Round and round we go

Day Total: 116 Km

Total Time: 3:34:25

Avg. HR: 132bpm

Avg. Speed: 34.3 km/h (excluding the 13 minute lunch break)

Song of the Day: Here Comes Your Man – The Pixies

The prayer cycle started the day again, albeit earlier than the 5:15am alarm on my watch. Packing up was easier this morning as we had access to proper toilets, some street lights in camp, and extra time the night before to prep everything. Breakfast fell back to its normal routine: whole wheat pita bread, loads of peanut butter, and bananas. The honey was gone today, so yes, my sandwich was incomplete. I have a theory that it might be a series of such minor letdowns in one’s life that causes psychological problems. Then again, expectation is the mother of disappointment…

Fresh legs all around meant a decent start to the day. It was surprisingly chilly, but the skies were clear and the sun was out soon enough to make things bearable enough to remove the arm warmers. The pace early one alternated between moderately reasonable to stupid (as has been the case), so I just tried to zone out, enjoy the views of the amazingly lush banks along the canals, and draw energy from the general excitement with which we were greeted along the route. As usual, the pace whipped up to freak speed just before lunch, but as it was only for 8km, we all survived.

There was some mischief out on the road today with a very small number of 10 to 14 year old kids today. What seems to happen is when the lead riders go through, these kids get excited and go to the roadside to await the next bunch. There were reports of rocks being thrown as well as a few instances of kids using palm fronds to hit riders in the back as they went by. Nothing too serious really, certainly no worse than Thursday’s ride into Luxor when I was hit in the leg with a rock, so please be mindful of severity and context if/when you read other accounts of this ride. The overwheling majority of interactions with people on the roads into our camps have been very warm, very positive, and very memorable. Who doesn’t like riding along and seeing 5 children on the far bank of a canal come running out of the fields to  race alongside while yelling “Hallo, hallo, hallo!”?

After a few directional concerns on the final approach, a few of us became detached from the main group to finish just a few minutes behind. Nothing serious, and lessons learned. It turns out the main bunch had some near misses with traffic due to the size of the group, so I am thankful for avoiding the drama. We pitched tents in the middle of a dry, dusty football pitch (soccer field for those in the US) at around 11am. A cold shower was available. What I really mean was that there was a shower head with running water inside of the little stalls that also had a water tank and a hole in the ground for more material biological deposits. Nothing like showering in the shitter… That said, clean water to rinse with was quite nice.

We headed into town in a group of about 8 and found a nice falafel stand blasting Egyptian dance music. The falafel sanwiches were the cheapest of the trip at 1 Egyptian Pound (~$0.18) and nearly the tastiest. 3-Bike-Mike (separate post to come on that nickname) scored icecream bars for everyone and coupled with the orange Fanta provided by Paul, we had a very memorable pre-dinner meal. We wondered the markets looking for some form of sticky tape, and finally keyed in on the word Scotch to get what we wanted.

We ran into a few other riders on our way into camp and were persuaded to head to the Edfu temple just outside of town. Kendra, our companinon from yesterday, was again being offered large numbers of camels in exchange for marriage arrangements and quickly arranged for transport to the temple via horse-drawn cart.

The temple was nothing short of incredible and really cemented all the knowledge we had gleaned in the previous days. The Edfu temple is considered the best preserved of the Egyptian temples and did not disappoint with so much of its original structure still structurally intact. Massive columns, even more massive top slabs of limestone formed the roof, and a gigantic, hollowed-out granite block were some of the highlights. The intricacy and depth of the carvings on the walls was distincly different than those we saw in the previous days and we correctly surmised that there was much more available time to complete this temple. A few photos were below.

Dinner was a rather gristle-laiden mystery meat, tomoato-based sauce and loads of fresh vegetables. The food continues to impress both for its quality and endless quantity. The rider meeting included instructions on preparations for our entry into the Sudan via ferry on Monday. Aswan reperesents the finest that Egypt has to offer we were told, and also holds the last vestiges and luxuries of the modern world we will see for a while. I’m OK with that (I think) for now.

Enjoy the photos…