Your Egypt

[Hoss]

By Bruce Junek, Special to the Journal

We are standing under a concrete awning in the Great Western Desert of Egypt. The temperature is 104 degrees in the shade. Out on the road in the sun our Brunton compass reads 119 degrees.



Bruce uses his Arabic language phrasebook to translate a sign while bicycling across the Great Western Desert, Egypt. (Courtesy of Tass Thacker)

It is 11 a.m. We both feel strong, and would like to bicycle another two hours before our mid-day break when the sun is the fiercest. The problem is shade. We need to find shade again by 1 p.m. Actually 12:30 p.m. would be better.

My wife, Tass Thacker, and I are on a three-month bicycling trip through Egypt, Jordan, Greece and Turkey. We are starting in early May with a two-week, 500-mile loop from Cairo through four oases in the Great Western Desert down to the Nile Valley near Luxor.

As far as we can see the landscape is flat and sandy. Only two or three vehicles pass by each hour. We think there should be a communication tower in 15 or 20 kilometers, which might have a small building that we can lay beside for shade. There might also be a police checkpoint ahead, a welcome sight as they always make us tea and give us water. And, the long shot; there could be a hill or rock formation somewhere up ahead that might make shade beside the road.

We decide to take a chance, and push our loaded bikes off the cement pad, through 10 feet of sand and back onto the highway.

In addition to normal camping gear, I have five gallons of water — one day’s supply weighing 40 pounds — strapped to my bike. The heat is suffocating when we stand on the black pavement, but once we are riding, the breeze drops the feel of the temperature by 10 or 15 degrees.

I think about how I came to be here.

Thirty-one years ago, I crossed Africa with my sister on an overland expedition. The Sahara was fascinating, but the heat was so intense I said I would never come back. Now here I am — on a bicycle.

When first planning this journey, I voted for a rock climbing trip in southern Europe. After doing numerous bicycle adventures around the world, I thought we should break out of our 20-year pattern and for once not ride bikes.

Tass liked the Mediterranean idea, but wanted something more exotic: Egypt and Turkey rather than France and Italy. And she wasn’t ready yet to leave the bikes in the garage.

Then, after Sept. 11, 2001, we wanted to learn more about Islamic culture. In the 1980s, we bicycled through Indonesia, Malaysia and northern India, which are all predominately Muslim. Everyone treated us kindly. We decided to see if Muslim hospitality had changed.

Two months before departing, we still didn’t know if we could bicycle in Egypt. Travel books advised against it. Web sites said the police would not allow it. Why?

In 1997, terrorists shot a group of tourists in Luxor. Tourism dropped dramatically. The government instigated a wide range of policies to “protect foreigners,” including making huge sections of the country off limits to independent travelers, including most of the Nile Valley. Although there had been no substantial terrorist incident in the eight years since, the laws were still in effect.

Then, we found some obscure internet postings of attempts to bicycle across the Great Western Desert. A German was stopped at the first checkpoint and not allowed to go on. A Norwegian couple did make it across, although in some sections they had to be accompanied by a police escort.

But four Russians were able to ride across the desert just the previous winter without an escort. Maybe we would have similar luck. Never mind we would be crossing in the springtime.

So how did the people respond to two American bicyclists?

Everyone was super friendly, constantly shouting out “Welcome,” the one English word they all seem to know. During our three-month trip, we were invited into homes, given tea and biscuits daily, and never once did we feel threatened or in danger.

But that is not to say that people didn’t want to talk politics.

One day I photographed six older, distinguished businessmen in well-tailored suits sitting at a sidewalk cafe smoking tobacco in huge hookah water pipes. I explained we were making a program to show in schools. They admonish me to tell the true story of Egypt, and not just propaganda, which they believe is all Americans hear.

A bathroom attendant sadly tells me he does not like Condoleezza Rice. He felt Colin Powell was a much better Secretary of State.

A well-educated archeologist is stunned we are from America. “Even though we do not like your President,” he tells us, “Americans are always very welcome here.”

Source :

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2007/02/22/news/features/821features.txt

[Winky]

:) Hoss
The Americans abroad are notorious for their "safety consciousness
and precautions" a never ending source of amusement to the rest of the International community :)


Apart from being remarkably adventurous this couple also takes superb photos of their cycle journeys around the world

http://www.imagesoftheworld.com/mm/mmpics/egrbbtdune52-756gif.gif

If you enjoyed the story Hoss posted here
You can find more about Bruce and Tass in their blog;

http://www.imagesoftheworld.com/mm/mmhome.html

[RoughShod]

Hoss wrote: By Bruce Junek, Special to the Journal

We are standing under a concrete awning in the Great Western Desert of Egypt. The temperature is 104 degrees in the shade. Out on the road in the sun our Brunton compass reads 119 degrees.


The great structures of Egypt may hold more than a majestic significance to their size, as to their ability to provide life giving shade

The place is a desert, sandstorms erode even the sand particles doing the eroding. I would like to wonder, how in terms of the harsh environment, that the few oasis in the land, have to suffer the ills of politics, while those harsh 'streets' through the desert are navigated perhaps with more feeling and risk to life than the political streets sheltered in the oasis's