained member of ZZ Top. He was a wily dude who eyed us in the most disconcerting way, with a look almost as if he was trying to read our souls - if we have any. He explained that the monastery had been founded on the site of the cave of the Hermit St.Paul who had apparently spent 90years living off the land. Depictions of him have an uncanny likeness to the bloke in Life of Brian who had taken a vow of silence. I can only assume this is the reason for the ZZ Top facial fungus.
There was an offer of lunch and a night's accommodation, and it seemed that it might be rude to refuse, so we sat down to enjoy their hospitality. The fare was simple, a bowl of green looking soup, rice, pickle vegetables and bread. It looked harmless enough and filling, so we tucked in.
My first taste of the 'soup' revealed the most disgusting substance I have ever had the misfortunate to eat. It had a texture of phlegm, and taste unlike anything I have eaten - the nearest I could come to describe it is that it tasted like camel's breathe smells.
We were now in one of the most difficult situations of the journey so far. We had been offered some kind hospitality and it would be very rude to not eat anything. I managed to force some down by mixing small quantities with the rice and eating a pickle to drown the after taste. The most we could eat was about half the portion. Eating alone, we were free to comment quietly about the fare, we agreed that the substance was possibly very nutritious and maybe of deep religious significance but we would have to be on the verge of annihilation from starvation to resort to voluntarily eating it again. We made our excuses about only having eaten an hour before (which was not untrue).
We were shown separately to our allotted rooms, with the substance repeating on us as almost as constant reminder of our ordeal. My accommodation was a simple room in the women's wing with a number of mothers, teenagers and children here for the weekend. Peculiarly, despite the fact that women worked on the monastery, a monk showed me to the room and led me to the toilet which he went it without the courtesy of announcing his presence to any occupants. Single sex, but it seems it's OK for the monks to wonder in and out - most strange.
I did not have the luxury of a single room. Instead, I was shown to a dorm that had a charming rendering of St Anthony above the door. (It was he that discovered St Paul in his grotto)
The other beds were laid out with a shell suit on each. Fearing a group of dodgy eastern European refugees was present, I made secure my belongings as best I could.
After a stroll around the mountains and a charming evening with a family from Suez, we turned in reasonably early. I had the intention of rising early (3 a.m.) to witness the monks going about their praying business. We had caught a brief snippet of their chanting/singing earlier and it was so interesting, I wanted a second dose. Being in a dorm is not ideal. Comings and goings prevented me from dropping right off and I resigned myself to missing the next set of devotions.
Waiting for Hippy in the morning, I was much entertained by a group of adolescents who had traveled down from Cairo that morning. As we have discovered quite often, the innocence of children tends to make them much more approachable. Whether they can educate us as to the ways of the world is questionable, but it usually makes for an entertaining diversion.
Breakfast proved to be safer food. Bread, cheese, mashed beans (fuul) and jam. We ate heartily, topping up our nutrition depleted the night before. Father Simon appeared and gave us a guided tour of the gaff. In conversation, we learnt that in order to join this order, novices must have first shown themselves capable of being self supporting in a professional occupation. Simon had been a Civil Engineer. Reason enough to join a monastery.
We were constantly interrupted by folk coming up to yer man for a blessing. This took the form of shaking his hand and bending to kiss his hand at the same time. There was more to it than that, for every time someone ducked to kiss, he snatched his hand away leaving them to kiss their own thereby receiving the blessing.
On the walk round, we made various observations. Mount Sinai is visible across the Gulf from here. There is an almost perfect face visible in the rocks above the monastery that is clearly the result of natural erosion. In his inscrutable way, Father Simon dismissed these trivial comments and continued showing us important things such as the old refectory that was piled high with junk. We thought that our tour would have been more spiritual and inspirational. Maybe he considered that we were beyond redemption.
South from St Paul's is one of the most boring pieces of highway known to man. I should know, I've built some of them. There were a few flurries of sand above the dunes to catch the eye and a few plastic bags blew across the road to break the monotony. I struggled to work out where these bags came from - surely no one in their right mind would live in this desolation, never mind go shopping and ever return to it.
We stopped for a break and a drink of water at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere. Why was it there? No signs of tracks off into the desert or habitation of any sort, but a lovely bit of shade all the same. Getting back on the bike, I noticed a bit missing. Those of a bike mechanic nature will know of the steering head and hot there's an adjustment ring and a locknut on top. On a BMW there is a strange arrangement which basically has a locknut and another locknut on top of the adjusting ring. On my bike, there are now not. I began to worry that this would put all of the load on the bottom yoke of the steering head. What do you do?
With the possible collapse of our front suspension imminent, we pressed on. And on. Well its not broke yet.