Nuweiba to Cairo
Added on Friday, May 9th, 2008 by Carole Nash Editor
Nuweiba to Cairo
Just arrived in Cairo. The traffic is the worst in the world I have ever encountered. Across country, fine but Cairo they are mental.
It’s dusk and four lanes of traffic descend at very fast speed into the city. I see from the corner of my eye a blue car with an arm stuck out indicating he was going right and he did, in a long, fast sweeping arc of a movement and at 80pmp it was as if I wasn’t there. He was going and I had to get out of the way. I slowed just enough because there was a car 4ft behind me and closing - I braked enough to let blue car skim through and then skipped to the side of the road and rested by parked cars. I always thought India was bad but it is easy compared to this.
After loading the bike onto the ferry at Aqaba, bound for Nuweiba, I cleared the infamously beaurocratic Egyptian customs. It was OK. Set off for Cairo but the first road junction gave me a choice; Cairo or Sharm el Sheck. I had a friend there, Adrian, who owned a Globe of Death and would have stayed with him, but he was in London when I checked, so I set off instead for St Katherine’s and Mount Sinai. As soon as I turned into the desert, you could see how such isolation attracts loonies. Years and years of solitary living turn pockets of the desert into padded cells. After 40 years of such living there is nowhere else for you to go. Trucks with smiley faces stood on their sides in impossible locations. Bedouins just sit and look, as if not of this place anymore. When Moses descended from Mount Sinai, it was here that God delivered to him the tablets of the 10 Commandments.
Here you will find the descendent of the burning bush, an object described by the ‘Book of Exodus’ as being located on Mount Horeb; where, according to the narrative, the bush was on fire, but was not consumed by the flames, hence the name. In the narrative, the burning bush is the location at which Moses was appointed by Yahweh to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and into Canaan.
It was here where the story of the Burning Bush decided the ancient fathers to build a monastery to commemorate the work of God. In those days, if you heard God speak to you in your head you were a prophet, now, they would say you were on drugs or needed to be sectioned.
In the Sinai there are memorials to the war with Israel when the Sinai was snatched and then won back. Everywhere there is a military presence. Smiling faces but a little paranoia. I didn’t not like Egypt, but it is a much faster version of where I’ve been. Gentle, quiet, sweet and unassuming it is not.
The bike is performing well, even on 88 octane and all the crap that poor fuel implies. Who would have thought an R1 would survive on this? I feel fine. Riding well. Writing and filming all the time, posting up on the website when I can. Soon when I cross the Nubia I will be out of contact, completely. Off to Luxor now and then Aswan.
