Mission accomplished!
This morning I woke up at nine!
Shit!
Maybe my body is more intelligent than me, it decided it was better to sleep, the stage was relatively short, the two previous nights I did not sleep much, but waking up at nine means starting off with the heat, doing everything in a rush and reaching late … I miss the natural alarm of Sudan, turning around on those open sky beds … seeing the sun come … having breakfast with what is available … laughing with the truck drivers …
Very slow breakfast, and without liquids which have to be ordered and paid separately, when in Rome do as the Romans… you can eat omelet, ham and cheese sandwiches, jam and typical cakes without drinks … in Egypt?
I left after eleven slowed down by the credit card, the bill preparation, … the heat today was tough, suffocating, … I told myself ‘Matteo don’t worry, it does not matter when but tonight you will reach …’ and like a samurai I took this promise to myself as a matter of life and death … the missed accomplishment would have hurt my honor for ever irreparably … without speedometer I think more bullshit than usual … Japan and China will be my next journeys …
Today along the all route I did not find the usual abundance of water, few or empty water pots, few or dry fountains, and hardly any water in the bars … drinking only drinks is not the same …
In Egypt too, though at the same level as Ethiopia, there are children who work in particular many drivers of Bajai taxis, the Indian copy of the Ape which from Kenya I found in all the cities, they are boys some of them around ten twelve years, they drive like on bumper cars at a fair, U inversions, drive against the flow of traffic, parallel chat with others Bajai, some follow me and come next to me, and I have to be very careful mainly when they are at my side in front or close to a bump because they are unpredictable … people seem to trust them … traffic police and helmet do not exist … the Chinese motorbikes have the same role of a 50,000 euro station wagon … a family of four or five can all move … the most common number of passengers is three …
The stage was suffered I was not going much, I arrived at 7 it took me half an hour to find this hotel for rich Egyptians from where I write on a terrace over the Nile, the bar is full of people, there is a bumper cars ride … a boutique … the swimming pool and the guards wear stonewashed denims … like the cities at this time, they live much more in the night I think because of the heat and Ramadan … there are very few women with the veil … I doubt that they are all Coptic … they may be flexible … usually the wealth makes religion always more flexible … today thinking about Ramadan, but in general for all the religion I was wondering where the idea is born that to give thanks to God you have to suffer, repent, fast, abstain from sex, and so on … this idea of a nasty God, to make happy through privation, sacrifices, ready to punish you … I do not like it one bit … which father, or mother, would rejoice to see their children suffer … I am sure these are human distortions from which I try to abstain as much as possible!
When I am pissed off in English, often I scare myself, and I am even worse than in Italian … which says a lot … in two months I slept in normal hotels … where you could take your beloved one, without being dumped on the spot … less than ten times … but if I pay 50 dollars … there must be a difference with an Ethiopian hotel of 2 euro, … this evening the air conditioning in my room was not working and the thermometer indicated 36° … I could not manage to get out because the door was not opening … when I managed to get out more sweaty than when I arrived on the bicycle … I went to the reception and they told me ‘Be patient, now we are going to fix it …’ … after an hour prisoner in the boiling room … the show erupted which will be kept in their memories for a long time … they immediately changed my room …
Egypt is the most accurate for the hotel forms filling in, in Ethiopia the Zambian drivers’ license was good enough, here like in an exam, if you leave some parts blank, you have to repeat … I fundamental importance is given to the question ‘next destination?’ … ‘what the fuck do you care?’ … I think it is one of the reasons why they bounce on the spot you in the small places … you must traceable … Ethiopia has less fear … but Ethiopia is a world in its own … ahead … even in the economic restrictions …
The Muslims have an territorial organizations similar to the Catholic one, in every town since Sudan, there are mosques, like our churches often the biggest buildings in town, with the tall minaret, often with lights, which can be seen from a distance … since last evening I started seeing a bit more Coptic churches … today on the Nile bank at a distance of fifty meters there were a church and a mosque … 1-1 … ball in the middle …
Asyut N 27° 17.831’ E 31° 18.592’ – Al Minya N 28° 08.709’ E 30° 76.184’
132 km