Disco inferno

Place: Aswan.

Tunes: Constant honking in the background. Seventies disco if I had a choice. The disco lights were there.



Today, early start and directly into the Nubian Desert. Some nice mountain roads, but no joy there as you cannot really race with the knobblies. The road tire gang disappeared and went their own way pretty soon as is the norm. The drive through the desert was uninteresting to say the least and fighting sleep was the biggest challenge in the heat.
 
After finally making it to Luxor we drove straight to Karnak and hired a guy with no teeth to tell us something about this place. After the desert, dehydration and lack of breakfast, a walk in the mid-day sun did not really seem like a great idea but it was not too bad and the tour was actually pretty good. The rip-off prices at the restaurant after the tour and in the pharmacy were not. Again you felt really welcome to visit here. 

The big hall in Karnak with dozens of huge pillars all covered in hieroglyphs that has been there for a crazy amount of time was the most impressive place of all. 
 
South of Luxor everything changed. Historically, the southern kingdom has always been more “African” and the north kingdom more “Middle Eastern” and this is definitely how we experienced it. Modern Egypt consists of these two kingdoms and was united by this Ramses II dude some years ago.
 
The Luxor-Aswan ride was the most insane so far. Syria or the Lebanon were civilised in comparison to this place.

 
It is difficult to describ what it was like. Anarchy, chaos and complete disregard for anyone or anything but yourself was the norm. You don't have to stay on any particular lane for starters. You just go where and when you feel like going. If someone else is in your way then it's their problem.

Half of the cars we saw use lights at full beam or flash them randomly. The other use no lights at all. Some have lights flashing in different colours. And of course the indicators are just as random The result is that you feel like you are in a disco. Some Bee Gees in the ipod and I could have gotten into the groove and joined in.
 
The safety distances between cars and us are measured in centimetres and we had several near misses. It is really difficult to describe how chaotic it was. No-one tries to predict anything at all, ever. I tried to look at the people flashing their lights, but I only saw a dozen waving hands through the windshield, I did not see the driver and it would have been impossible for him to see out as there must have been like five kids stuck on the front seats. One of them was probabaly driving.

And then the buses. These are the very same ones that the package holiday-goers travel with. They are essentially like trains. They go just as fast and they slow down just as easily. If you are in front of them, you'd better move aside and stay well clear as they really try very hard not to change the lane as they overtake anyone. And of course they drive as fast as the bus goes. Everywhere. Does not matter if it's a village or open highway.

The minibuses naturally try to imitate this but rarely succeed as they are usually packed with about 58 people inside the 25 year old rust-raped Hiace with an engine from a moped.

What is the most ridiculous thing about all of it is that it is completely unnecessary. The same jihad-hiace must have overtaken us with risk to life and limb about seven times to get to the next bus stop 20 seconds faster, only to do it again and again…
In summary, again we saw people drive their cars pretty much like we ride our bikes.

This arrogance and unnecessary agression and recklessness is the norm also with pedestrians. You may have heavy traffic around you but you do not look where the cars are or if they are stopping, you just walk whereever you feel like walking. And if a car nearly hits you, you are completely justified to go start shouting at the driver even if the near miss was completely your fault. Are these people deaf and blind? 

The roadside is where people hang out in the villages and towns. I guess nothing else is happening anywhere else. This might sound quaint, but is not. 


In Aswan we decided to send the only person who had any idea where the hotel might be ahead into town. After waiting for a while the rest of us followed and tried to find him (and the hotel). Exciting!


We make up games like this to make all of this less boring as the drive to Aswan was not eventful enough. Only amateurs drive straight to the hotel door without doing a thorough reconnaissance around the immediate environment.
 
The hotel was a considerable improvement to the previous ... place. There we met two German dudes, who had two KTM ex-military off-road bikes, light loads and six months to Cape town. Sounds like a sensible plan. Not something for us.
 
Day two was easy. Only around 4 hours in the heat running around town from counter to counter doing some completely pointless paperwork that could have been done for us. Some of these stops were not even in the right office. The right office was the two shady looking charachters in the side of the road in front of some apartment building. They had two little stools and big pile of forms and a stamp. They wanted our papers and money and two hours later we got some more papers. Apparently you need a certificate that you have not been in traffic accedents in the country before they let you out. 


One interesting stop was at another police (?) station where we tried to ask this young officer where we should go. He accepted the mission and briskly ushered us through many buildings and offices all the way to the big cheese police officer. He looked very surprised to see this bunch of bikers in his room and demanded an explanation. As we asked him precisely what we asked the young officer, he promptly threw us out and gave the young guy a quite severe stare.

-What?
-Nothing.
-What?
-Nothing.
-Why are you here?
-We don't know. He brought us here.
-Get out!

After all the formalities were over it was time for truly international food at the MacDonalds restaurant and a day trip to the fancy hotel across the river for some ice-cream and drinks. The MacDonalds minute maid orange juice has never tasted so good. They must have laced it with something, it has really never ever tasted this good.

We also have stocked up on water and sardines. Fighting the merchants at the bazaar was again a pain in the ass. Buying even the simplest thing takes half a day. Someone even offered cannabis to us. Did not expect that in a Muslim country. 

You actually have to fight the merchants who grab your person and drag you to their shop. You can ask them do you have this or that and they always say yes "we will get it for you" regardless if you ask for some suspenders or a space shuttle. When they cannot provide you with whatever it is that you needed, they will not let you leave. You have to force yourself out of their shops. And then they run after you and try to continue their pathetic sales pitch as you are walking further and further away pretending to be really offended and hurt when you say for the twenty-seventh time "I will not buy anything from you. Not now, not ever." Are they really that desperate or just bored?

Laundry was taken care of too and I finally decided to do something about this stomach bug I have had for two weeks. No beer for me for the next three weeks then, but we are heading to Sudan tomorrow, so no beer for anyone.