The dramatic finale

So, in conclusion.

We are halfway to London, according to the little plane icon on our seat-back monitors. Half way means we're probably not going to get diverted back to Cairo. Let me illuminate why I feared that might happen.

Last night was... I daren't try to capture the evening within a single adjective. Matt and I are glad, so very glad, that we're on this plane, and heading to England, and heading finally for home. I really struggle to think of anything I've wanted more.

I tried to capture yesterday in the previous post. We'd had the sandstorm of course. Something I didn't mention was that I was freaking out a little because I thought I might get a little asthma, or even an attack, as last time I got one it was dust related. There was no escaping this dust. I pulled my soccer shirt around my head and tied it behind my ears, which proved to be a pretty good filter, though occasionally I could feel the crunch of sand in my teeth, so some was getting through.

On our trip up to the border post, the taxis were stopped, so we caught a ride with a local in the tray of his ute, which was covered with a tarpaulin canopy. We were approximately half way along the journey, deep in the storm, the road disappearing into swirls of dust tens of metres from the car, when the engine died. The guy got out. The hood went up. He was tinkering around for a while. The storm raged on. Eventually Matt thought we might be able to give him a push start, so we jumped out and had a look to see what he was up to under the hood. He was hand cranking the radiator fan. The storm was whipping our clothes, pulling the shirt from my face. I did pause to think that a doctor, performing my autopsy, might have a little chuckle at the poor judgement. An asthmatic, push-starting a car in a dust-storm on the Egyptian-Libyan border. Ha ha.

The rest happened, and we got away, but like I said, the night proved uncomfortable. One of the irritating things about Egypt is that extremely few people know English to any functional level. A lot of people can say hi, anyone and everyone can and does say 'welcome' (the seemingly mandatory response to sighting a foreigner), but to find someone who could tell us why the policeman is escorting us to Cairo is a rare bird indeed. In fact, we only knew of one person in the entire country who could definitely give us a translation: Mrs Summer, from the Egyptian Auto Club, in downtown Cairo. So, without her help, we were left to dream up our own paranoid fantasies.

There were a lot of accommodating happenings to help fuel our fears. In one of the brief conversations I had with our man, I said I was going to try to get some sleep on the bus. To this he replied: 'no sleep for you'. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Following a short interview with him Matt suggested two possible scenarios. One, he's just on his way to a town called Marjoun. Two, marjoun is the Arabic world for tailing someone, namely us. A short time after this the bus driver came down asking for tickets. Our man didn't have a ticket, but most emphatically indicated that he was with us, 'hosting' us. Amusingly this wasn't on with the driver, and a mild disagreement followed. Our man seemed to get a ticket. So it was scenario two.

I tried to get some sleep, but it was fitful sleep, and I woke up as our bus was pulling off the highway towards the town of Marjoun. I was starting to freak out a little. So it was scenario one and scenario two. He's hosting us to the town of Marjoun, where we'd live out our days in a desert jail; we were still so very remote. It took a while to get to the town, and by the time we stopped at the guard post on the town's border I was on the verge of losing it. Calm down Rhys, what would Indy do? I looked around for the assembled police squad, open paddy wagon ready for the new visitors. Nothing. And our man just got off, shaking our hands before doing so, and walked off into the darkness. Maybe, there was nothing there, and he wasn't tracking us at all. On the rationale that there could still be another stop in town, I decided to withhold joy until we'd hit the road. We moved a little further on and stopped at the town's main bus station. A group of 8 guys got on, and placed themselves between us and the door. One of them introduced himself, and Matt asked him who he was. His one word reply was 'police'. The nightmare continued.

This was the worst leg. It took us another 7 hours to get to Cairo, from 2am to 9, and I slept poorly. I was trying to think how this was going to play out. Were we already under arrest? Were we going to be frogmarched to a grubby hole in the ground until 6 months later when word of our tragedy trickled to the outside world? Some things didn't make sense. Why so casual? If we weren't under arrest, what were they going to do, follow us around? We had the idea that they didn't want us leaving Egypt until we'd settled the bikes at the border. Or something. More horrifyingly, the boss of the border guards seemed like the kind of guy that would concoct a charge. We knew he wanted the bikes, demanding our keys before we left. We refused, no way was I going to let that joker near our wheels. We may have slighted the wrong man.

We got to Cairo and the gridlock traffic only heightened the sense of expectancy. Moving at 5kph when there could be a set of handcuffs at the end of it is an emotional experience. Suddenly we recognised where we were, near the Ramses Hilton, a block or two from my old hostel. We decided to get out, and potentially disrupt the pigs' welcome party at the main bus station. Our 'guard' was sound asleep. I chose to wake him up, just so he didn't look bad amongst his cohorts, 'letting the marks escape'. The first thing he did was say 'welcome', then he got up, stepped off the bus, and just walked away. I couldn't believe it.

It's hard to imagine the scale of the reversal of our apparent situation. Whereas previously I was furiously trying to work out how we might resolve the legal crisis, using the Auto Club, the Australian Embassy, and our shipping agent, while trailing a police escort or even while under arrest, now, it seemed, we were free. We agreed that this exceeded our predicted best-case scenario by a considerable margin.

The rest of the day was fine. It was steeped in the knowledge that our final test would come at the airport customs, if the border guard boss had flagged our passports, but we knew this was a little extreme. It may sound silly here, but we knew Egyptian police were corrupt, and we didn't know how far that corruption extended.

We got through, had a few ales at the airport bar, and wanted very badly to be on the plane. And eventually, when we were on that plane moving upwards through the sky, we sat and marvelled about how very nice it was. We also concluded that our journey was, finally, over, the rest being the formalities of international air travel. Matt settled in for his for his forth sleep in a row on a transport vessel, and I opened up the laptop to type up this last post.

I've quite enjoyed writing this blog. I'm pleased to know a couple of people have also enjoyed reading it (hi mum). Now that it's over I think I'll go write something else.

The end.

An arduous return to the border

And we had foolishly considered that the trip was over, with the merest loose ends to tie up.

The desert had something further to throw at us, on our last little outing to El Saloum to say goodbye to the bikes and pick up the remainder of our gear. For it is dust-storming. The keyboard on my once sparklingly new laptop is caked in an unprecedented amount of the stuff, the screen had so much dust when I wiped it away with my finger the surplus started cascading downwards. I can see the buildings across the street but not much more than that, the sea, only a couple hundred metres away, is just a darkening of the all enveloping cloud. We've been attempting to get a taxi to go the last 10km or so to the border post, but taxis have appeared to stop running, hopefully just taking a lunch break (a store person hinted at that possibility, in Arabic, so it's a bit of a guess), rather than because of the storm, because that doesn't look like it's going away in a hurry.

Our plan regarding the bikes has changed again. Turns out bringing them back to Australia is not only not possible, it's also illegal. So not only would we have the expense of sending them back to Oz (bad), we then wouldn't be able to get them (worse) and we'd also be looking at a bit of a stint in the big house (much worse). Not a great outcome. Discovering this is entirely thanks to Matt who had the thought to explore the other end of the transaction as well as the Egyptian. So they're heading back to the UK. And yes, if you're wondering, it's perfectly legal. Not for the first time Aussie customs has come out looking rather severe. We managed to find after a lot of trying what appears to be a great company, Beta Cargo, who have been everything we've needed, except their annoying habit of requesting us to extend our Egypt visit every time there's a hiccup (they say, 'oh no, you'll have to change your flight to stay another week', and we'll say 'but what if we do this?' and they will reply 'oh, that would be ok'. We're not staying any longer). It seems that the wheels are basically in motion, we just need to get up to the border post.

This storm is starting to lose its novelty. Judging from the reactions of the locals, it seems to be particularly bad. Exasperatingly it just seems to be getting worse.

I've spent the last few days in Cairo. Matt had a pleasing boat trip on the Nile, and managed to see the really good spots, Karnak and the valley of the kings, but although there was another day of the tour, Matt decided this was purely filler, and 'pulled the pin', jumping on a train back to Cairo. Perhaps he felt bad about leaving me to do the logistics while he was supping martinis on the sundeck of an super-lux cruise boat. I tried to reassure him that his enjoying of the marvels of antiquity was the priority, but eventually he was no doubt falling prey, as I am, to the perils of a long, intense, trip. We're kind of over it. Really looking forward to getting back, Matt's eyes already see Lisa, it's increasingly hard to get his attention. I'm enthusing about sitting in my room by myself staring at the wall and wondering how it came to this. Seriously though, nothing better than a couple of aleskies, at 'The Local' perhaps.

Ok, Part B. I'm waiting by the baggage in Egyptian customs while Matthew has kindly gone off to resolve the bike issue. It's taking a long time because I suspect the border guards hope to be getting something out of it. It's not complicated but these guys love the complicated transaction, the more people involved the better. In the tradition of few things passing smoothly on the trip, the dust storm has knocked out the mobile network, a rather key piece to our plan as our shipping agent had planned to talk to the customs officials to smooth things over. Matthew is currently off with an official to find a phone that works. We get the gear and then get out of here. On a positive note, the storm seems to be abating.

Part C.

Well, I can't say I'm feeling that great. We think we might have a problem with the police. When we left the border post, we felt lucky to be free, but while sitting waiting for the bus we started to think that the long arm of the border guards might extend down to El Saloum, and indeed, it did. While sitting on the bus a policeman came on board, and asked about us, checked our tickets, checked that we were going to Cairo. He then left, claiming everything was ok. So far not too bad, but we had a 50 minute wait before the bus left that wasn't comfortable. The bus was pulling away and then stopped, and the policeman got on again. This time he was staying on. So now he's still here. We're getting across the desert, ever closer to Cairo, but he ominously warned that he wasn't going as far as Cairo. I really hope we get there.

Historic Carthage

Moroccan truck stop

This is an example of the enthusiasm hoteliers had in parking our bikes in their foyers.



A great view of the incredible 'Leptis Magna' an ancient Roman settlement on the Mediterranean about an hour's drive East of Tripoli.



I'd thought I'd try to get a idea of the verdancy of the oases, amongst the palms there were little plots of brilliant green 'crops' that looked a lot like grass. In the markets we also saw them trading this 'grass'. I guess grass is hard to come by in the desert


Here's Matt and I at what we thought was the start of the desert. We saw a lot more of this

Deserts and sand and camels

We’re sitting in a cafe in El Saloum, a small port town just inside the Egyptian border. There have been some eventualities. As the sun sets on a day we were hoping to be 220kms away, in Mercer on the way to Cairo, we are waiting for a 9pm all-night bus to the capital. We were denied the entry of our bikes, so one our self-appointed helpers at the border has hatched a plan for us to go in person to a couple of agencies in Cairo to secure Egyptian insurance. Then we return, on another overnight bus, to retrieve the bikes and ride them back across Egypt. I guess it’s a bit of a sign of the particular mindset we’ve entered that we received this news with only the slightest disagreement. In truth we feel like we’ve already succeeded: We got the bikes to Egypt. Now are the negotiations first to get them in the country and then on cargo ships to Australia, which feels at the moment like tying up some loose ends, though I’m sure will prove to be exceedingly difficult in their own ways. We flew to another country, bought 2 motorcycles and arranged registration and insurance. With these bikes we travelled about 8500kms across 7 countries. It’s been a hell of a time. Matt conceded that he won’t be ready for another birthday for quite a while.

The last couple of days in Libya were good. The day before yesterday was the last big day of the trip, 650kms one some fairly isolated roads. We were making good speed and conditions were basically perfect. There wasn’t much to see, the major town we were passing, Surt, we were recommended to avoid by our guide. It is incidentally the home city of Gaddafi’s family. It was a long day, and at the end of it we were wrecked.
Yesterday while eating a chocolate syrup covered pan au chocolat for breakfast we were going over the route plan with our guide and driver and it came up that their idea of our route differed from ours. The standard tour I suppose moves up along the coast, whereas Matt and I had our eye on a short cut that travels 400kms straight through the desert, cutting off the eastern bulge of Libya and avoiding a bunch of towns that we were learning at this point were worth leaving out. It also took us through remote Sahara, and we wanted to see more of that. Initially it seemed that we would not be able to do this traverse because our guide said that it wasn’t allowed. It became apparent that the guides have to file a route plan with the police before travelling, and our route plan included the coast. So we resigned ourselves to this turn.

Before departure there was a lot more Arabic than usual being exchanged by our guide and driver. This made me suspicious, and secretly hopeful, and it turned out they were negotiating with home base to change our route plan. They succeeded. We were going through the desert.

The road was straight, in pretty good shape, and with minimal traffic. With conditions like that we were screaming through the desert like three super-powered rockets. Initially there was about 50kms of sparse scrubby landscape, but suddenly that changed into flat, featureless stony desert. Incredibly every now and then you’d see a herd of camels. There was nothing apparent to eat, but they were just standing around like it was the most natural thing in the world. I have new-found respect for the beasts. We stopped for tea at what has been dubbed the most isolated shack in existence about 120kms in. It was quite a homely place, the hostess seemed delighted to see us, was quite enthusiastic in testing out her limited English, and made us some very sweet tea. We were soaking in the isolation as the wind starting picking up. Back in the saddle, we were making good time. To add to the excitement, the sand dunes that were often lining the road occasionally stretched all the way across. As we have learnt from hard experience our bikes do not deal at all well with sand, the front tire just sort of slipping around in a very alarming and crashable way. So the dunes were concerning. Where the cars travelled there were gaps in the sand car-tire-widths wide so we aimed for those, and were mostly successful. Once though I missed, and shot over a little dune at some fast speed. It seemed ok.

For lunch we stopped at the halfway house, a cafe and refuelling point that was positioned exactly halfway along the road. It felt like the back of beyond, everything was in port-a-camps, including the petrol bowsers. We had a suspicious curry beef sandwich and the worse non-alcoholic beer I’ve ever tasted. Outside the wind was picking up. Our guide asked us if the bikes are ok in wind and we said sure, it just makes handling a little difficult. Looking outside at the world disappearing in a dust haze, with the door to the cafe getting continually pushed open by the gusting dust swirls, I hesitated in saying that the bikes should be able to handle the wind. I guess it depended on how strong it got.

The next stretch was something else. The wind was getting very strong, and I would say we were basically in a sandstorm. For about 100kms the visibility varied from 100m to around 40. Occasionally we could see very little except the guide’s car in front, the sides of the road disappearing into a blanket sandy haze. Huge arcs of sand coursed across the road, and through all this we travelled far too quickly. The sand got into the visor and into my eyes and nose. Nothing you could do about it of course, I can’t imagine what it would be like opening your visor to rub your eyes at 130kph in a sandstorm but I wouldn’t see it ending well. It was, well, great.

Eventually we got to the cleansing sea breezes of the Mediterranean, and the dust receded. It took me about 20km to realize that the dust haze I was seeing was actually just on my visor rather than the world around me, so, rubbing that off I saw the crystal blue skies above the plains heading in to Tobruk. We had made it across the desert and almost all the way across Libya. We followed this with a quiet night in watching satellite TV and eating extremely fresh bread we picked up, along with a bunch of other Libyans, from a late-night bakery straight out of the oven. I slept well.

Why don't you learn Arabic?

Misratah is not much of a town. It’s our second stop in Libya, one day’s ride on from Tripoli last, and, without wanting to sound too harsh, it’s got the ambiance of an extensive truck stop. We’re off the tourist trail. I’m not looking to debate the pros and cons of the various world religions, but I’d have to say a town suffers from the complete absence of women from the public arena. Women have a calming influence, and they’re also nice to look at. Everywhere here is just dudes, the cafes are filled with guys, the restaurants are just a bunch of bromancing couples. I have to admit that the hostility levels are responsibly low. When I compare it to late night nightclubs where all the females have evacuated, my only source of comparison, the air is remarkably clear of testosterone.

Driving here is fundamentally absurd. It’s like a race, and everyone else on the road is a competitor. When we first entered Libya, Mahmoud, our guide, said that driving here is not like in Australia. I kind of suspected that would be true, so I didn’t really consider what he meant, but driving here is done according to a different rule-set. Ostensibly they have the same road rules as any country, but almost none of these are followed. Instead, a new rule-set has emerged, similarly to the spontaneous emergence of a new creole language. I’ll give you a few examples. There are no real lanes. Vehicles will position themselves almost anywhere on the road. This facilitates the opportunistic overtaking that goes on continuously, when vehicles of any size will try to move around you any way possible, on the right or the left. Tailgating is given a greater sense of urgency when some vehicles not only tailgate but continue forward until you are effectively shunted out of the way. On single lane roads (one lane in each direction) cars will overtake at any point, forcing oncoming cars onto the shoulder. Cars will also drive into oncoming traffic when then want to cross to the other side of the road. We’ve had to slow down considerably a few times to prevent a head-on with people coming from the other direction wanting to pull into a plant nursery or hardware store on our side of the road. To clarify, they are driving towards us on our side of multi-lane highway for some distance. There is a way to deal with this. To announce that you’re not going to stop no matter what, you flash your highbeams. I’ve seen a few cars when approaching an intersection flashing their lights emphatically. They mean it, they’re going so fast there’s no way they could stop. To enter traffic from the shoulder you just speed up and slowly merge into the traffic flow. You can’t wait for gap in the traffic on the outside lane because there are no identifiable lanes.

In addition to this are the potholes, some of accident-inducing size, and the detritus occasionally strewn on the road. There was one almost Hollywood moment when Matt was riding in front of me and rode over a flattened cardboard box at speed. We were probably travelling around 130 kph, and him driving over the box picked it up and flung it into the air. From behind him I could see the box boomeranging about 3-4 metres up, and then come slicing back towards me. Very “Twister” or “Final Destination”. I turned my head in some futile attempt to avoid it, and it crashed into my knee. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.
Driving is basically a full time occupation. You can’t really sight-see, or drift off thinking about other things. You are focused on navigating the road. Enough about driving,

It feels like this trip has gone through the looking glass, so to speak. It just keeps getting harder, and we’ve gone from delirious to strange. I guess with every trip you change. Matt and I have often mused upon this, the ‘reverse model’ holiday, something so taxing that a return to normal life is a sweet and calming relief. It’s something Dad has implicitly espoused all our lives, and now we could well be permanently cast in that mould. I contemplate the tasks for our days here, and focus not on the seemingly out-of-place ‘enjoying ourselves’, but on preserving concentration, breaking down the distances and times. For Libya we’ve been required to have a guide to take us through the country, and now our trip’s a little like a standard tour: he takes us to restaurants, checks us in to hotels, and takes us to tourist venues. The last point is the most strange. Wandering around the ruins of a Roman settlement doesn’t feel like it would be on the itinerary of a relentlessly gruelling trial. Makes me think that perhaps the gruelling nature of the trip is more a matter of perspective.

It was Mohammad’s birthday yesterday, the night we were in Tripoli. They celebrated that with many amateur fireworks that made the town into a mini war-zone. We also saw a few kids playing a bit of what we used to call urban warfare, chasing through the city streets with water bombs, and the occasionally mass shootout in some side street.

A man asked us why we didn't know Arabic. After all, apparently 25 countries spoke Arabic, and only 3 countries he could think of spoke English: England, South Africa, and Australia. I felt a bit of pride thinking Australia made the top three of English speaking countries, but Matt felt obliged to remind him of the US, which he conceded was also an anglophone. I had never considered it from a numbers angle.

That’s all for today,