The speedometer has been removed surgically … 

The panniers where I keep all my luggage are two: in the one on the right I keep the rain mantles, the woolen hat, very useful in Ethiopia, different chargers, beauty case, medicines, in the one on the left I have the clothes and the computer and some tubes at the bottom. The stuff does not directly in the pannier which can be seen on the outside on the photos, but in another one, like a sack, removable and waterproof, to slip in like a matrioska into the outside one. The inside bags I have emptied them rarely, if I do remember correctly the last time was in Karthoum. This morning before starting off I was looking for a apple which I usually keep in the right pannier, on top of a pair of spare cycling shorts which sit on top if the beauty case … when I look in the right panniers … I find the clothes! … the clothes? … last night there was a black out and I was very tired and I did not notice that the inside sacks had been swopped over … so the police or the hotel manager as I was eating … looked inside the bags … sons of a bitch … can a revolution end with a military man in power? Continua a leggere→

Shit day! 

Or rather shit end of the day …

Everything had started well, sumptuous breakfast with two sandwiches take away with some kind of ham and cheese, the temperature is more acceptable than usual, and the landscape becomes increasingly greener as the kilometers pass by. Here the Nile is used well for agriculture, other than the usual big canal parallel to the Nile, there are some small canals too from where, with the help of diesel pumps, the water is directed to the middle of the cultivated fields. The maize is very green like in Zambia it is seen rarely. At the sides of the road tall palms full of dates gift a bit of shade even when the sun is high. Continua a leggere→

At the end only twelve kilometers more than expected …

I left at 6,30 and I pedaled for nine hours, at the beginning, until midday, the temperature was acceptable, then when the shade moves from the left side to vertical, and you can only see the projection of the handlebar and the frame under you, the heat becomes suffocating, luckily there is no wind and compared to Sudan there are many more shops and bars to supply fresh water. Here too there are the water pots smaller then the Sudanese ones and also some kind of fountains which filter the water. Continua a leggere→

Should I go or not?

Luxor is 225 kilometers from the port, with this heat it would be difficult to reach there in one stage, in the fifteen kilometers from the port to Aswan there is no adverse wind and I pedal quite well, before starting off, I have to withdraw, buy an Egyptian sim card, eat and drink something … once in the centre I manage to do these things fast … I eat two ice-creams … it was not a great idea … I drink a lot … and after Giorgia and two taxi drivers confirm to me that there should be hovel in Kom Ombu I through myself … when I pass in front of the beautiful hotel on the Nile Giorgia has booked for me a have a short vacillation … but the decision is now taken … Continua a leggere→

‘Why are you wearing underwear?’

There is no water …

Despite the dam is a couple of kilometres way full of water this morning there is no water …

I do not have my passport yet, but Magdi seems trustworthy, I called him last night he said he had come but did not find me … I was at the internet point or the bakery … then as I watch the highlights of Korea – Japan on the television at the bar, Magdi arrives with the ticket and the various stamps and the water too arrives, literally, because the water in brought by a tanker and pumped in the tank on the roof, we give each other an appointment at the port at 10 … Continua a leggere→