17th January 2008 - Luxor

The past couple of days have really given me a glimpse into what the next four months will entail.

We went from our start in Cairo via various desert camps and then alongside the beautiful Red Sea through the towns. Riding our second stage set at 170km, the winds shifted in our favour and pushed out average speeds up beyond 30km/h. Hitting the Red Sea made for some picturesque scenery as we were cruising along the coast on what signs called “dangerous curves”. As we head further south, days become slightly warmer, yet nights remain bitter cold at as little as 1 degree Celsius. The strong winds, usually our friends during the day, let us freeze down to our bones and drive the sand into everything and everywhere.

Africa requires making do with little often and improvising most of the time. Within a few days I am already used to having no more than a bottle of water for daily washing, sleeping on camping grounds littered with faeces (I hope this is a solely Egyptian occurrence) and being completely cut off the outer world for lengthy periods of times. Therefore, reaching Safaga, our last camp on the Red Sea before heading land inwards towards the Nile, was pure splendour and luxury for us. A wonderful clean camping site right on a beach, warm showers and a barbecue seemed to be everything one could ask for. The following day we crossed the mountains on Egypt’s East and stopped short of Quena…fairly uneventful. Quite the contrary can be said of our ride from Quena to Luxor, supposedly the biggest open air museum on earth. Coming from the desert, the scenery changed from sand and rocks to an abundance of fields and palm trees in the richest shades of green imaginable. It becomes apparent to what extent the Nile is Egypt’s lifeblood. Seeing this stark contrast within a few metres distance is simply breathtaking, as is the attention we get from the locals. The streets along the Nile are buzzing with life and a large proportion of this life responds in some way or the other to our presence. On the one hand there are hundreds of children (literally) shouting “hello” or “welcome to Egypt” while smiling, waving and trying to shake our hands. On the other hand, some children take no shame in commanding outright “money, money, money”, often holding out their open hand and gesturing “give me”. On sporadic occasions stones are thrown (badly aimed) or sugar canes swung at us.

This being my first visit to Luxor, I couldn’t but participate in a tour to Luxor’s West Bank (Theben), viewing the spectacular tombs in the valley of the kings and valley of the queens and admiring the beautiful 3-terrace-temple of Hatsheput. The latter is the sight of the 1997 Luxor massacre, in which gunmen entered the temple and executed virtually anyone present. In fact, this event plunged Egypt’s tourism industry into a crippling crisis and can be considered as primary reason for the ridiculously excessive presence of military and police, which any traveller will encounter in Egypt. For example, the Tour d’Afrique’s journey through Egypt is constantly accompanied by armed police and/or military. Even fire-fighters are present at some camp sites (we still have to figure out their purpose at camp).