Why is the behind wheel so screwed up?
In Maghega i had the answer … about ten spokes gave way!
Luckily I was in a big town, a policeman first sends me to a street where there are only tire dealers and motorbike mechanic … he did not understand the problem … then a guy on a motorbike led the way until a small road on the opposite side of town, where we have finally found the mechanic … the shop is small and he works on the road … immediately a crowd of curious people is formed mainly children … the mechanics offer me to smoke … they do not drink but in smoking they do not spare themselves … I explain once again laughing that cycling and smoking do not go along … they let me sit down … and bring me a coke and salty snacks … the spokes substitution lasts about one hour … the new spokes are not perfectly straight … some seem to have been worked by a blacksmith … but the wheel turns in an acceptable way and I hope it will last for the last 140 African kilometers … when the time to pay comes he tells me that he has done it for Allah and I do not owe him anything even for the drinks …
140 kilometers are missing to Cairo!
Africa is almost over!
Before and after the technical problem I was cycling on autopilot thinking about previous stages, it surprises me that I remember almost all of them, to the people I met in the different countries I crossed … and I think that from the day after tomorrow I will miss something …
Egypt is like the shades of gray between white and black on a paint catalogue, it is the transit from Africa to Europe, there are things which remind of Europe, like the towns with the council houses on the Nile, which can only be found here, the traffic, almost at European levels, and pollution the Nile banks are often used as a dumpsite … today I bought a bottle of water in a kiosk by the Nile and when I finished it … I was looking for a bin to through it away … the owner told me ‘no problem give it to me …’ … he got the bottle and he threw it in the Nile … environmentally wrong … but it made me laugh … when I was on the ferry to Aswan after being evicted from the second class … I went to collect the sleeping mat I had left on the bicycle at the bow and … there was a spring cleaning on the way … all the rubbish was in front of my bicycle … a cleaner was pushing it with the hosepipe towards a small door open to the lake, while another one was pushing the rebel rubbish out of the boat with a broom …
At the end there was a adverse wind but it was not very hot so I kept up, the heat of Sudan, now, is a nice memory, Egypt I took it too fast to understand it well, but the contest is really different from the rest of the countries I crossed.
Today the old man and the taxi driver with the 128 from Kom Ombu called me, sometimes they call to hear how I am and how I am, when I tell them where I am they always approve with some ‘very good!’ and laugh … and I also to the same …
Al Minya N 28° 08.709’ E 30° 76.184’ – Beni Suef N 29° 06.612’ E 31° 09.938’
132 km