90 days Cape to Cairo on 200cc Motomias

The long way down, but first +2 East

We were biting nails yesterday as we had our flight tickets booked for today at 13h45 and thus had to leave Alexandria by at least 6h00 this morning. No one had any idea how many hours (or days) it would take and by midday we sat in Captain Shakaer’s office sipping one good espresso after the other. At about 14h00 we set off to fetch the vehicles and off we went to the port. There we were met by a bunch of traffic officials who cleared the number plates and we waited for another hour to get into the container yard. It was great to finally enter the yard and load the vehicles. The Amaroks are longer than what we anticipated and left little room in the 20 foot container for a Motomia. After loading the two remaining Amaroks in the 40 foot container there was about a meter’s space left. Someone suggested putting the bikes upright on their back wheels and fastening them to the wall of the container. This worked well with the one, which left just enough room for the second. By this time the sun has already set and we left there, very relieved, at 18h00. 

The captain organised a bus to take us to the airport this morning (he even paid for it) and when Johan asked him about the best place for fresh seafood he took us out to supper. We’ve never ate so much in one sitting. Plate after plate of different salads, sauces, mussels, prawns and fish. We were so stuffed and had to stop him from ordering more.

We are SO thankful for Johan who offered (when we met him in Nairobi) to take our bikes back. This saved us days of trouble and thousands of Rands, plus we made six great new friends while spending days waiting for our vehicles in Aswan and while sorting the shipping in Alex. For more on their trip, see: www.voetspore.co.za or wait for the TV series that’ll start in March 2012 on SABC2.

This morning we got up at 5h30 and left at 7h00. This left just enough time to reach the airport at 11h00, but the driver had to scar us good in order to make it. We were so glad that we didn’t have to drive through Cairo traffic on the bikes, it is really something else!

We checked in most of our luggage, but still have to carry our bike jackets, helmets, Leatt braces and back packs. We had to bubble wrap our boots and reorganised our luggage last night so that we only have our two yellow Touratech bags and two saddle bags. We threw away five plastic bags full of rubbish, astonishing.

The connection flight to Abu Dhabi went well. The seats are amazing, supper was good and we could watch out own movies. The three or so hours literally flew by (excuse the pun)!! We now have to wait until 22h10 (Abu time: +4) before we board the plane to Jozi. It is amazing to think that it will take 24 hours of travelling by bus and aeroplane to get back home from where we rode two cheap Chinese bikes over three months. There has been countless ups and a few downs which we’ll share here in good time, but we’re very much looking forward to being back in our wonderful home country South Africa!

Ps. We just saw we made the homepage of the Motomia website: www.motomia.com

Good news! Shipping sorted

Phew! What a day! But we have good news - the Motomias are safely in their container with the Voetspore team's Amaroks at the port in Alexandria. The Trust Shipping Company sparked to get everything sorted for us today and finally by 18h00 we were done - all the admin sorted and bikes loaded. To round off the day they then treated us to an unbelievable dinner... but more about that tomorrow!

What a relief and we'd just like to thank our awesome neighbour, Mark for helping us with the shipping details and contacts. If it was not for him, we would not have beaten the "fixer system" in Egypt for sure!

We will be flying back to South Africa tomorrow and still have some last packing to do - so will post some more detail about today's shipping experience as soon as possible.

Here we are at the port in Alexandria sorting the shipping today...

The final challenge: Shipping the Motomias back safely

From Sunday the only thing on our brains was “shipping”. We basically had three days to get the Motomias loaded and the admin sorted. Today is day three and we are a bit nervous about the time left to get everything done. The Egyptian system is a difficult one, bureaucratic and almost impossible without a fixer. At the moment we are at the entrance of the port, waiting with the Voetspore team and our assistant from the Trust Shipping company to get approval to enter the port.

Here we are looking nervous... waiting

As soon as that is done, we need to get clearance from the traffic department, sort out customs and then load the three Amaroks and two Motomias. Everything here is done in Arabic, including forms which make it a slow process.

This morning we drove our Motomias for a final time, this time without luggage - Alexandria traffic is something else! Here they are parked at the old fort.

Andre from the Voetspore team takes some time to take the Motomia for a test drive...

Our flights back to South Africa Johannesburg are booked for tomorrow at 13h40 from Cairo and we are sooo hoping that we will be ready to leave by then. We will be spending a quick three days there to catch up with family and friends before we fly back to Cape Town on Saturday afternoon. Later today we will have a better idea whether we are going to make it in time to get to the airport, but we are still positive that everything will work out fine!

Thanks for all the positive and supportive comments throughout the trip. We feel very fortunate to receive so many encouraging notes and appreciate all the support. We are super excited about coming home and sharing our stories. For those Crossing Africa addicts out there – we promise to keep the blog alive a little longer sharing some more detailed info in the next few weeks. We’ll post tonight to let you know the outcome of today. 

Alexandria at last, but what a day!

We got up before sunrise as we still had 520 km to go.


The plan was to ride hard to reach the pyramids at Giza before 12h00 and the tackle the Cairo-Alex highway to reach our end destination before sunset. I tried my best to keep my speed as close to 80 km/h as possible (we had more than 300 km to Giza), but there was a headwind and the tarmac soon ended reducing our speed to 50 km/h. I recalculated and at that speed we would just make Alex if we skipped the pyramids. Luckily after a while the tarmac resumed and there were no more police check points (aka tea stops). The best I could do in the wind was 70 km/h in fourth gear. I had the throttle pinned wide open and I started feeling the drivetrain slip every now and then. Then after only 240 km I ran out of fuel (normally we do at least 350 km). Luckily our fuel bags were full, so we’d be able to make it to Giza (another 120 km to go).


I adjusted the chain as it was sagging quite a lot, but when I pulled away the chain snagged and I had to stop. Loosening it again didn’t help either and I saw the rear sprockets teeth looked like shark teeth and some were so thin that they looked as if though they might break off. The last few days’ heavy riding and riding through deep sand to get off the road to camp did a lot of damage. Since I’m no mechanic I decided to replace the chain with a new one I bought in Sudan, but obviously the chain links wouldn’t fit in the severely worn sprocket. I took off the new one and put back the old, worn chain, but it kept jumping off the sprocket at anything above 40 km/h. By this time we’ve wasted so much time that we would only reach Alex at 22h00. To stop the chain from coming off I tightened it as much as I could and managed to reach 70 km/h by pulling away slowly. We made good progress and filled up just before Giza at 14h00. We decided not to go to the pyramids and headed straight Alexandria. Luckily the road had four lanes for the most part and we could do 80km/h at times. By this time we’ve only eaten a can of tuna and two oranges (that a truck driver gave us while fixing my chain). We quickly stopped at a stall next to the highway, bought four sponge cakes, and carried on. I realised the sun sets at 16h56 in these parts and by the time it was 17h00 we had 25 km to go. Tania’s bike’s lights and hooter has stopped working and the traffic became more hectic as we headed for Down Town Alexandria. We did not yet have a place to sleep and haven’t heard from Johan yet, so we just wanted to get to a place to eat and wait until the Voetspore guys arrive. It was madness driving at night in peak traffic, without lights. Everyone honks and ignores the lanes, creating four lines of cars in two to three lanes. It took us close to an hour to reach the Corniche where we had supper at the Pizza Hut, looking for a hotel on the internet and in our guide book.

Sorry about the bad pics, but this is all we have of our arrival in Alex:


Driving around here at night is hair raising and we didn't want to spend a minute longer on the road:


Supper and looking for a hotel:


Johan sent a sms saying they’ll be there around 21h00 and told us where they’re staying. Simon and Kristy in their Land Rover (also part of our own Amazing race – and the ultimate winners because of a short cut) were already there. We checked into the Kaoud Sporting Hotel after the hardest and most stressful day of the whole trip.

In the end the two Motomias made the 15 200 km (more or less – more detailed stats later) in 90 days without ever being towed, pushed or loaded onto a truck and they’re still going. What’s more is that they’ve made it with the original set of tyres, chains and sprockets and we’ve put them through much more than what they are intended for. Well done, we very proud of the little bikes and don’t think it would have been easier on our 650’s.

 

Egypt's White Desert

Early morning we woke up (being tucked into bed at 8pm last night), well rested and eager to get back on the road. The family was still sleeping so we quietly got up, dressed and pushed our bikes back outside. Here is where the Motomias spent the night...

As Francois adjusted our chains for the day ahead Mr. Omar came outside to usher us back in for breakfast.

Wow! We had another amazing breakfast – hard boiled eggs, dates, labne, falafel and tea. Each time we stopped eating he shouted and shook his head instructing us to eat up :o) He then asked if we didn’t want to stay another night and we had to show him the map of the road that lay ahead explaining the distance that we still had to cover. They all came outside to say their goodbyes and ended up feeling like family. When we wanted to hand over some money for all they have done for us he kindly refused and sent us off. We were very grateful for their hospitality and kindness.

At our next police check point we got some more tea. The five youngish officials were very excited to see us and our tea drinking session ended with them taking photos of us and them posing next to us too. I kept a low profile throughout :o) The desert road was still beautiful and we pushed on towards Farafara Oasis.

About 20km before reaching Farafara, Francois was the first to run out of fuel. We stopped to fill the tank with fuel from our fuel bags. While we stopped we had another tea drinking invitation from a fellow biker, it seems if you want to travel here you need much more time to drink tea. Just as we got ready to leave again, the Voetspore team passed us again from behind. They spent the night in the desert a few kilometres back.

About 10km further I also ran out of fuel and we had to make another quick pit stop to fill my bike too. In Farafara we had lunch with the Voetspore team and caught up with all their stories. We then found out from the restaurant that there is currently no fuel in Farafara. Luckily the one guy working at the restaurant offered to help the two of us out with petrol that he had in a can at home. This should do the trick until we reach the last oasis at Bahariya.

Back on the road we were now entering the most beautiful part of the Western Desert route so far – the White Desert . It looks like someone spilled heaps of salt in the desert...

and the area is lined with chalk formations taking on all kinds of forms and shapes.

Truly an amazing sight.

About 50km South of Bahariya Oasis starts the Black Desert where a black powder covers the sand. This is formed by the erosion of the mountains surrounding the area.

In Bahariya we made a fuel stop, glad to be able to fill our fuel bags and tanks again. It was already 15h30 and we only had another hour and a half of sunshine left so we decided to push on as far as possible and camp in the desert again tonight. This would be our last night camping on the trip so we were looking forward to one last night in the desert.

About 60km along the road we found a stunning spot in the desert to camp.

It was fun getting the Motomias there driving along the dunes and sand. We pitched our tent here while sun set

and made some noodles and tuna for old time’s sake.

Our camp in the moonlight...

It’s hard to believe that tomorrow will be our final day driving into Alexandria from where the bikes will be shipped back to South Africa. It was fun talking about our highlights and most challenging times on the trip these past three months. We went to bed feeling happy and tired after a long day’s ride.   

Staying with an Egyptian family in the Western desert

We struggled to get up early as it was very cold outside. The setting was beautiful in the morning light...

Dressing up warmly we set off towards Baghdad trying to eat up the kilometres. Early on this strategy however fell a bit flat when we reached the first security check point. The official, speaking no English at all, were clearly impressed with us and our bikes and ordered us to come with him to his house next to the road. We were in the middle of nowhere and not too keen to go with him. He however lured us there by saying that there was documentation to be completed.

The house was dilapidated and as we entered the room there was a guy sleeping on a bed snuggled in a blanket. He then started boiling water and we soon realised he was making tea for us. There was only one chair which he pulled out and then he pointed to the bed where the man was sleeping telling us that one can sit there at his feet. Obviously we declined and Francois luckily found a water tank to sit on. Once the tea arrived we headed for the outside of the house again telling him that we wanted to stand in the sunshine. Thank goodness this worked. He asked the usual questions, which all revolved around our marital status. We gulped down the tea and tried to get out as fast as possible. I don’t think they see a lot of tourists in this area and the lack of English just adds to the eeriness of this experience. Creeeepy! Haha I didn’t think he meant to scare us, but for us it was a bit too much.

Here we took a photo on the way to Baghdad. The Arabic signs make you feel very far from home...

It was also very cold on the bikes, we never thought it possible to be so cold in a desert!

The next few security check points went better and I tried to make myself invisible each time. This worked a bit better and we managed to get out of a few more tea drinking invitations. Finally at Baghdad the road turned North again and we moved on towards Al Kharga. About 10 km before reaching Al Kharga we saw a welcome sight – three Amaroks with the Voetspore team passed us from behind! We were glad to see them. This all added to the feeling that the last part of our journey has turned into an episode of the Amazing Race, all travelling with different modes of transport :o) We had a feeling that time and again in the next few days we will pass each other back and forth along the road to Alexandria. For us lunch breaks turned into F1 pit stops, making the stop as short as possible, and tea drinking officials becoming obstacles to avoid as we had a massive amount of kilometres to complete within the next few days.

In Al Kharga we had lunch with the Voetspore team, always nice to catch up with them and then we set off for Dakhla Oasis. The road there was beautiful winding through the desert, though the 250 km stretch took us a long time at about 80km/ph. The result - sore bumbs!

By sun set we have just passed Dakhla Oasis and were aiming to camp in the desert. It was getting a bit late and there were still some small villages so we stopped at some point to discuss the best place to camp.

As we discussed this, two men on a donkey cart stopped next to us to ask if we need help. They spoke no English and with hand signs we tried to show that we were looking for a place to sleep and asked if it was save to camp here. He said everything is safe here, but it is too cold out here and if we wanted we can sleep at his house tonight. We decided to give it a try as he looked sincere and didn’t pressure us to join them. So off we went behind the donkey cart on to his house. His house was a building with mud walls, enclosed with a few low walls to keep the chickens and donkeys inside. He told us to bring the bikes inside, which was nice.

Inside, his wife, two daughters and young boy greeted us all giggling at the sight of the funny looking strangers. They also didn’t speak English, though the eldest girl, Hoda, which was completely covered in black gown with only slits for her eyes, could speak very limited English which helped. Our stay here turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip as we conversed with hand signs and noises the whole time. Our Lonely Planet Guide of Egypt had a few words and phrases at the back so we used it to chat some more. We learned that we were in a village called Henna Garb Meyho [sic]. Later on his wife (we called her Mama as it was easiest) brought us a delicious meal made up of labne, falafel, dates and rice wrapped in spinach. They just kept on bringing out more food until we were so full we could not eat any more.

The bed where we had to sleep was in the dining area and at about 8pm they said that we should go to bed, but instead of leaving, they all watched while Mr. Ahmed Omar put us in bed and tucked us in with a few blankets. It was very funny and we both giggled as we can’t remember when last someone tucked us in this way. He was a very sincere good man. They all left then and turned off the light as they closed the door. What a great experience... here is our bedroom:

A slow day towards the Western Desert

We left Aswan at about 8am looking forward to tackling the last part of the journey to Alexandria through the Western Desert in Egypt. Not many tourists dwindle off the main tourist route that stretches down next to the Nile from Cairo to Aswan, which is exactly the reason why we wanted to avoid it. This however meant that we had to put the Motomias (and ourselves) through a final challenge as we had about 1 800 km to cover in only four days.

Here is a map of the route through the Western Desert:

We started off in high spirits, very glad to be back on the road. We decided to travel all along the West bank of the Nile towards Luxor where we will turn West onto the Western Desert road and we were aiming to reach the first oasis. We progressed slowly as the road winded up the West bank and in some parts the road was untarred, which slowed us down even more. By 12h00 I started to get frustrated as we have only covered about 100km. At one stage we decided to take one of the roads to the West with signing “Western Desert” on in the hope that it would take us into the desert, but this only led to us wasting another hour as we got lost in a tiny village and had to be escorted back to the main road by a friendly local in a pickup truck.

To try and speed up the journey we moved back across the Nile to the East Bank until we reached Esna. It went okay, but the road was quite busy and it was impossible to go over 60km/ph. In Esna we were looking for fuel, but all the petrol stations were closed. The locals directed us to a stall with petrol cans to buy off the black market, but after about 10 minutes negotiating about the price we still couldn’t reach an agreement (language difficulties being the biggest problem) so we decided to head on towards Luxor.

In the end we had to add another 40km detour past the Western Desert turnoff to get fuel in Luxor, but it was all worthwhile. Finally we entered the road less travelled and the desert opened up before us. For most part of the road there was absolutely nothing, extremely desolate. About 100km down this road towards Baghdad when the sun started to set we pulled off the road to set up camp behind a small hill.

It was one of the coldest nights to date and we were freezing in the tent. Even daytime temperatures here in the desert are very cold and we had to put on layers of jerseys underneath our bike jackets. Before we went to bed, we examined our progress – we did only 300km today – eish! We relooked all other alternatives and routes but none really looked good.

Here Francois is working out the route on the GPS...

We decided to sleep on it and set off early tomorrow to reach Al Kharga Oasis from where the route splits into two – left going further into the desert and right taking us back to the Nile… a tough choice to make!

The final challenge for our Motomias, still looking good!

Longest border crossing: Into Egypt at last

This morning, while having breakfast, Kamal arrived at the hotel. Last night we contacted a new broker (or fixer) since Kamal didn’t sound too interested in helping us today. He must have caught wind that we’ve found someone else, because today he was very eager to help. We first had to make four copies of our passports and a copy of our visas. Then we got a taxi and went to the port. Apparently the barge was 10 minutes away.

Big boys filling the taxi:


At the gate the guards wouldn’t let us into the port until Kamal arrived who said we should pay them 20 EP each. When we got to the docks we were met by the most beautiful sight.

Two Motomias:


And three Amaroks:


Unloading the Amaroks took some crafty ramp positioning since the dock is at an angle to the barge:


The Motomias were easy (with the help of Andre and a couple of barge-men of course) since they weigh only 110 kg each:


Kamal instructed us to pay the captain 10 EP baksheesh. With all the vehicles on terra firma, we visited Mr Hammam in his customs office. He was very friendly and Johan knew him from their trip to Cairo five years ago. He stamped the carnets one by one and filled out the necessary documentation. He was polite to ask each of us where in our passports we want his stamp. Afterwards Kamal told us to each pay Mr Hammam 550 EP. You don’t get a receipt for this! Then we needed to pay 50 EP baksheesh to another man we haven’t seen before and who didn’t do anything. I told Kamal we’ll pay him, but deduct the amount from his fee. He reduced the baksheesh to 20 EP.

While we were waiting for the customs stamp, Kamal went to fetch the traffic officer and the engineer. The former checked the vehicles’ papers and the latter traced the engine and VIN numbers on carbon paper. Thereafter they were off again to Aswan to get the Egyptian number plates. 150 EP for the bikes and 250 EP for the cars.

In the meantime the Voetspore team sorted a problem with one of the cars and cleaned the luggage compartments in the rear where a mouse or rat did his/her damage for the past couple of weeks. They set up an awning and made everyone coffee:


Tania updates her diary, sitting on her Motomia because she missed it so much:


When Kamal returned for the last time he brought our number plates and licences. We paid his fee of 50 USD for the two bikes:


The whole process only took four hours (if you ignore the five days we waited in Aswan). Not bad! It was great to be reunited with the Motomias again and we’ll be heading towards Luxor and into the Western Desert tomorrow.

We can’t wait! Ps. I won’t post a photo again, but we are now witnessing our eight (standard issue) wedding from our hotel room. :)

Housekeeping makes our day

We spent another day in Aswan waiting for the bikes to arrive, but still no luck. We are hoping that they will arrive tonight or tomorrow morning.

This morning we went with Johan from the Voetspore team to DHL to explore some more options in terms of shipping the three Amaroks and two Motomias back to South Africa from Alexandria in a few days’ time. We also contacted our neighbour, Mark back at home to see if we can’t sort something through his contacts in Egypt – thanks again Mark for all your help! Due to elections today it was difficult to get quotes but hopefully by tomorrow we will have some more options. The challenge with the shipping back home is not so much finding someone to ship it for us, but rather finding a company that can handle the entire process from start to finish, but that doesn’t charge an arm and a leg. Here in Egypt with the bureaucracy it becomes almost impossible to not make use of a local fixer, which always pushes up the cost quite a lot so we are trying to work around that as far as possible.

Talking about fixers… we have been in contact with Mohamed now here in Aswan to see if he can help us with clearing the bikes and cars tomorrow. He came to the hotel to chat with us, but even after our discussion I am still unsure of exactly how much this will all cost. It seems as if a few £50E notes here and there also speed up the process with officials phew… We will also need to make a few trips back and forth to Aswan and the port to get different parts of the process completed at different places. It sounds as if this will take another day or two so we are holding thumbs we can start tomorrow.

On a lighter note - In between all the admin today I spotted this little guy in our room and it really made my day!

The housekeeper really has a sense of humour and decided to present our towels in a somewhat different format than usual, making use of some added props. You got to love it! The Hathor Hotel feels like home by now and we have been enjoying our stay here very much.

Abu Simbel and still no escaping Aswan

Last night we witnessed two more weddings from our room. It looks like you go to the Isis Hotel and order a ‘standard wedding’, since the crowd and music looked exactly like the two weddings last night. It was different couples on each occasion though:


The rest of the view from the hotel room is stunning at night and we spend a long while just looking at the traffic rush by:


Since we are still stuck in Aswan waiting for our bikes to arrive from Sudan, we decided to visit the ancient temples of Abu Simbel. Since it is located some 280 km south of Aswan, we had to get up at 3h00 to catch a minibus organised by the hotel to take us there. We first had to assemble at the edge of town with a few other buses to wait for the mandatory police escort. We arrived at Abu Simbel around 7h40. We passed the temples with the ferry on our way to Aswan, but it was already dark and we were having supper at the time.

The two temples, the Great Temple of Ramses II and the Temple of Hathor, were carved out of the mountain on the west bank of the Nile between 1 274 and 1 244 BC, but was covered in the shifting desert sand for centuries. It was only discovered in 1813 and by 1817 enough sand was cleared away to enter the temples. What an amazing sight it must have been for Jean-Louis Burckhardt who discovered the site (only one of the large statues’ head was sticking out) by chance.


Then in 1960 the Aswan High Dam was constructed, threatening to drown the temples at Abu Simbel and a series of other Nubian temples in the area. A UNESCO sponsored campaign started dismantling the ancient temples and structures block by block and relocated it to higher grown. Looking at the huge figures, it is almost unimaginable. Since the temples were carved out of the mountain (that’s now under water), they had to construct a ‘new mountain’. To protect the structure a dome was erected over the temples and covered with earth afterwards. It really is something spectacular to behold.

Before the temple there are these small statues that has been weathered quite a bit:

The large figures in front of the entrance is very impressive:


The female figures were always knee high compared to the male ones (shown below), except the powerful Nefertari.


The insides of the temples are even more impressive in their decorations and it is amazing what they were able to carve out (in perfect proportions) more than 3 000 years ago! Sadly we weren't allowed to take any photos inside.

Back home we had McDonalds again (oops!) and an afternoon nap. When the Voetspore guys returned from their felucca trip we heard they’ve spoken to Mazar in Wadi Halfa. Apparently our bikes have been loaded and should be here by tomorrow night. Hopefully we’ll be heading out sometime on Tuesday.

Stephan told us of a place where he bought falafels for two Egyptian Pounds each. We’ve been struggling to get cheap food since the Egyptians are out to get suckers like us. We found the shop and asked the price (very important to establish beforehand!). Five pounds each! I said our friend bough one for two pounds, so the price dropped to two pounds each, so we ordered two falafels. Then he made one and cut it in half to give us two. I said we want two whole ones, to which he said eight pounds.

He then asked us to come into the back to see the deep fried potato chips. He asked me where my camera is to take a pic of the process. I said I didn’t have one after which another guy in the shop took out his cell phone and took a pic of him and Tania. She said she wants discount if they take a pic of her, but they actually demanded baksheesh (tip) for the photo they took of her! We laughed and said they must pay her for the photo, but they became pushy and very rude and still demanded a tip for seeing their shop. Then when I finally paid I had to ask for the right amount of change no less than five times, after which I still didn’t get enough. I think we might go for McDonalds for the rest of our stay since it seems like the only place you don't have to haggle for the price.