Unpredictable Barges Throws Planning Out The Window

The drivers of four camper vans and two trucks with their partners plus me, consuming all the chairs and couches, even some had to stand and listen, crammed through the door of Mr Salah’s office on Saturday morning, listening to the news we all dreaded. 

‘I’m sorry, but the barge isn’t going this week, its still in Wadi Halfa with a bulldozer stuck on it. Our other barge is under repair and the third one would be too dangerous to try and load your vehicles on to it with the lake level too low.’ 

Everyone was silent, taking in these terrible words, working out what this means if they have to stay in Egypt for another week or more. 

Wim was the first to recover. ‘So, if the ferry arrives, what guarantee can you give us that we will be put on the first barge and not someone else who might come along in the mean time?’ .

Pulling out a piece of paper, Mr Salah recommended we write our names down and the length of our vehicles. All hell broke loose, it was amazing to see naturally calm, chilled out  travellers show their true colours, diving in for the tiny piece of paper,  arguing who was first to arrive into Aswan and who contacted Mr Salah first via phone or email. Eventually a list came together but it was still missing my name on it.

As I sidled up to Mr Salah’s desk, I heard one twin brother from a Red Bull truck yelling, trying to get Mr Salah to confirm next week’s barge.

I felt like saying to the guy ‘chill out, this is Africa, why do you expect it to run like clockwork as it does at home?’  but I just smiled at Mr Salah and asked if it was possible for me to put my bike on the passenger boat.

The brother looked at me, annoyed that I had interrupted but I could see in Mr Salahs eyes he was glad of the change in topic.

 ‘No, but you can put it on the luggage boat. Come back here tomorrow at 9:30am and you will purchase the ticket from me and do all the paper work from there.’ Mr Salah replied.

‘Will I be loading the motorcycle tomorrow too?’ I asked in case I have to pack tonight.

 ‘Come fully packed and ready as the port might want to load tonight’ .

The Red bull brother was pissed off. Even though I envy everyone in this room forbeing able to carry more gear, have a nice kitchen and carry lots of food and beer, this was definitely one good reason to be on a motorcycle.

  Everyone stood outside Mr Salah’s office trying to work out what to do for the week they have up their sleeve. Some had to extend their Egyptian visa and Carnet De Passage and some had to extend their Sudan visa as well. It was a nightmare for them but at least they are all in the same boat and can do the paper work together.  While we stood around in the sun a round faced man with a pot belly approached me and demanded my passport and Carnet De Passage, 

‘I’m sorry but who are you?’ I asked

 ‘You’re on the motorcycle aren’t you?’ he asked

 ‘Yes, but I don’t know why you want my documents?’

 ‘I am Mr Kamal, the fixer’ .

So now at least I knew who this guy was but I didn’t like how he approached me and demanded my documents off me, so I causally asked ‘ how much do you charge?’

‘$25’

 I laughed, and said ‘No, for that price I will do it myself’.

I still had to get my Sudan visa and I had decided to do it here as in Cario, where most people obtain it, the embassy asks for a letter of introduction from your embassy which costs $60USD and on top of that the visa costs $100USD.

 Here in Aswan, I just needed $50 US and three hours of my life. I cannot believe how many people do it in Cairo. I guess that’s what a little research on the internet can do for you.

The next day I arrived late at Mr Salah’s office, and I quickly brought my passenger ticket and jumped on my bike, following Mr Salah’s directions to the police court where they confirm and sign off that I do not have any outstanding traffic offenses. 

 Next stop was the traffic police to hand in my Egyptian plate and licence (which I had been told on entry was actually my insurance!). The guy behind the desk asked me how I was getting back into town after dropping my motorcycle off at the port. I guess a taxi? I replied. So, he ordered a taxi for us, since apparently he had to come down too. Guess who shows up a few minutes later but Mr Kamal. Boy, it seems like he has fingers in everything in this town. As I desperately needed to fill up my tank with gas, I asked Kamal since I was paying for his service now to take me to a petrol station but he was refused and said we have to go to the port as it was closing soon. Eventually he let me go off and find petrol, but all the petrol stations nearby had no petrol so I had to return back to the traffic police station and listen to Kamal say ‘ I told you so’. I grimaced at the words as I knew he hadn’t actually told me that there was no fuel.

Riding behind Kamal the 20 kilometres to the port, I found myself stewing, they were driving so slowly and I hated the fact I was paying for this annoying guy who just kept rubbing me up the wrong way! Eventually we arrived and I put on a sweet face despite what I was feeling inside. When we walked into the huge empty warehouse we found everyone had gone home, it was quarter past two. I was 15 minutes late. How ridiculous! These guys only have one boat a week and they work a few hours a day! On the other hand I was happy to have my motorcycle with me for the night, instead of leaving it at the port unattended with my entire luggage on it.

Early the next morning, I arrived back at the traffic police, dropped off the plates I had to get back and drove out to the port. After waiting for an eternity for the customs guy to arrive he stamped my carnet de passage, demanded 100 EYP and I was able to ride over to the luggage boat. The port officer took Wim and myself down to the 'so called' luggage boat. Walking over built up and well compacted rubbish, ropes and bits of engine, he points to a cargo barge pushing its way in between two empty boats.  ‘Where were you yesterday, we were waiting for you’ the port office asked. ‘I'm so sorry but the customs guy had gone home for the day’

‘You have to take your bike over to that barge thats coming in now’.

The port officer showing me where to take the bike, while the guys in the background are arranging a gangplank!

 I look down and see no way to cross even to the first boat but then people started to pull bits of wood out from around the junk yard and construct a gangplank for my motorcycle to cross. Boy this was going to be scary!  Wim took over and rode my bike down the gangplank, then all the guys came together yelling commands that neither of us could understand. Because Wim was being brave and helping with the motorcycle I was able to stand back and take photographs or close my eyes! It didn't take long for the bike to cross the empty barge and be placed next to a concrete mixer on the overloaded barge. Tying it to the concrete mixer I say good bye and hope to see it tomorrow in Wadi Halfa. 

Wim is riding my bike over the piles of rubbish, while I stand back booking scared.

Dragging it around the corner onto the narrow ledge of the first boat.

Now they are taking it along the narrow edge - you can see my cargo boat in the background!

Time Out in The Valley of the Kings

It’s extremely hot and stuffy down here. I’m standing next to an oversize stone tomb 500 meters below the earth surface and I am starting to feel small and insecure about myself and what I will leave behind when I pass on into the next world. These kings didn’t mess around. They pre-thought everything tiny detail before they died.

Valley of the Kings is not a visual delight from the outside, but as soon as you pass through the main doors, you know why so many tourists flock here on a daily basis. The rabbit warren like tunnels, all lead to chambers containing a stone tomb which would have once housed a great king. Now, we are lucky, with years of looting and museums getting a hold of bits and pieces, to stand here and take in what they attempted to leave behind.

As you descend down to the main tomb, you see countless vertical rows of colourful hieroglyphs carved then painted directly onto the stone wall. Being a layman when it comes to different languages, I cannot read the stories, but I try to absorb it all and become mystified. Every tomb is decorated differently and some are incomplete. This is where the King might have died young and was not able to finish his tomb in time!

You’re not able to take photographs inside the tombs, in fact Wim gave it a go but the locals heard the unmistakable clicking sound of a DSLR and they came running demanding ridiculous amounts of money per picture or the option to delete. Of course, to our dissatisfaction Wim deleted the pictures, and we were told to move on. Back on the surface, the temperature dropped back to normal and we walked back down the dusty path back to our waiting taxi.

To contradict the decent down into the tombs, we got offered a deal of a life time, to hit the skies in a hot air balloon! I had never been hot air ballooning before, but some of my family members are mad enthusiast and join several balloon festivals around New Zealand each year. What better place to check out what all the fuss is about, here in Luxor.

Still wiping the sand from my eyes, we hover as close as we are allowed to our balloon to try and keep warm as it fills with hot air and rises from the dust. Given the all clear, we leap over the large wicker sides and stand on a soft foam floor. Then we rise up into the sky, and float with the sun rising over Luxor city and the Nile River on one side and the Valley of the Kings on the other. It was just beautiful and magical all at the same time.

When I didn’t receive the infamous banter in Cairo to buy things, to take a camel ride, to go on a boat ride and to buy something in their shop in , I was shocked to get hounded in Luxor.When Wim, Annelise, Herbert and I stood on the esplanade just talking we were consistently interrupted by someone trying to sell us something. When we told them no, they then would offer it for free! However, we not as stupid as we might look, we know people in these countries never give out anything for free! We just had to learn to ignore them no matter how hard it was. But I was glad to pack my things and head further south to Aswan, a city which sits on the lake border with Sudan. 

For more photos please visit click here.

Disaster on the Western Desert Highway

My small petrol tank has been on my mind for many months as I can only travel 220km before I hit reserve. I actually managed to get a slightly larger tank before I left Australia, but for Africa, where the distance between petrol stations is growing, my slightly larger tank isn’t going to work. The Western Desert Highway was my first African petrol obstacle. On the first day out of Cairo, I had to travel 400km before the first Oasis, where there is a known petrol station.

I had been thinking for months how to carry extra fuel. I’ve tried several companies to get sponsorship, but like most companies you try to approach, you never hear back from them.  So, I had to go back to basics and carry an extra two 5L plastic containers and have my 4L fuel bladder as spare. This would be a total of 300km on top of what is in my petrol tank.  Now I had to work out a way to carry these two containers.   When I was in South America, I met a guy called Nic, he was also riding a DR350 and carried two 5L containers strapped over his petrol tank. This seemed to work for him, so I decided I would follow suit and try this method.

This is my new fuel carrying system - I hope it works!

As soon as I attached the bottles and filled them with petrol, I noticed my front dropped slightly under the weight. Then as I tightened the strap to secure it around the two containers to stop them from flapping sideways, it inadvertently put pressure on the fuel tank, and squeezed fuel out through the breather hose. Loosening the strap just enough to stop that from happening, I pulled out into the traffic and gained enough speed to put the bike into second gear, but I couldn’t get my boot under the gear lever! My driving position has completely changed with my knees now resting on the containers, forcing my legs to bow around just in order to place my feet on the pegs! Boy, this isn’t going to work! But I thought I would give it at least a day and rearrange tomorrow.

While riding deeper into the Western Desert, following a beautiful flat newly constructed asphalt road, I looked down pondering about my petrol carrying technique, when I noticed oil splattering onto my pants and Wolfman bags. Pulling over I look under my petrol tank and see oil completely covering my cylinder head. It wasn’t enough oil to stop and do roadside repair, but I will need to look at it before I leave tomorrow.

Boy, my ‘helmet time’ is filling up with problems, and thinking of causes and solutions to these problems...As I was thinking about this at 180km from Cairo, I flashed past a petrol station. Himmm, so I didn’t need this extra fuel, I guess times have changed and maps get outdated.

When the road is easy, there isn’t any crazy traffic to deal with and the scenery is boring, I tend to drift off into what I like to call helmet time. This was turning out to be one of those days, where my mind wanders off and I start thinking about the problems I have currently. I’ve been on the road now for 14 months, at first all you can think about is your old job, your friends,  your family, things you regret saying or doing, but eventually you work through all these issues, one by one they drop off your thoughts list and your mind is virtually empty. What do you think about then, you ask.I sing. I sing ‘She will be coming around the mountain when she comes...’ When I’m not singing, I think about all the chores I have to do, blog writing, sorting out my photos, any issues with my motorcycle or ways to make things better, what do I need to clean or fix at the next guest house...

Today, my mind was filled with this petrol issue and now, why was my bike starting to leak oil around the cylinder head! What a complex helmet time I was having! When will the scenery get interesting so I can have a break from helmet time!

We arrived late, in fact in the dark, to a camping ground at the first Oasis on the Desert Highway. I was going to have to take a look at my engine problem in the morning. The next morning, we both had to look at our vehicles, so I didn’t feel any pressure or felt as if I was holding everyone up. I pulled off my petrol tank and seat to get a better look and access to my cylinder head cover.

Wiping the oil off, I pulled out my number 8 spanner and systematically tightened each bolt, placing my finger over top of the bolt, to make sure the spanner didn’t jump off the bolt and round off the corners of the bolt head. All of them were loose, but one was looser than the others, and as I gently turn towards the right, I couldn’t feel the bolt get tighter. My heart sunk as I then knew then I was dealing with a stripped thread.


I stood there and looked at the bolt, what was I going to do? I know at home, I would have removed the cylinder head cover and cylinder head (the problem piece) then pulled out my uncle Len’s tapping set, cut a slightly larger new thread and placed a ‘Heli-Coil’ inside then ‘Wallah’, you are now able to put the whole thing back together and have something for the bolt to grip once again. But in a small village, in the middle of the western desert, 400km from Cairo and more than 600km from Luxor I really wasn’t going anywhere or get anything fixed here.

MacGyver Wim pulls out a box of all types of bolts, nuts, threaded rods and all sorts of bits and pieces. We try a slightly longer bolt, but it wouldn’t grip. We then tried a threaded rod, it seems to grip onto something, but now we had a problem with locking it on there, as it was just a threaded rod. We grabbed a nut and threaded it down, but we couldn’t get enough pressure on the rod and it would just turn. So we carefully pulled the rod out and I hold the hack-saw against a rock and Wim slid the rod backwards and forwards to create a slit on top of the rod so we would be able to hold it in place when we use the nut to lock the cylinder head and cover together.

I carefully un-wound the tight washer on the original bolt, and place it on the rod, we also got some semi set gasket sealant off the hole on my new  5L petrol containers and smeared it under the nut. We then held the rod with a flat head screw driver, and turned the nut down with a spanner. At this point I think we were both glad to have an extra pair of hand to hold and turn everything! Once it felt strong and tight but not too tight, to break anything any further, before putting it all back together, I thought I better test it and see if any oil comes out now.  The bike feels small and naked and I kicked the bike over without the seat and fuel tank on.

Letting the bike run on the amount of fuel left in the carburetor, only a small amount of oil squeezed out through the nut.  This wasn’t 100% perfect but enough to find someone to fix it in Luxor or further down into Africa. I put the bike back together and loaded up. I still needed a different system for the 5L containers. I turned my blue waterproof top bag around and sat one 5L container on each side of it, and on top of my Wolfman Luggage. Strapping it all together, it couldn’t move anywhere. But I was now worried about fuel spilling not only on my luggage but if it accidentally catches fire from the exhaust pipe. Just another thing to think about during my helmet time on the road.

We pulled off the road into the white sandy desert just as the sun was setting. Wim, Annalies and Herbert went off to find some firewood to make a fire for the night. I stayed behind as I didn’t fancy the idea or riding back into the desert in complete darkness through some thick sandy dust.I stayed behind and found a good place a little be further off the main road and set up my MSR tent before complete blackness.

I grabbed my torch and climbed up a white mound just off the road. I started to get cold while I waited for the Dutch team to return, but no one was coming from that direction, so I waited for what seemed like ages and ages until I saw two bright headlights and a large dark block shape behind them. I turned on my torch and set it to the blinking setting. Within seconds, I had a reply from the Dutch team and I turned it off in case I attracted other unwanted attention.

In the short time we had been apart, they had their own small adventure. Trying to find a camping site noted on their GPS, they came across white looming statues in the darkness, then as they were turning around they were stopped by the police and almost fined for driving off the marked track. They were asked if they had a ticket, which of course they didn’t and had to buy one on the spot! Not finding any camping ground with wood for sale they turned around and headed back to me.

New Years Camping in the White Desert.

It’s New Years Eve, Annalies whipped up a great dinner with canned chicken meat. Wim, Herbert and I set up the shelter around the camper. Then Herbert made a fire using BBQ fire starters and coal and Wim had the DJ booth ready. I couldn’t have asked for a better location or better people to spend the evening with.  At midnight, in true Dutch tradition, we set off a paper balloon powered by a small fuel packet, up into the dark blue sky, with our wishes for the New Year written on it.  

Dutch wagon and a few tourist interested in our travels

Lost In Cairo

At every intersection, one is stopped and asked ‘where am I’m going?’ ‘where  have I come from?’, ‘where am I from?’ by the Egyptian army or police. It was getting pretty tire ing but at least I didn’t have to get off my motorcycle and fill in a ripped up registration book like I had too in Pakistan. 

 

Despite, the check points and the 500 kilometers I arrived in Cairo by 3:30pm only to spend the next 4 hours stopping and asking everyone where I was going! That's right, the tables have turned.  was downtown Cairo, in fact I had managed to get myself to Giza, but I was now lost going around and around the Pyramids. I had no map of Cairo except a small sketch of some directions to an infamous camping ground in the heart of Giza that I had copied down off the internet. After filling up with petrol, checking my map and asking for  directions once again, hours later I was sp exhausted, I gave up.

 

What should I do? It’s now dark, I’m so tired. The thought of camping on the side of the road ran through my head, or camping in a construction site? I didn’t care where I ended up sleeping, but I was scared off these ideas just thinking about the types of visitors I might receive during the night. I shook these ideas from my head and found a cheapish hotel. When I woke up, I realised it was right next door to the Pyramids! With some good sleep and a quick check on the internet, I realised where I had gone wrong – I was only 5 km away from the camp ground and found it straight away in daylight! 

For a camping ground in the heart of Cairo, it was pretty good! It had hot water and I could pitch my tent right next door to a light and have a power plug! Wim and Annelies and their new passenger Herbert (The Dutch 4x4 Campervan I meet in Jordan and took the Jordan – Egypt ferry together), were at the camp ground too, they also had got lost in the never ending motorways and roads one above the other. We decided to hire a taxi and go to visit the Pyramids together. 

 

When I looked up Cairo on Google maps I was astounded. You can see the Pyramids, they are that big. When standing at the foot of one, you now cannot help ask ‘where did you come from?’ ‘Where did you all go?’

Annelies, Wim (Back to us) and Herbert having Chai in a normal Egyptian tea house

Stumbling To A Great View

Dru was poorly prepared to spend the night in his one man tent. He didn’t have a sleeping mat and he couldn’t even find his sleeping bag and when he finally found it, I took one looked at the tiny thing and said ‘is that it?’ Taking it from his hand I realise it was only a silk sleeping bag liner. Throwing it back to him, I went to find him a spare blanket for the night.

Typical road on through the Sharm

In the morning Dru introduced me to the Egyptian felafel sandwich and the Turkish coffee while we asked around for a map of the St Catherine’s walking tracks. Returning to our guesthouse, deflated but with seven more felafel sandwiches and three bottles of water in our hands we were as prepared as we were going to get. When we explained to our guesthouse owners what we were planning, they magically pulled out a map with four clear tracks marked on it. Great – now we have a map! When we asked for directions to where the tracks start they then told us we needed a local guide. Both coming from New Zealand and both of us have done many hikes in New Zealand we thought there was no way we needed a guide. 

Old Monastery

Dru and I standing on top of the old monastery

Climbing our first mountain I accidentally dropped our sandwiches in the sand and dusting them off I re-tied them to my back pack. Walking along a clearly laid out track in along the Wadi (Dried River Bed) and passing dried up oasis after oasis, we started to think that this might be harder than we realised. We both expected more people to be living along this Wadi than the desertion that was about us.  I guess there just wasn’t the amount of tourist these days with the revolution which was happening within the country’s capital.

We ate a quick snack on top of the stone perimeter wall then headed back down the path to our bags. It was getting late, the sun was setting in just over an hour as we carried on walking down the path to another small abandoned village where we found our first unlocked water well.
 
Looking down the shaft, we could see rubbish but the water was at least clear. Dipping an old container down, Dru volunteered to take the first sip to see if it was drinkable. Aside from the bugs, Dru said it was drinkable, so we filled our empty bottles and jumped back over the stone fence. Further on in the village, Dru and I looked at a hut wondering if it would be a good one to spend the night in. Hearing voices a bit further on, we decided to walk on, but they spotted us and called us in for a chai. 
 

Walking into a smoke charred stone hut, we sat down on the thin mats on top of the gravel floor around a small fire in the middle. I warmed my fingers on the flames as we watched the farmer make us the chai. He handed us a small glass cup and as I sipped on the hot, sweet tea I felt a lot better.
 We were about to head off once again, but two more farmers turned up and made pop corn. Then they cooked tuna and beans for dinner. After dinner we once again had more chai before they took us back to the hut we had already scoped out and told us we could sleep here, and gave Dru two blankets to sleep with.

In the morning, we had a farewell chai and carried on but today the track dissolved into nothing but the Wadi. We were meant to be turning and heading over a mountain by now, but the hills in front of us showed us something different. We took a left where we thought we might be meant to go, but it wasn’t very clear. 

This is the hut we slept in for the night.

Once we were at the top of the mountain, looking down at the valley floor below at least 2km below us we wondered 'Where did we go wrong?' Picking our way down a stony valley, we had to take care on where we placed our feet and hands as we didn’t want anything to go wrong in this dangerous place. At times we had to throw down our unbreakable things and pretty much rock climb over huge boulders or scramble over the scree, trying not to slip uncontrollably. Two hours later, we reach the bottom. It was now 1 pm, we had been walking for hours on no food as we had given the farmers our sandwiches and cakes. At the bottom, we found a clear sweet oasis and filled up all our bottles. 

The nice oasis where we topped up our water from.

 
Walking along the Wadi once again we were called out to by another farmer. We asked him how long we had until we would reach St Catherine’s? 'Two hours he said, but stay with me and carry on tomorrow. No no, we will carry on today as people are expecting us today.' Walking on, following a basic track above the wadi, we came across two more farmers who told us it was another day or two’s walk to St Catherine’s. Surprised, we pulled out our map and asked where we were but he kept on pointing to a place on the map we thought we had passed hours ago. 
 

Frustrated, we carried on, climbing higher and higher up a stone pass, which was marked on the map. At the top, we sat down to eat a nut or two when we came across two more people. Asking them they said its two hours to St Catherines. By this time we would make it but it would be dark as we are climbing down the mountain, on a path we had already walked.

So we carried on, but it just got darker and darker until we couldn’t see anything. Arriving at another deserted hut, we found the door was not locked but just wired together. Untying it, and bringing in some of the wood from inside, we started a fire. In the fire light, I discovered two bottles of sweet water for tomorrows walk. We set up the tent, I gave Dru my camping mat and I unfolded a cardboard box to insulate me from the ground. Inside the one man tent, I found I was cooking and tonight Dru for the first time felt warmer and slept well.

Waking at day break, we packed up, ate a nut or two and carried on. Both of us were feeling the effects of lack of food for a whole day and even the early onsets of dehydration. Not trusting our judgment on where we located, we decided to walk up a mountain to see if anything might tell us where we were and how far away St Catherine’s was. We spent hours climbing a small rocky mountain, stopping constantly because we were exhausted. We finally made it to the top only to find another mountain in our way.

We ambled down to the valley and back up the even bigger mountain, until we were sitting high above the valley floor. Looking down we saw nothing we recognised, until I looked to my left and up. There on the hill sat the Monastery we climbed to on our first day! Dru and I hugged in joy, and sat down to eat the last muesli bar between us. Not trusting ourselves or the map we decided to follow the ridge line towards the monastery and we clambered down the mountain and followed the path back to St Catherine’s.  

Standard Oasis

Seasonal village

Dru trekking even with a laptop!

Four hours later, we were sitting outside the first supermarket we could see ,eating pizza bread, chips, chocolate and cola until we felt way too full. This adventure scared the living daylights out of me. I also learnt how fast a body and mind can deteriorate with lack of food. It took me at least two days to recover. Now I would like to make my own travel warning – Do not travel with Dru Hill, as you do not know what you might get yourself into. Stashing our packs in a unused stone cattle yard, we walked up a side track to an old monastery overlooking St Catherine’s village.

For more photos please visit my flickr

Full Toilets Leads To VIP Room

My front light dimly lights up the road. I hug the rear shoulder of the Dutch campervan ahead to try and get out of the glare of the red tail lights but piggy back on their front lights. We drove down to the ferry terminal, arriving in good time to start the customs procedure. Just like entering Jordan, it was a well oiled machine, and we were able to check our vehicles and ourselves out of Jordan with little hassle and money. It was nice to share the experience with another overlander, drinking a beer inside their camper as we waited to be allowed to load up at 12pm.

When the chimes struck twelve we drove into the customs compound and slowly underwent all the customs checks and then the waiting began again. While we queued amongst Mercedes cars bound for Libya, we befriended the drivers and more time slipped past us. Finally two hours had past and we were at the front of the queue but we were told to park off to one side and wait for another 30 minutes.  Fully clothed in my motorcycle gear I was still hopping around my bike to keep warm as the morning air temperature dropped further.  When all the cars and small trucks had been loaded we were told to drive on board and park our vehicles.


As we climbed the steps to the deck above my motorcycle, my first priority was to find the women’s toilet. There wasn’t that many women aboard, in fact I had only counted about ten including me, so hopefully the toilets will be in good shape. After hunting the ship for a good ten minutes I finally discover the only toilet for women on board. Opening up all three stalls I discover they were completely full to the brim with urine or shit. Great, I thought to myself, I am so desperate to go to the toilet, but how can I add my own without getting my own bottom wet with other peoples urine? It was impossible, so I thought I might go and complain – how could the toilets be broken before the boat even leaves?

I found the man in charge, who found a boy to come into the toilet to see what the problem was. They discovered there isn’t any water to flush away the full toilets so they guided me to another place, the V.I.P room. As they opened up the door, I saw nice seats, couches and beautiful tables. Not many people must know about this place as it wasn’t full yet. I quickly peed into a clean toilet which also didn’t flush and ran to find Wim and  Annelies. Dragging them off the cold
wind swept deck, I showed them the land of comfort with the other fellow truck drivers. Sitting in a corner with our own chairs, table and couch waiting for the boat to leave we talked amongst ourselves until I couldn’t hold a conversation anymore and at 4 am, I lay on the ground in the corner and fell asleep.

I woke just in time to see the boat dock in the port of Nuweiba at 7am in the morning. By nine o’clock we were still waiting to get off the boat! People were starting to get angry and fights with the crew were breaking out. Eventually they let us go one by one, but when I got down to the deck I found my bike was parked down the back behind all the trucks stinking the place out with carbon dioxide. I waited patiently while they all left before I could join the campervan in the
fresh air and warm sunshine.

First on my list of chores to do was my visa. I had to buy a visa at the bank for $15 and take the visa to the run down building called the immigration office.  A few minutes later I had my passport
once again in my hand and I was free to start the customs paper work with my motorcycle. While I was gone, someone had done a carbon rubbing of my chassis number which cost 5EP ($0.80 USD), a crazy price for nothing, but they liked to play these games.  We were then told to
go to the copy place and get everything copied. We just handed over our passports, carnet, drivers licence and it all got copied a hundred times, they grouped them into some sort of system and gave us a pretty folder to put it all into all for the cost of 30EP ($5 USD). Next stop was the insurance man, well we thought it was the insurance man, but it turned out to be the Egyptian licence man. We paid this man for a month’s worth of insurance or what turned out to be our licence around 250EP ($40 USD).  Next stop was the fire man, he checks all the cars for fire extinguishers. Of course I didn’t need one, but he still handed me a tiny piece of paper.

So back to the customs man who rifles through all the paper work and makes sure you have everything, whoops, it seems as if my visa doesn’t say how long I have in the country.Back to the immigration office and then back to the photocopy place then back to see him. In the mean time  Annelies  has made me a cup of coffee and handed it to me while I am still waiting for the customs man to give me a docket to take to the cashier to pay for the customs stamp.

I pay the man, and back to customs who stamps my carnet and tells me to go and get my Egyptian number plates, I pay him some more money, take my plates and I am now home free, able to leave this customs compound if it wasn’t for the fact we are surrounded by cars going
through the same procedure.

The next surprise to come out of the camper was a plate of eggs and bread and another coffee. Boy, I love this campervan! We sat down and enjoyed our breakfast watching all the drivers run around getting their paper work sorted. The only thing left to do was to fix our number plates to our vehicles and Wim was getting excited to use his power drill he’s been carrying! I personally think I struck it lucky teaming up with these amazing people. It a pity we are going separate ways as soon as we get to leave this area.

Eventually the cars move aside, we get our passports and carnets checked once again and we are on our way. I stop at a petrol station to fill with petrol, surprised to discover a tank of fuel only cost 9 EP ($1.5USD). Boy I’m going to love this country! I made my way to St Catherine’s where I was due to meet my friend Dru from New Zealand there tonight. But along the way I met another overlander, who invited me into their luxury spacious camper for tea and avocado on toast! These German travellers have been travelling the globe for many years in different styles, but before I could hear all the tales we decided to move on to St Catherine’s before it got dark and talk later that night. However, thats not what turned out, the Bediuen camp we had decided to stay in didn’t have internal parking so, they decided to move on but I stayed ready to receive my fourth visitor since beginning this trip.