Shit day!
Or rather shit end of the day …
Everything had started well, sumptuous breakfast with two sandwiches take away with some kind of ham and cheese, the temperature is more acceptable than usual, and the landscape becomes increasingly greener as the kilometers pass by. Here the Nile is used well for agriculture, other than the usual big canal parallel to the Nile, there are some small canals too from where, with the help of diesel pumps, the water is directed to the middle of the cultivated fields. The maize is very green like in Zambia it is seen rarely. At the sides of the road tall palms full of dates gift a bit of shade even when the sun is high.
The Egyptian drivers are the fastest and more undisciplined at the same time, wild stop wherever it happens, overtaking on turns, overtaking in three, lane invasion even when in the middle of the two lanes there is the traffic island … but they alt completely in front of the humps which the public administration must have put to limit the intemperance … almost all the cars have some dents …
Towards 18,30 I arrive to Al Balyana, the sign anticipates the city of a few kilometers, I take advantage gladly of the three flying refreshments post Ramadan, where in a small plastic I am given dates, juices and water … I look for the hotel which my team has identified, I cannot find it, there is who tells me that there are no hotels and who tells me to go ahead to the centre, a tuk tuk driver, the usual Bajai here is called like that, offers to lead the way after a couple of kilometers we arrive but everything is closed, actually the hotel seems to have never open. The same driver escorts me to another place, but like in Kom Ombu they do not want me, while I am there a guy calls me from a tuk tuk, he speaks English, and tells me that he will take me to the hotel, I follow him, we stop at the internet point that he manages, and we walk to the hotel, he takes me to the same where I was already before …
The guy, Coptic Christian, tells me that i can sleep at his house, but first we have to pass by the police to inform them, if any of the neighbors would go to the police to say that he hosted me he would be in trouble. At the end at the police there is not the Chief, they bring me in this order tea, white guava juice, a 1,5 liter bottle of water and a coffee while we wait for the captain. Some policemen tell me to go to Cairo by train that is safer, because there are many armed delinquents after the revolution … They check the passport like a philatelist would check a stamp seen only on a photograph, number three of the police station keeps me company until number two arrives, in civilian clothes with a gun in the trousers, he asks me questions, asks where I met the Coptic guy and says that at his place I cannot stay for safety reasons the police will transfer me to an hotel 10 kilometers away from my route to Cairo, I insist to stay but there is no way … in the meanwhile also number one has arrived, he sees me in his office, he asks me in a broken English of my ride and offers me coffee, he is watching the Olympics I see Mohammed Farah surprisingly win the 5000 meters, and the South African Semenya arriving second after a race done with haughtiness, or maybe emotion, and always in last position. I ask the captain which medals has Egypt won he says ‘Nothing’ but they have a wrestler who should bring a medal home, we are waiting for the car …
When the car arrives it is more than three hours that I am there, I hope to cover a short distance because these are all kilometers I have to add tomorrow … we arrive in Abydos, more or less 10 kilometers west of Al Balyana, but the police does not take me to the hotel, but to the ‘tourist police’!
We off load the bicycle, the two policemen who escorted me go back to Al Balyana, they check my passport … and look for an hotel! … with this captain I watch the news … there is a feature on the sales started today … when the hotel owner arrives we go to see the room and then back to get the bicycle …
… where the hell is the speedometer! … I think it may have fallen when the bicycle has fallen in the police car … I ask the tourist policemen to call the chief in Al Balyana … first they say that they do not have the number … then they call and tell me that they said they have checked and there is nothing … but I do not think it is true because question and answer last are only 20 seconds apart … I ask to call the chief or number three … but they give always the same fast answer …
Actually there is no certainty that it has fallen in the car, somebody may have taken it before in the police yard, …
Going ahead without speedometer, with the street directions only in Arabic and the kilometers not always indicated, will not be easy especially psychologically, but mathematically too … and to be honest it disturbs me quite a lot.
I had not removed the protective adhesive yet, like the workers from FIAT with the seats of the car they bought to the resell them a few months later, it helped me a lot with the averages and the kilometers, now it will be shit, I will miss it like I miss the freedom of movement which here is limited, I wonder even if the denial to sleep in the house of an Egyptian citizen would have been the same also for a Muslim … they checked my passport more in three days in Egypt than in all the other states in two months … it may be a side effect of the revolution …
Luxor N 25° 68.724’ E 32° 63.963’ – Al Balyana N 26° 23.543’ E 32° 00.298’
160 km