1st December

The Cape Town to Cairo leg of our trip is over - only a few more thousand kilometres to take us along the Mediterranean to France.

Back in Addis Ababa, with our 2 week transit visas surely stamped in our passports, we said goodbye to Ethiopia and headed for the golden sands of Sudan. Not knowing exactly what to expect from a place that is usually in the ‘doom and gloom’ section of the newspapers we were so impressed by this country. Of course, there was no way we were allowed to go anywhere near the conflict areas, but where we did go, travelling was easy and enjoyable and the Sudanese were extremely welcoming.

Khartoum was positively buzzing with cash, there were new bridges, fancy new traffic lights (that nobody knew how to use yet so there were still policemen directing the traffic), sparkling shops and flash new 4wds just off the boat. Big Mama floated down brand new asphalt roads in a dream after the terrible Ethiopian gravel roads! We travelled leisurely up the Nile, being the only tourists crawling around and discovering temples of the ancient Kingdom of Kush and drinking tea with white robed locals before reaching the land of the Nubians and discovering their incredible hospitality to travellers. Luckily for us we quite like tea because some days we were invited maybe 5 times to share tea with a Nubian family in their colourful mud houses under the date palms.

Our international team of new overlanding friends from France, UK, US and NZ met up in Wadi Halfa before taking the boat to Egypt. Although there is an absolutely manageable road to Egypt from Sudan, in perfect Egyptian logic you’re not allowed to cross the border by car; you have to take a ferry on Lake Nasser and your car goes separately on some kind of dodgy barge. So, instead of a ½ hour drive by car, the border crossing becomes a 8 day affair, costing in total, transport and administration included, around $1000. You also end up about 300 kms North of where you want to be so you have to turn around and head back… lucky that petrol is dirt cheap. All of our frustration with Egyptian administration disappeared though when we came face to face with the giant statues of Ramses III outside the enormous temple in Abu Simbel dedicated to his memory and when we entered into the quiet chambers of the interior with the magnificent hieroglyphics. In Luxor and Karnak again the complexity and size of these temples were breath taking. The number of tourists, touts and tacky souvenirs also took our breath away though, so after a few days of ‘My friend, Where you from?’ we were keen to get out to the isolation of the Western desert. This desert, the Eastern edge of the Sahara, was spectacular; peach and apricot coloured crescents of sand stretching as far as the eye could see, just calling to us to explore them. In the white desert the rock formations took on eerie features at night in the light of the full moon. We bathed in the hot spring waters of an oasis, sunbathed at the beach with no water, collected fossilised urchin spikes and gave Big Mama a good workout on the dunes.

Now staying in bustling Cairo, the ingenious touts have tried every trick in the book on us – from the old “5 pounds” trick that when you go to pay they say they meant 5 British pounds, to the “I work for this hotel, can I help you” trick, to straight out shouting at us, we feel like we’ve seen it all and we’re learning to take it all with humour…

Our visit coincides with the visit of another kiwi who happens to be here to open the New Zealand Embassy and who was throwing a party with NZ performers and free food and booze! We spent the afternoon frantically shopping for presentable clothes and Pippa had to darn at least 7 holes in Flo’s pants before he could be presentable to the honourable Ms Clark. With all the Withers Hills flowing and the singing we had a fantastic night – totally removed from our usual nights around the campfire cooking up pasta and talking admin with other overlanders. And, especially, with kiwi hospitality being what it is, we met a lovely couple of teachers who said there was no way we were going back to sleep in our car and invited us to stay with them. We’ve now spent the last 3 nights sleeping in their apartment in a leafy suburb of Cairo and getting to know the city through expat’s eyes.

Tomorrow, the Embassy should be back on track after the excitement of the Prime Minister’s visit and we’ll get the Arabic translation of the passport that we need to get across to Libya so we’ll be able to hit the road again for Alexandria and the Mediterranean.

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