From Egypt to Sudan

Aurel: After a nice time in Luxor we take the road to Aswan where we can take a boat to Sudan. This is the only way to enter Sudan by land.

On the road I see that I start to have a bit of water in the oil...

Loïc: We find this out thanks to the CJ Design clutch cover.

Upper Egypt

Aurel: Live from Sudan, this is the course of our adventures! We have not shared news for quite some time but we have many things to tell you! This article is only a foretaste

Loïc: Stuck in Cairo for a week of recovery. This could have been worse.

Julie hosts me on her floating house in the city's heart.

Contemplative Tourism

It is still quite cool this morning when I sit in a small café in Imbaba, a working class area of Cairo. Chairs are aligned against the wall so that two people would have to sit next to each other, separated by a small square table. I prefer to come alone anyway as it is the best way to get to know people. I sit opposite to the regulars who are on the other side of the long and narrow room. Flies love the hookah's smoke that the fan hardly disperses. All is quiet and peaceful. I am serene.

Throttle is your friend

Aurel: Mohy, the Egyptian we met thanks to www.advrider.com organized an off-road day in the dunes close to Cairo. We jumped on the occasion considering our itch for adventures!

It all began the day before when we swaped our road tyres for knobbies. Brand new TKC80 kindly offered by our sponsor Continental.

Even this is an adventure. We decide to go to a gas station to make the task easier and to see how they do that here. But the guy is a boor... more muscles than brain.

Loïc: The reasoning is clear and simple: "if it does not work it means I don't hit hard enough".

1 pyramid, 2 pyramids, 3 pyramids

Loïc: We leave for Alexandria after the steps in the countryside and the desert. We are back on a straight road alongside the sea even though we cannot access it. It is protected by walls or barbed wires; the coast is obviously a military ground like in Libya.

The last 100 km before reaching Alexandria is an awful landscape. The road is lined with ugly buildings. They are finished, really? But nobody lives there though. It looks like the Costa Brava in the years 75 with sometimes massive council flats or luxurious protected villages, separated from the coast by this 4-lane dusty road.

We find a luxurious driver restaurant to nibble. Raw fishes are shown in ice; they cook the ones we choose.It is a delight and we get a warm welcome. It helps us to buck up for the rest of this terrible road that never ends.

The lack of suburb quite shocks me when we reach Alexandria. We instantaneously leave the 4 lane road to get into the jamed up roads where the traffic is crazy. Strangely even though it is totally anarchical there is no agressivity, nobody forces its way. Toots are only there to be sure drivers can be seen and not the expression of an exaggerated arrogant virility I am used to see in France.

Aurel knows the direction; anyway there is too much traffic to look down at our GPS. We can't crawl as Aurel's bike tends to stall when it gets too hot. I knew I should not have traveled with an orange bike!

The first areas seem to be close to the fishing harbour and this road to downtown never ends. 7 or 8 millions people takes up space. A short break is necessary when we reach the city center, to drink a tea in the sun on the edge of a large bay...and to let Aurel's bike cooling down as it can't take it anymore.