The speedometer has been removed surgically …
The panniers where I keep all my luggage are two: in the one on the right I keep the rain mantles, the woolen hat, very useful in Ethiopia, different chargers, beauty case, medicines, in the one on the left I have the clothes and the computer and some tubes at the bottom. The stuff does not directly in the pannier which can be seen on the outside on the photos, but in another one, like a sack, removable and waterproof, to slip in like a matrioska into the outside one. The inside bags I have emptied them rarely, if I do remember correctly the last time was in Karthoum. This morning before starting off I was looking for a apple which I usually keep in the right pannier, on top of a pair of spare cycling shorts which sit on top if the beauty case … when I look in the right panniers … I find the clothes! … the clothes? … last night there was a black out and I was very tired and I did not notice that the inside sacks had been swopped over … so the police or the hotel manager as I was eating … looked inside the bags … sons of a bitch … can a revolution end with a military man in power?
Today the eye and the hands have often looked for the speedometer … especially in the first kilometers I often thought about that ignorant thief policeman, who has removed the wireless speedometer but left the magnets on the fork and the spokes … I imagine this example of police officer, unfortunately not rare in Africa, who goes home and gifts the speedometer to the young daughter telling her ‘Look what daddy got you!’ … the daughter looks at it … tries it … it does not work … and says ‘daddy next time you steal something for me do it with brain!’ … it reminds me of one of our workers at St. Ambrose who bought a DVD before having the television …
In any case I used the GPS, like I was told by that English guy in Tanzania, ‘every fucking thing sooner or later ends up being useful in Africa’, the GPS I only used it in Ethiopia for the altitudes but it works well also as a speedometer, but I have to keep it in the pockets the jersey has on the back …
Today I started off pissed off mind made up to go ahead as much as possible, I was not much in the mood to interact with people, nor to take pictures, then along the road Egypt has taken out its antibodies which started healing the sore open between me and the land of the Pharaohs … it was as if Egypt was not game to be remember at the last position of the states I crossed … and so it let me met many honest and hospitable people … who made me forget that piece of shit who is wanking with my speedometer …
Today in two places about thirty kilometers apart two shop keepers did not let me pay because they said I am their guest … it had happened to me a couple of times in Sudan and that is all … another one ventured under the maximum heat in the meanders of a small village to buy me talk time for the mobile … many greeted me with ‘you are welcome to Egypt’ … a family outside a small mosque supplied me to the max with ice water, they wanted to host me for a meal and the night …
Certainly after a ‘revolution’ the country will be more dangerous, there will be more weapons around … but it seemed to me that the kind of traveler I represent is not welcomed by the police … that is somebody who follows its own itinerary cannot for them be assimilated, and controlled, a tourist arriving on a plane, going to a hotel, and from there moving on set tracks … yesterday they told me first to get a train to go to Cairo … then the plane … ‘ because going by bicycle is very tiring’ … ‘but according to you I arrived until here to cover the last 400 kilometers with an alternative transport?’ … ‘ok you are free to do what you want but register at all the police posts you pass’ … ‘sure …’ …
Today I was not stopped, a couple of times at some road blocks I was called with delayed action, but I pretended not to hear them, …
The traffic is very disordered, the council houses similar to those found in our suburbs, all the vehicles have hooters too loud for their size the minibus has the hooter of a big truck, the Bajai the same, the trucks can be heard even on Libya, when the traffic is at its maximum the IPod can no longer be heard …
Al Balyana N 26° 23.543’ E 32° 00.298’ – Asyut N 27° 17.831’ E 31° 18.592’
162 km