From the Pyramids to Portsmouth
3rd February
Cairo. Cape Town to Cairo on bicycle…I can't quite believe we've finished Africa. The arrival in Aswan marked the end of our African adventure in many ways, but reaching the top of this giant continent feels fantastic and is a massive relief. I certainly won't forget the moment when Rob turned back to me and pointed at something on the horizon. It was the Pyramids, and with the sun setting behind them they were as astounding as everyone had said they would be. There are certain things on a trip like this that always feel so far away that you convince yourself they aren't ever going to happen. I haven't been able to imagine cycling into Trafalgar Square and I couldn't conceive of seeing the Pyramids, but there they were, welcoming us to the top of an 8, 000 mile continent.
When we were planning the trip we heard that we would be unable to cycle from Aswan to Luxor, as tourists could only travel as part of a motor police convoy. This had been established after the terrible massacre of German tourists at the Deir El Bari Temple in Luxor by fundamentalist terrorists in 1997 and redoubled after September 11th. In fact we could cycle at the discretion of the regional police, but only by being escorted by a police car and five armed men. All of a sudden we were able to enjoy perfect roads, better food and more comfortable places to stay, but at the same time all our freedom was taken away. We had to leave each town at a certain time, stay at certain hotels, eat at certain restaurants and be accompanied by armed guards every step of the way. As this protection drifted between neglect and obsession we got more and more frustrated. Coming out of Luxor, while the Land Rover was being forced to wait for a convoy that we knew it wouldn't be able to keep up with, we cycled passed a huge police road block without as much as a blink, yet five miles later we were told to cycled back to Luxor. In Luxor we were told to forget about that and carry on cycling. Back at the road block a very confused officer let us through, but five miles later we were told there was to be no cycling without an escort, which we waited two hours for. In Sohag, two days after leaving Luxor, this protection was taken to an extreme as any movement out of the hotel had to be radioed through and ratified by Tourist Police HQ. We would then be followed by three plain clothes policemen and four other armed officers to the restaurant, the shop and even the loo. At one point it looked like there might be some kind of frantic shoot out as Jonny tried to cross the road to look at a menu without his escort, only to be dragged back to safety as a small boy carrying ping-pong bat, clearly highly trained, shuffled threateningly along the pavement. We were half expecting them to taste our food for us before we ate it. All of the police that looked after us were very friendly and helpful, and we always managed to negotiate with them about carrying on cycling after dark, but most of the time we just felt unnecessarily restricted. More importantly we didn't really know what we were being protected so vigorously from, or whether this was just the response of a country that relies heavily on tourism and fears the damage that another terrorist attack could do.
In Sahara, just outside Cairo, we have been looked after unbelievably kindly by Fiona and Morad El Essawi, some more people who we got in touch with merely as friends of friends, but by whom we were greeted and looked after as long lost relatives. Our first night here was Becks' birthday and such was the hospitality that she was baked a birthday cake. It was also on this night that we were flicking through one of their Cairo guide books only to find the sentence: 'There is only one thing that is more dangerous than driving in Cairo, and that is cycling, which can only be described as tantamount to suicide.' The next morning we set off into the centre of Cairo, helmets firmly attached, to finish the final few miles, only to find the roads were almost completely empty as it was a public holiday…our mums were very relieved…Rob was very disappointed.
5th February
We have hit a bit of a wall in the last couple of days trying to organise the next bit of the trip. Our planned route, made on the grounds of time, money, weather and politics, would take us from here across the Mediterranean to Italy to finish the final couple of thousand miles through Europe. However this passage to Europe is much harder to come across than we thought, partly because it is winter, but mostly because it is Eid here at the moment, the big Muslim holiday, and everything is shut. So, when we ring to book tickets no-one answers the phone and when we look for travel agents they all say 'why on earth are you trying or buy boat tickets during Eid, you stupid foreigners?' on the door. Becks and Jonny graduate on 6th March, which we have to be back for, not least because by then our banks will have refused to extend our overdraft limits for a third time and we will be sleeping on the streets. So, the options: fly and leave the car, but also leave Jonny and Jono; wait until Eid ends and find out about boats, but risk waiting another week; cancel our events in England, borrow more money, buy sub-zero cycling gear and cycle the 2500 extra miles through the Middle East and Eastern Europe in two extra months; keep all our dates in England and all drive to where we would have sailed, but suffer the annoyance of not cycling the extra 2500 miles (sounds stupid, I know!). In the end it was decided after 6 hours of discussion to opt for the last one and so tomorrow we get up at 5am to get in the car for a week's solid driving.
14th February
Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia in six days and we are in Europe, about to set off on our bikes from the port of Trieste on the far Eastern coast of Italy, to cover the 1, 300 miles to London in 20 days. It has actually gone extremely smoothly, and considering the problems we thought we might have getting into Syria, the 14 hours we spent waiting on the border did end with the relief of being granted a transit VISA. Moreover, on a trip when we spend all the time frantically preparing, cycling and organising, 14 hours of guaranteed sitting, when there was nothing we could do to speed things up, was what we needed. Jono took the chance to smoke five different flavours of shisha, Jonny tirelessly logged more footage, Becks read her romantic thriller for eight hours and Rob started to catch up on 5, 000 miles of his diary. Then, just as we were falling asleep on the tarmac, we were presented with five VISAS and a smile. Since then we got confused by all the zeros on Turkish notes, got frozen in Greece, as we did in Macedonia, and in fact all the other countries we drove through, so we spent all day everyday for a week in our sleeping bags, with pairs of pants jammed in the windows of the Land Rover to stop the snow getting in. What an adventure!
18th February
After writing about meeting Desmond Tutu in South Africa, nights in the jungle in Mozambique, passing lions on our bikes in Tanzania, getting stuck in the 'cotton mud' of northern Kenya, covered in dust in Ethiopia, lost in the desert in Sudan and having a five man armed guard in Egypt, it seems as if Europe just can't compare. The first words that spring to mind are cold and expensive. Our first night in Mestre, just north of Venice, set the tone, as we had arrived on Valentine's Day, which kicks off 'Carnivale' and a tourist rush here. The cheapest accommodation we could find was £100, which sent us all pale as we worked out that £100 would give us hotel accommodation for 20 nights in most of Africa. So, we set the tone for how we would try and go about things and refused to stay in a hotel. Instead we all squeezed up next to each other in someone's garage while Rob set up a hammock in a park, and we all self-righteously shivered our way through the night. All of a sudden, being able to just lie down in the desert and fall asleep seemed like heaven.
We had another decision to make as we neared Milan, and that was whether to cross the Alps or continue towards Nice as we had planned. We seemed to be warned against the Alps in mid-winter option by everyone we spoke to, but at the same time we have been running out of time to get back to England, and if nothing went wrong across the mountains then we knew we could save at least two days getting to Lyon. We had been creeping northwards since we got into Italy, and as the dry weather was holding we just about decided that it would be best to get to Lyon as soon as possible whatever the route. As it happened the snow began to fall as we started to climb into the foothills, so all the passes closed and we had to go under the highest part through the tunnel in the Land Rover. Half way through the tunnel we passed a tiny sign which read 'France'.
20th February
It seems like a good idea at this point as everything gets easier, as we cycle along paved, well lit roads, drink coffee and hot chocolate whenever we want and eat all the foods we fantasised about when we were eating soggy beans three times a day, to point out how much we have relied upon our long suffering driver, Mr Jono Felix, through all the hard bits. As most of you won't have met him, here he is:
Jono Felix, 28, half SA, half Dutch, likes: meat, dislikes: other drivers.
Jono is the
most conscientious driver we could possibly have hoped for and his dedication
to our Land Rover has been unerring, so this is how his day starts. Alarm
goes off, Jono rolls over, moans, swears, falls back to sleep, gets woken
up, swears, falls back to sleep, gets woken up, and within ten minutes
he's up, warming up the engine, checking oil and water, swearing at broken
lights and faulty seals and smoking eight fags. Then its coffee time for
Jono, which has replaced his preferred African 'shai': just as in Africa
Jono drove his way from one glass of spicy 'shai' to the next, so in Europe
the day can be split up into coffees. In Italy and France, between Jono
and coffee is, unfortunately, Italian and French. Things started problematically
in Italy as the word 'café' just gets you an espresso, when what
he wanted was a giant cup of milky coffee. "Grandy please bru"
was added pretty quickly, but milk was too much, so Jono decided the best
way to communicate with these "morons" was to ask for "some
cow" in his coffee and do an impression of a South African pretending
to have horns.
After the route has been planned on his GPS, a few bikes fixed with bits
of inner tube and bungees, and the cyclists have been set on their merry
way, Jono takes a tour of the local area. Although our Land Rover has
been fantastically enduring, especially as it is constantly being expertly
fine tuned by Jono, it does have the largest turning circle in the world,
so if a wrong turn is made on a tiny Italian street then it takes a 15
point turn to make amends. And when you don't speak the language there
are lots of wrong turns…
Jono: Bonjo boss, yah, I'm trying to get to Creamy.
Italian: Eh?!
Jonny: Its 'Crema', Jono, we're going to 'Crema'
Jono: Yah, chief, where's Creamier?
Jonny: Crema!
Italian: Eh?!
Jono: What's wrong with these morons?! Let's go over there and ask that idiot.
So an hour later, when Jono overtakes us drenched in sweat and far more exhausted than we are, we know that he has had to turn around three times in a one way street, drive along the tram tracks and question the intelligence and sexuality of the entire Italian population.
By the time we get to the Land Rover a bit of Kenny Rogers and a lot of nicotine has cheered Jono up, and he has always got lots of treats waiting for us. Seeing the Land Rover on the horizon has always been a big part of every day for the cyclists, not least because we would always be greeted with a broad smile from beneath the bonnet as Jono fiddles, tweaks and tunes us onwards.
Jono, thank you, we all love you to bits.
26th February
I hate to sound clichéd or overly sentimental, but at this point I have to. Coming into Paris was the most amazing thing that I've ever done, and the most excited I've felt on this entire trip. This morning we set off on a huge day far too late, so by the time we started the last section it was already dark. By the time we reached the centre of our penultimate capital city of the trip it was bustling and lit up beautifully. Like the Pyramids in Cairo, the centre of Paris had a big effect on us, and made us realise just how close we are to home.
In two days time we will be at Le Havre, about to catch the ferry to Portsmouth and cycle to Oxford, from where we begin a two week tour of England (you can look at the schedule and are very welcome to attend any of the events if you are in the area). Almost there…!
29th February
Today we arrived in England…but you will have to wait to hear what we all have to say about that in the FINAL diary, where everyone will tell you about how they feel about being home and what their favourite bits have been.