Should I go or not?
Luxor is 225 kilometers from the port, with this heat it would be difficult to reach there in one stage, in the fifteen kilometers from the port to Aswan there is no adverse wind and I pedal quite well, before starting off, I have to withdraw, buy an Egyptian sim card, eat and drink something … once in the centre I manage to do these things fast … I eat two ice-creams … it was not a great idea … I drink a lot … and after Giorgia and two taxi drivers confirm to me that there should be hovel in Kom Ombu I through myself … when I pass in front of the beautiful hotel on the Nile Giorgia has booked for me a have a short vacillation … but the decision is now taken …
The Egypt seen so far is a different world, maybe a bit regressed, but in any case ages ahead compared to the two states which preceded it. The road follows the Nile and the railway, which is very busy in three hours I saw four trains, if you are lucky in Zambia four you see in two years …
On the Nile there are sails boats and touristic cruise boats, between the bank and the road there are often some tree, many palms and in some points the railway is decorated with multicolored buganvilles I feel really well and pedal without effort, like we will do in paradise.
The refreshments spots are numerous, I drink well even if I did not well, I arrive a bit tired when the sun is setting and everybody have in mind only the supper post Ramadan. Kom Ombu is divided in two by the railway, the right side is the centre, the left side here I found I place, enjoys the presence of the main road and the railway, which makes me think that the noise will only stop between two and four … but I would fall asleep even on a trailer of a track … or the lifeboats like I have seen yesterday …
Everybody tells me that there is not a hotel, lokanda I say, to let them understand I do not have demands, there are those who want to send me back to Aswan, those who say that in three kilometers which may well be twenty there is something, I know there is, I look until I find somebody to help me, finally I find this anonymous building close to decay which is a lokanda … obviously there is no writing in English … I agree with a kind old man for a room for 20 Egyptian pounds, 3 euro, when we go down to eat nearby, the old man is contradicted by an asshole who unfortunately must also be the owner, who says that it is all ‘fully booked’ to go away … I do not even think about it … at the end they change my bedroom and double the price but I am on the second floor where the wind moves … I will have to remember this attitude to deny the existence of hotels not considered good enough …
I do not even consider eating at the dive of the hotel’s owner, I want to walk, among these countless mosques with the colored lights like it is used for Christmas by us, down the bridge which crosses the railway you are overwhelmed by life, shop after shop, a lot of people, a four window shop of wedding dresses, very similar to ours, some shops of plastic flowers, bakeries, fruit and veg shops, restaurants and cafeterias, I am not ready to eat yet, I am hot and very thirsty, so I walk, drink and buy apples and bread for tomorrow morning … somebody stops me, ask me about my journey, then a distinct old man sitting on a plastic chair in front of his kebab restaurant, calls me through Mohammed a friend of his with whom he was smoking tea and drinking … Mortar, to know where I come from, of my journey, of Zambia, he always calls me by name, he is surprised that the bicycle is made out of bamboo like his stick, he orders tea continuously and smokes with the same frequency he is 75, and Mohammed him and I stay there sitting down under the portico to greet the people passing by, many know him, they stop greet him, and exchange a couple of words, this relaxes me and really refreshes me, I am ready to eat, broth, rise, salad, chicken and Arabic bread … Mohammed could not have taken me in a better place … we get back to Mortar, I like that with the stick he keeps the rhythm of the music coming from the shop in front, Mohammed who is my age, takes some medication for circulation and smokes a cigarette every ten minutes, I will smoke only in January 2021 … Mohammed wants to show me his FIAT 128 of 1972 with behind aileron … it is his taxi … the road is a rumbling museum of FIAT and Peugeot … as I am about to bid farewell … we hear very loud bangers … we go to see … from when wedding dresses shop a couple of newly weds come out … there are crackers and confetti … the newly weds get on the car and go followed by a crowd of partying relatives …
Before saying goodbye I bought two packets of cigarettes for Mohammed and Mortar, they wanted at all costs to return the favor with a bottle of Sprite …
Aswan High Dam N 23° 96.868’ E 32° 87.796’ – Kom Ombu N 24° 47.964’ E 32° 94.587’
66 km