Hurgada And A Spot of R and R - 31st Jan 2002
Back on the beach
Life is a Cabaret
We Got Ourselves A Convoy
Luxor Sunlight It's All The Same
Hurgada is a grown up's Dahab. A tourist resort in the cheaper vein with a big brother just down the road. We checked in to an ordinary little hotel on the strength of the fact that is was dazzlingly clean. As per usual, Hippy beat the price down. Even though accom is ridiculously cheap in Egypt, it has become something of a point of honour to get the best deal that we can. We later heard the poor junior member of staff who had done the deal being berated by a German adviser to the hotel for his weakness in giving in to us.
We sunbathed, emailed off to Motorworks for the missing bits and generally did nowt for a day or two or three in fact. We tried to include a couple of beers in our R and R but were dismayed to find the bar prices to be 10 pounds a pint (Egyptian that is). Dahab had been 6 pounds and so, again on principle, refused to cough up that much. Seeking for further amusement, we went into the 'Duty Free Shop' down the road. We waded through the racks of assorted colours of Johnny Walker (these guys seem to love the stuff) until we at last found our prey in the beer section. At 1.50 USD the beer here was more expensive than bar prices in Dahab and Cairo so we again went away with our tails between our legs.
While Pat was hunting out beer stocks, a male assistant in the shop engaged me in conversation. This, I might add, is unusual for a man here to acknowledge my presence. He began by commenting on the bike gear and how Arab women wouldn't travel like that and he wanted to marry a European. I tried to politely point out that secretly many women might well be interested but convention is preventing them and relayed encounters I had had when alone with the bike with women who were most intrigued by the idea of bike travel. I was trying to convince him that underneath it all, all women want the same thing, just that it is easier to attain those things in some cultures.
The conversation then took a weird turn. He believed that it would be better to marry a European and then he would be able to do what he wanted and leave her alone for as long as he wished. It seemed that he had confused the concept of independence with lack of responsibility. I assured him that women all over the world tended to marry people because they wanted to be with them, and all would be unhappy if their menfolk disappeared. By now, we had been joined by a second assistant who seemed to be nodding in agreement with me and showed tacit disdain for his colleague's comments. I hope his opinion that women from the West will put up with being treated badly is not universal. I left quite concerned about what other gross misconceptions are flying around.
We've discovered the art of getting better service. Learn the lingo. Really, if we'd had time in Syria before outrunning the weather, we'd have done a quick Arabic course. Seems we never got round to it anywhere. In resorts like this, you get the impression that none of the tourists make an effort at all. I have always struggled to understand people who just go away to lie on a beech and order gin and tonics in their mother tongue. Where's the interest in that. I guess if you've had a hard few months, meaningless switch-off like this may be your cup of tea. We were a bit knackered when we arrived in Hurgada so we lazily went into the local fast food gaff and ordered 'two of those and two of those'. The following day I went in and made the same order in Arabic. I got twice the amount of food for half the cost and a bag of pickles thrown in. Nuff said.
There were some fascinating guests at our hotel; A Polish/Brazilian couple, a gay Polish opera set designer, an American landscape gardener working on contracts in Nigeria along with a strange bunch of South Africans, French... We had a couple of jolly evenings talking over all manner of travelling yarns. Richard, the designer, was particularly entertaining and his tale of he and his partner eating the sheep's eyes at a wedding in Kazakhstan has us in stitches. In all of his prattling, it was obvious to anyone that he was just camp enough that you could not mistake his sexual orientation.
At the end of the evening, our host, Mohamed - one of the more enlightened Egyptian Moslems that we have met - could not believe it when he proclaimed his gayness. Richard's opinion of Egyptians was that they were mostly gay but could not get their heads around the fact. We were uncomforted to hear that female circumcision, although illegal, is alive and well and living in Southern Egypt. We were aware of the controversy in Iran, Iraq and many Central African countries but were not aware that it was so widespread. At least Mohamed voiced his complete disgust at the concept.
The second night of chat - for Mohamed's birthday - brought about the first defeat for Bolton since the completion of the lucky scarf. You may well suggest that the scarf is not so lucky, then. In fact, I am ashamed to say that the trouncing by Manchester United is entirely my fault. Because of the party atmosphere, I forgot to put the scarf on during the match until Hippy reminded me with 20 minutes to go. As you will be aware, the die was cast by that stage of the game. There really is no way that I can apologise enough to the loyal supporters. I'm sorry.
To leave Hurgada for Luxor, one has to go in a convoy because of a bit of anti-tourist shooting stuff in 1997. To be fair, this strategy seems to be working as there has been no repetition.
We had been reliably informed by a police checkpoint that the convoy left the outskirts of Hurgada at 7am but to be there for 6.30. So we did as we were told. Arrived, got waved to the front of a queue of lorries and started eating the packed breakfast from the hotel. Just as we had peeled the second boiled egg, the convoy began to move. We stuffed the now peeled egg with the rest of breakfast into the bag and headed off.
We had been under the impression that a convoy meant an armed escort, and as befits the name, all the vehicles travelling as one unit. However it transpired that it was a race with no marshals. Signposts were now completely in Arabic and although we have mastered a little speech and the numbers, the alphabet still eludes us. So we went for the principle of follow me leader, until one lorry went right and the other forward. We knew at some point we needed to make a right, so went with the first lorry on intuition.
Fortunately, 1 km later we reached the checkpoint for Safaga where the convoy actually started at 7a.m. With 5 minutes to go it looked like we had been well organised. The policeman stopped us and requested that we waited for the rest of the convoy. Meanwhile, he did his best to get various kinds of baksheesh out of us: pens, sweets, cash, cigarettes. Whilst annoyed a little, I had in the back of my mind a conversation with the German lady at the last hotel when she pointed out that many of the government workers had not been paid for the last two months.
We were waved into first spot behind the lead police station wagon. I worried that this was going to be an awfully long ride as we set off at about 15 mph. Fortunately, when all of the tourist vehicles were through the checkpoint, the pace hotted up. Gradually, we got up to about 60 mph with each of the vehicles separated by about 6 feet. The minibus behind me particularly seemed to have no concept of safe braking distance. Typically, every time we got to anything like an interesting bend, the lead car slowed. It seems that no one knows how to steer effectively here. Maybe I'm just a nutter.
After a short break at the halfway point where we were engaged in conversation with a Spurs fan and learned of the previous night's humiliation, we carried on in the same vein through to Luxor. The scenery was quite dull and it is hard to imagine that anyone would choose this area for a hold up. It's a long way from anywhere and there's nowhere to hide. Still, I guess the cops know best.
Luxor Sunlight It's All The Same
We'd kind of decided where to stay in Luxor as we had needed an address to get bike bits sent to. When we checked out the hotel that we had selected from the hallowed pages of the Lonely Planet, we were less than impressed. Fortunately, they claimed not to be able to offer us a decent room for more than one night as they were fully booked. This gave us the get out that we needed and in short order we were ensconced in a cheaper, nicer hotel. I crept back to hotel 1 and gave the desk clerk a few quid to take delivery of my package and give me a call when it gets here. We shall see.
We were fortunate at our final choice of hotel to be able to choose our room. As there was no chance of getting the bike inside, I was relieved to be able to have the downstairs front room where the bike was parked outside the window. That is until 11:00 when there were still children screaming outside in the street. One even had a bloody kazoo. Bloody kids - you've got to love em.
Luxor and it's neighbour, Karnak, are quite famous. Bits have appeared in James Bond films and Death on the Nile and stuff like that. Mostly, its lots of bits of monumental masonry with a few cave and wall paintings thrown in for good measure. Really, it would be presumptuous of me to try to describe the beauty and quality of many of the antiquities here. On impressions so far, we still rate Petra as the number 1 attraction. Tomorrow, we have Valley of the Kings and many other top attractions to see and so our opinion may change. Watch this space