Our time in Cairo was not too exciting to say the least. During Ramadan virtually the entire city closes until the 5pm breakfast. We did, however, make a few contacts for Sudan, were invited to an ambassador’s house and were mistakenly ordered two Sudanese prostitutes. Like the true English gentlemen we are, we informed our host that this was not necessary and quietly left. Unfortunately, Gav, with his sense of fairness, insisted on paying. We must be the only people in the world who paid for such services without using them.
After the mechanical problems were diagnosed, we decided to split up. Gav remained living it up in Cairo (short straw) and I went south taking in the tourist scene in Aswan and Luxor. The highlight for me was the 2-day felucca trip down the Nile-stunning sunsets, food and general laziness. I met up with Wouter (the Belgian guy who helped us out in Jordan) and we have been thinking of things to do between smoking water pipes (shisha). Our shisha intake has actually hit record highs and we are considering taking counselling on our return.
Gav managed to pick landy up and make the deadline in Aswan, driving 800km straight in 36 hours. This doesn’t sound so impressive but he managed to fit in pretty much every tourist hot spot for his 2 friends who flew over to meet him, along with a military escort to top it all off.
We are now in Aswan with a total of 11 people (Dutch, Belgian, German Namibian and Italians) who are attempting to cross into Sudan. This consists of three Landy’s, 1 Land Cruiser, 2 bikes and a big yellow truck that appears to be a billboard for Italian mineral water. We met the illusive Mr Sallah (manager of the Nile Navigation Co), and he assures us the boat will leave on Sunday. Our visas will have technically expired by the time we reach Sudan but we are hoping to overcome this problem with the help of Mr Sallah.
The boat consists of two platforms; one for vehicles and one for cargo and the luxury facility included is one toilet. We are currently gathering supplies for the 3-day boat journey. I am not sure if we can get a turkey but someone has mentioned the idea of buying a goat (the short straw gets to cut the throat). Gav is happy in his assigned duty of obtaining as much alcohol as possible, whilst myself and Wouter are spending way too much time discussing and building our own water pipes. Unfortunately, all alcohol must be consumed and removed before we reach Sudan. That is unless one of the group fancies trying the 40 lashes punishment for possession!
So now, we are waiting for Sunday. Hopefully there will be no further delays and we can be in Sudan on the 27th. The next challenge is how Landy will cope with the terrain in Sudan as we’ve heard that it is pretty hard going………
There are far more stories that have been missed from the brief passages above, for example Gav dropping his keks to a crowd of males as they were making fun of us, hilarious (well yes) and besides they deserved it. One hundred pound bar bills, living under prison camp regimes at hotels that we were paying for, the afore mentioned 36 hour drive worthy of a book itself, fighting with food sellers over the price of a 10 pence piece of food, discussing politics with various people, midnight felucca rides, swimming in the Nile (cheers Tim I reckon you and me are in for a bit of hospital treatment!), drinking half decent beer again, and learning the worst Arabic in the world. All theses pleasures have been ours in Egypt. Roll on the Sudan and give us back some sanity please. Gav and Dan 22 Dec 01.