Egypt- In search of the old Egyptians part 3. 2012/10/25

michnus

28th October 2012

We decided the next day, come hell or highwater we will go and see the pyramids and museum and then the next day ride over the Suez Canal, or under it, as there’s no bridges over the Suez. Then head for Nuweiba at the Red sea and take the ferry to Jordan. If nothing else goes wrong we would be there on day 3 to clear customs and take the shit that will come with having the bikes there over their issued time limit.

After another taxi driver screwed us over and paying too much to get around, the embassy staff arranged for a taxi driver to drive us the following day to see what we had to see. They said on the bikes it would take to long for us to try and navigate and would not be able to see everything – which is so true.

Through www.ADVRider.com website I met a guy named, Heeso, who not only helped us to find the battery for the bike but also invited us out to meet his friends and fellow-bikers. We spend a memorable evening in a rooftop restaurant.

The pyramids sure are a sight to behold. The sheer tenacity of the old Egyptians to build such structures is mind boggling. We took the option of riding on camels around the pyramids. (Do the tourist thing!) Something in hindsight we were really glad we did. The camels’ track is left to the main strip and one miss all the tourist groups, busses, curio sellers and hordes of people climbing over one another.

We are not really stuffy museum dwellers but decided to visit the popular Egyptian Museum. The artefacts are very interesting although not very well documented and it will probably be to your benefit to use a guide. The jewelry intrigued Elsebie and the details on most of the ‘older’ artefacts were fascinating.

The next day we left Cairo early to head for Nuweiba. The Suisse Canal can not really be accessed and there are roadblocks everywhere so we had to do with riding through the tunnel imagining how it looked above us. Just outside the tunnel all foreigners have to wait and travel in convoy – from slow petrol tanks to bikes. It took us most of the day to travel the 200km stretch to Nuweiba.

We spend a night under a grass roof right next to the Red Sea. Spectacular, and were able to wash off the last of the Sinai desert in the mellow ocean. Heeso’ friend and partner was vacationing in the area and met us later for some sweet tea.

With his help and a bit of last minute reading it become clear that it will be much easier for us to cross the border to Israel at Taba instead of taking a very expensive ferry over to Jordan. A few phone calls to friends also made it seem that we will not have too much trouble at the border with the motorbikes – it turned out our Arabic paperwork stated we had 15 days to get over the border, not 3 … well, we can only wonder ….

The Egypt border at Taba was a surprisingly different setup as the Aswan one. Neater and with even baggage scanners (maybe they’re keeping up with the Jones’ next door…). We approached the not so well English spoken customs official with all our paperwork and waited for about 20min for him to try and figure things out.

Not very friendly, or patient to listen to our story, he ‘lost’ one of our important papers in his register and started waving at Elsebie for not giving it to him. We searched high and low, even checked the garbage, just to when he turned his back to find his boss, for Elsebie to search his desk and to find it. Still waiting for the apology …

Now here it comes … a long story short …”It is easy, Madam, Sir, you pay EPND5540 (about R7’800) or leave your bikes here”!!!! Not even tears would move this mountain … so we had to find an ATM and cough.

Hallo, Israel, here we come!!!!