In Cairo there are windsurfs and water skis … old ladies who take the poodle for a walk!
In the face of the police of Al Balyana which wanted me to get a train because Egypt is too dangerous, of the Coptic scared of everything who caused me a lot of trouble and wanted me to request for an escort, of those telling me I would get run over in the impossible traffic of Cairo and that I would have better got a taxi and also of those saying I was too old and the time was too tight.
Always check in person!
Exactly two months later I have, we have, myself, the bike and Sport2bild, arrived to Cairo it is true still a thousand and something kilometers are missing, but the most insidious part, the most difficult, beautiful and unpredictable is gone … for the ride I say luckily … with the heart I say unfortunately!
Cairo is a real city, very beautiful, on the Nile there are windsurfs, pleasure crafts, floating houses, water skis, many bridges and much life, clubs on water and off, many young people around, it is a city lived outdoors, not like in South Africa where there is the tendency to hole up in over protected shopping malls, here you walk, there are shops everywhere, public transport, trains … a city which looks like our European ones.
Plunging into the traffic of Cairo was fantastic after 7,000 kilometers of which many in solitude, finding myself in this bedlam was like a return to my Milanese origins, the traffic is a dance whose rhythm I can keep very well, I had fun zigzagging among the cars and buses, throwing myself into a petrol station and leaving behind twenty cars in one go.
The only problem of Cairo, at least in Zamelek, where I am is that many hotels do not allow you to take the bicycle inside, so the search was long and complicated … at the end the New President accepted to keep the bicycle in the room of the air conditioning, for 30 euro other than the shelter for the bicycle, they supply an efficient air con and Wi-Fi everywhere, I found them around nine when I started to despair.
The morning did not start well … when I get on the bicycle I realize that the behind wheel has a puncture … strange these reinforced tires are excellent and I got a puncture just once in the gravel orgy in Tanzania … the mechanic of yesterday did not cut the exceeding part of the spokes which pierced irreparably the tube … I change it … I start off again … and after 50 meters the chain breaks in half … I remove the damaged link with a really ahead utensil … but then alone and without a hammer I cannot manage alone to put it back together … another mechanic …
This time the mechanic is old and Coptic, he works with his neighbor who has a shop where he weld mufflers and tanks, they help each other according to who has a client, they let me sit down and offer me tea, the timings are not short but the job seems accurate, I take the opportunity to cut the protuberances of the spokes to avoid other punctures … they do not let me pay even here … hopefully the job will hold until Cairo!
I got up at five because there was the possibility to be interviewed by Rai at the Bernocchi Cup, I effectively started off at nine … the confirmation of the Rai did not arrive and they would have wanted make me pass under the banner saying I was on my way to London … this approach of reality show is not mine … going there pretending to be on the way … after all this real route it seemed like real bullshit … I preferred to rest one day in Cairo before the last stretch to London …I do not think I miss a great opportunity and I am sure there will be others!
The one with Egypt was not an easy relationship, but Cairo and the majority of people managed to let me digest some setbacks, today a guy managing a small food stuff shop saw I had some Sudanese Pounds in my wallet, and asked me if I could pay with those because I would have liked to have them, curiosity, openness to the outside world, are two things which I like a lot and I would like my son to have.
Beni Suef N 29° 06.612’ E 31° 09.938’ – Cairo N 30° 04.442’ E 31° 23.571’
131 km