Into Aswan January 23

Last race day in Egypt!

After the visit to the temple last night I set about trying to organize my stuff – hadn’t been able to get the internet to work etc so hadn’t been able to send over the data as I had wanted to. So decided to go to bed – at about 3am I was rudely awakened by a prayer call – turned out to be fairly quiet compared to the one that then woke us up at 5am – two mosques competing with each other! It was so loud – a complete joke! I didn’t want to get up – seemed far too early!

We rode back towards the river and continued to follow the Nile, which was pretty cool. The first 30k or so was fine but then the speed started to pick up as usual. It was a strange day!
As we got into Aswan the speed picked up again with a few k to go – and we started racing – it was a bit difficult to be sure where to go and a couple of the guys took the wrong turn – I nearly did as well but managed to save it at the last minute. There were two guys ahead of me that I couldn’t catch so I slowed down and let a few others pass me – but we all ended up with basically the same time anyway for the day so that was fine. It was another insanely fast day for over 115km.


We locked the bikes down and tried to book into the hotel with free WiFi – but it was fully booked – we found another one but it didn’t have internet access. Anyway we sit down and charge all our stuff = then go for a walk to find some sort of connection – no luck. I decide to go to the Vodafone store to buy an internet stick – we are there for hours while they try to get it to work – finally it does so we leave! Go for dinner with Scotts dad Len.

When we arrive back at the hotel we don’t have our passports – TDA has them for entrance into Sudan. Manager said earlier it was OK – also said we could pay tomorrow rather than immediately. However there was a different guy now and he made us get some passport copies and also said we needed to pay now. We had already given ours to Scotts dad so this guy went to his room and badgered him – lots of shouting – Len told them to go away till the morning and let him sleep. This argument continued for ages …… All a bit of a nightmare.

I had to return to the store as I still couldn't get my new purchase to work and eventually was ready for bed at 11.30 - and I hadn't even organised my gear which was the whole point of getting a hotel room anyway! At least we can have a rest on the ferry tomorrow - sounds as though its going to be an interesting journey!