Early wake up today, 6,30 …
… I will never get used to waking up early!
As soon as I leave the hotel I meet the taxi driver to whom, through the door man, I asked directions yesterday on the best road, he wanted to take me himself making way with the taxi … because on the road to the airport cars go very fast and ‘I do not know how you will manage by bicycle’ … I do not know when was the last time he used a bicycle … he tells me that I am going in the wrong direction … I trust him … and as a matter of fact three kilometers later I have to turn around … and get again the road the infallible naïf Blackberry indicated me all along … I arrive to the airport around 9,30 for one of the earlier check in of ever … the shipping of the bicycle which was worrying us is easy … I pay 330 Egyptian Pounds extra … we deflate the wheels … we put adhesive on the pedals and handle bar so they do not move during the flight …
On this Alitalia – Air One flight the passengers are almost all Egyptians living in Italy, the parents speak Arabic among them, the children Italian, I think that integration, the confusion of the races, are the future, the importance we give to color … grandparents sad because they have ‘colored’ nephews, mix raced, must represent the past … a child born from two different cultures, grown up without denying one, is the best cultural mediator you can find. Traditions are important, like religions, but the doggedness to preserve them at times does not help to have a better world where every man is equal regardless of where he comes from, which language he speaks and in who he believes in.
Arrived in Malpensa I have to wait for the bicycle, considered special luggage, for forty minutes when it arrives I am relieved to see that everything is in its place, I inflate again the wheels I mount again tent and bags, I pass undisturbed through Customs and I through myself from the ramps of Malpensa, heading to Terminal 2 – Busto Arsizio … it is not a road for bicycles … the traffic police … tell me I have to pass from Lonate Pozzolo … the road I knew is a highway, I cannot go on the bicycle! … I have no other option but to pass from Vizzola Ticino … Canale Villoresi … Ponte di Oleggio … so many memories pass in my head … how many times I passed through there … in a group, alone, in summer, in winter, with the sun, with the snow … I do not climb from the bridge of Oleggio from the main road but from a parallel road which you can take a bit after … it is one of my favorite uphill … all in the shade … and with the bigger gear I managed to put in difficulty climber much stronger than me …
Going back through these roads was an unexpected flash back which has also confused me slightly, in the morning I could dart on the highway in Cairo, in the afternoon the Italian prohibition took me back in touch with the emerald green water of the canal and of the moor … some roads have changed … but the beauty of the Park of Ticino remains which is also a place where to train profitably and safely.
August 15 bank holiday! I forgot it! It is the week of August 15, all the bicycle mechanics are closed, I have no other option but the Decathlon, in Rescaldina, here goes the third mini stage …
Finally dinner with Fridah and my father, who updates me on my readers and knows many of my stages and asks me if it was more difficult for me to come back from Lusaka or for two of his friends to go and come back from Cape Horn in the sixties … the technology and nowadays materials certainly help … pedaling in two is certainly easier than alone … but the legs are the same …
Cairo (Zamelek) N 30° 06.094’ E 31° 21.970’ – Cairo International Airport N 30° 11.188’ E 31° 41.446’ 27 km
Malpensa N 45° 63.065’ E 8° 72.949’ – Legnano N 45° 59.007’ E 8° 91.927’ 35 km
Legnano N 45° 59.007’ E 8° 91.927’ – Decathlon Rescaldina N 45° 61.889’ E 8° 95.511’ 10 km