At the end only twelve kilometers more than expected …
I left at 6,30 and I pedaled for nine hours, at the beginning, until midday, the temperature was acceptable, then when the shade moves from the left side to vertical, and you can only see the projection of the handlebar and the frame under you, the heat becomes suffocating, luckily there is no wind and compared to Sudan there are many more shops and bars to supply fresh water. Here too there are the water pots smaller then the Sudanese ones and also some kind of fountains which filter the water.
The road proceeds between the railway and the Nile, at times the railway is on my right at times on my left, there are a couple of rail crossings, at one they were selling some spectacular white grapes I was not eating in years, at another the drivers and the rail crossing officers went close to a fight, because the drivers were tired to wait and were about to lift the bars … myself they let me pass under …
In the last seventy kilometers between the Nile on the West, and the railway on the East, a fairly big channel appears, fed by the Nile, used as swimming pools, laundry and bath tubs …
I struggle but I go ahead I try to wet the cap every half an hour and to drink often … but when I arrive I am exhausted …
Luxor is a very touristic place, there are many coaches pulled by horses and the smell of Palio, too many people who can mumble Italian, when you say you are Italian the first thing they ask you if you want to buy hashish, good image … there are boats with Italian and German flags …
Around the Nile it is very green, at the greengrocers’ you can find a lot of fruit, all local, today I did not let a melon pass me by, which more than eating it I drank it, it was since a bicycle ride in Cyprus, that I was not feeling this sensation of biting fruit with avidity to ‘drink it’ more than eating it.
On the prices in Egypt you have to pay attention, because some modify them according to your nationality, today I told a barman of Somali origins to get stuffed when he wanted me to pay a coke six times the normal price, I took out the right amount and I banged it on the table with a fist and told him he was a thief … and I left telling him to go to hell … Many tell me ‘you are welcome’ but for others it seems to me that I am not the kind of traveler they would expect … mass low cost tourism is harmful …
On the ferry from Wadi Halfa I found a guy who in a Italian tourist resort had learnt ‘o partigiano portami via …’ (an Italian anti-fascist resistance movement song) …
Kom Ombu N 24° 47.964’ E 32° 94.587’ – Luxor N 25° 68.724’ E 32° 63.963’
179 km