Pedaling Panther : February 2018

Africa!!! Well what can I say, back in November 2016 I was adamant I would cycle across Asia from Delhi, throw the bike down, set up a hostel somewhere and never come back! Just over a year later after getting as far as Laos and breaking my foot, I've cycled the whole of the Americas, had a month off to recover and found myself in Cairo ready to cycle across Africa. I didn't see this one coming!

I'm going to do my best at continuing a mini version of the blog, this time updating it a bit more frequently....I don't think I've got it in me to cycle 100 plus mile days back to back and sit writing a full blog in my tent at night!! My legs still hurt and my body took a hammering! But.... I'm back in the saddle, again heading south, though this time in the direction of Cape Town! The only thing set is stone is I have to be back on duty at the fire station for July 1st and not a day late! It's time to hit the road for the final time in the craziest and rawest continent of them all....T.I.A....This is Africa!!!......here we go!

Leaving London Heathrow Airport (1st February 2018)

Flying to Cairo the first thing I noticed was that there was only a handful of white people on the half empty plane and mutterings about terrorism and security! On the plus side I had a row of seats to myself, the Egyptian hostesses were hot and my room in downtown Cairo was 7 quid!! Inflation had gone through the roof since the recent terrorism and government military coups and exchanging British pounds for Egyptian ones made things cheap as chips!

Landing in Cairo I immediately knew I was on the African landmass. People were smoking in arrivals and the city was an intoxicating mix of 22 million Egyptians drinking coffee and smoking shisha, old crumbling buildings mixed with new coated in dust and car horns blaring!

No, there are no beeping cars in this photo - its Friday, day of rest here in Egypt! - View from my penthouse

My 3 days in Cairo were spent checking out the pyramids and feeling sorry for my poor camel 🐪 that kept getting whipped. My crazy guide also made him stand still so I could stand up on top of him. Not nice to Mr Camel I know, my mad guide asked me 6 times to do it and I eventually gave up! The rest of my time was spent going on a tinder date with a very hot but bonkers westernized Egyptian girl and stuffing my face with great Egyptian food. Public affection is a big No and sex before marriage is still apparently sentenced with being hung I was to discover! :-s!

11am on Sunday I impatiently hit the road. I had planned on leaving a day later but my nose was full of black snot from all the pollution and I wanted to get the first day nerves of riding Africa out the way. Cairo seemed never ending as I left but directions wise it was a piece of cake as the main road literally followed the Nile. Outside of Cairo there was also a motorway heading south in the desert, but the greener road on the banks of the mighty Nile seemed more appealing.

Egyptians have a way of looking very bad ass, but nearly everyone was extremely nice to me. Even the guy that I could have sworn was Isis, who kept making some bizarre gesture at me, caught me up again on his motorbike and gave me a can of Coke! 50km out of Cairo, on a very dry part of the road that looked more like something from an Afghanistan war movie, I came upon a roadside Police check point. I tried hiding behind a car and slipping through with the rest of the traffic, but the police were having none of it! I was made to sit behind a stone wall, obviously there to protect the police from gunfire. My nerves were not put at rest by watching one of the officers with a machine gun fooling around, repeatedly slapping another bloke in the balls. Thankfully, the police weren't there to mess with me and 2 hours later I left, now in pitch black, with a fully armed police escort! I was led by 2 separate convoys to the city of Beni Suef on the other side of the Nile, where I was checked into the most glamorous hotel in town!

Sugarcane and Sugary Police tea powering me down the Nile!

The following morning at 8:30 am sharp my next Convoy was already waiting for me, a police motorbike soon joined by another jeep. This was one of 5 escorts that day. We would stop for regular coffee stops. The first involved 2 of the blokes smoking a Shisha pipe (and me choking my guts up in it!) and giving me his AK47 machine gun to play with whilst the other 2 officers pulled out the prayer mats, turned to face Mecca and began praying.

The last Convoy of the day I will not forget either. At a roadside police check point on reaching the city of Minya, I was handed over to the young undercover Police captain. He puffed on a cigarette and asked my views on the protocol for shagging women in the UK. We then crossed the road to a parked police van. I was told I had to put my bike inside it to drive me to the hotel. On releasing it didn't fit he opened the back doors....... inside were 3 prisoners!!! One was slapped round the head and released onto the street to make room for my bicycle. The other 2 were temporarily moved next to me in the front and heads abruptly twisted by the officer to not look at me! "Don't worry, small crimes" the officer told me reassuringly! I was then taken to what was probably the best hotel in town, bike unloaded and asked, "What time tomorrow!?". It was probably also the most expensive and the dodgy receptionist tried it on saying, "No rooms left, suite 900." This was 3 times the price! I managed to get it for the price of a normal room at 330 Egyptian Pounds though(13 quid) .....and there was a cracking view over the Nile!

Cycle like an Egyptian!

View of Nile from my Hotel - Minya

The Police escorts continued throughout Egypt (see pic left)...all day, every day. It made for an interesting start to the trip, though after a while it began to feel pretty claustrophobic to say the least with them driving right along side me or a matter of feet behind my rear wheel. I didn't even want to stop for a piss! Many of the officers would insist on throwing my bike into the back of the van, though I made it clear I was here to cycle Egypt not drive across In a Police car and refused! I had one lift for about 40 miles where the police chief and 5 officers threw my bicycle into the back of the pickup against my will, it properly pissed me off! Though after hearing from a Dutch cyclist who was marched to the train station and told he could no longer cycle and a Spanish bloke who was made to take lifts for over 50% of Egypt I guess on reflection I'd done pretty well considering! It just seemed ironic that what would probably be one of the safest African countries I'd cycle through on my to Cape Town was the one I'd have all the Police escorts for! If only they could rock up in the Congo and help me there!

On reaching Luxor I checked out the world famous Valley of Kings, the burial site of Tutankhamun and 63 Royal Tombs. The Egyptians had decided to bury the mummy's here under the ground after the previously built pyramids had been looted. The tombs were continually dug and elaborately decorated until the king died, at which point they would be buried. Hence, the older the ruler, the deeper and more impressive the chamber (the longest is over 120 meters) The site of Tutankhamun was not discovered until 1922 by the British archaeologist Howard Carter. Despite his fame and popularity in the world today, Tutankhamum was not seen as one of the great Egyptian Pharaoh's of the time. His popularity was because his tomb was the only one to be found fully in tact with all its jewels due the fact it was hidden beneath another tomb and never discovered and looted. The tomb is actually very small compared to others as construction stopped when Tutankhamun died aged just 19.

Leaving Luxor I managed a brief moment of peace by cycling in-between lorries at Police checkpoints. Unfortunately this was short lived and they soon chased after me in a car! "Where are you staying?!"they asked me, I said the name of the next and only big town, "No Hotel!" was the reply. My answers of "camping then" did not go down well! The told me the next town was Aswan. This meant a 240km day knocking out Luxor to Aswan in one day in 38 degree heat! (heatwave) So much for taking it easy! Another problem with the police, was that I would always have to cycle at full pelt, as I figured the faster I went, the less inclined to get bored and throw my bike in the police car they would be. It seemed to work, and other than the 40 miles forced lift, I cycled all of Egypt. Often, at the end of the day they would race ahead of me and try to make me keep up at 25 mph! A tour de France sprint finish was not always what you wanted after 240km cycling in the desert!

Alone at last - new road to Sudan

Nearing Sudan - boat across Nile

Arriving in the beautiful city of Aswan was the only place other than Cairo to buy a Sudanese visa, and a swift 2 days later it was stamped into my passport! This was pretty jammy, it can be denied and often take up to a week or more. Also applying for a Sudanese visa at the consulate was a British guy about my age with a Bob Marley haircut. In my experiences people with carpets on there heads are either complete plonkers or very cool. Fortunately he was the later. Among his travel stories was his backpacking trip to Afghanistan! He managed to get himself a visa at Kyrgyzstan and bribe his was over the border (including signing a document to say he understood there was a high chance he would die!). In an attempt to stay safe he thought it would be good to grow a big bushy beard and wrap his whole body in cloth so only his eyes were visible. A week later he was arrested on suspicion of terrorism and spent a week being interrogated in an Afghan jail thinking he was going to die! Apparently the rest of Afghanistan don't have big bushy beards and dress like the Taliban! Lesson learned!

Two days on the desert highway and one night camping at a police checkpoint saw me to the incredible but controversial town/temple of Abu Simbol. It was also time to say a final farewell to my Police escort...there had been some good moments with the police, though it was a massive sense of freedom to be alone again! Anyway, In the 1960's the Egyptians built a huge dam to flood the Nile, which would have made Abu Simbol temple (thought to be the worlds best temple) disappear along with 1000s of local Nubian people. It was rescued by UNESCO at a cost of 46 million and moved in sections to its new location on the edge of one of the the worlds largest man made lakes, Lake Nasser. From Abu Simbol I crossed the Nile and made my way along the new road to the newly reopened border of SUDAN!

My out of control guide - Pyramid's of Giza. There was barely a western tourist anywhere. Considering these incredible pyramids are the only remaining ancient wonder of the world, it felt more than strange!

Poor Camel - sorry - I didn't want to do this!

The size, detail and ability to build these incredible temples 3500 years in mind blowing. Ironically, the modern house in Egypt is a complete crock of #hit!