Dirt and Trail MARCH 22

Pic 1
Pic 3
Pic 2
Pic 7 Pic 10
South Africa
to Slovenia part 7 Egypt
By Cronjé Bruwer
Egypt is surely an interesting country, our first observation was how
freely benzene, (petrol), was available after struggling finding it in
Ethiopia and Sudan.
When the Aswan Dam was built, the roads between Sudan and Egypt
were all flooded. Ferries are therefore provided to transport vehicles
from Wadi Halfa in Sudan to Abu Simbel in Egypt. The border crossing
between these two countries is troublesome as our motorcycles need
to be registered in Egypt and deregistered upon leaving the country.
See photos 1 and 2 showing our Egyptian number plates, This is an
extremely costly exercise, to the tune of about 60% of the value of
your vehicle or motorcycle, so you do need to budget for that, you do
however get a full refund when you take your bike out of the country
again, this just protects the local importers and distributors from grey
imports and the like.
The Aswan Dam, or more specifically since the 1960s, the Aswan High
Dam, is the world’s largest embankment dam, which was built across
the Nile in Aswan, Egypt, between 1960 and 1970. Its significance
largely eclipsed the previous Aswan Low Dam initially completed in
1902 downstream, (from Wikipedia), Photo 3 show how spectacular the
dam is.
On our arrival in Abu Simbel, Abu Simbel are two massive rock-cut
temples in the village of Abu Simbel, Aswan Governorate, Upper Egypt,
near the border with Sudan. They are situated on the western bank of
Lake Nasser, about 230 km southwest of Aswan. (from Wikipedia) .
The temple complex build by Raamses II would have been covered with
water as the Aswan Dam filled. The international community donated
money to cut the whole structure into blocks and transported to higher
ground at Abu-Simbel, see photo 7. Today this is an UNESCO heritage
site.
The town of Aswan is located at the Aswan dam wall. We experienced a
pleasant evening as we were sailed to an island in the Nile River where
we experienced a lovely meal, Jacques’s credit card was trapped in an
ATM as the power went down, the next morning we, (Colin and Cronjé),
took a slow ride towards Luxor as we waited for Jacques to retrieve
his card and to catch up with us. As we left Aswan we were stopped at
a roadblock and asked where the third rider was, we had to wait until
Jacques joined us. This showed us how we were watched in Egypt , so
behave yourself when you are visiting Egypt.
The town of Luxor was one of the highlights of our tour. The Valley of
the Kings was truly exceptional, we spent most of the morning sightseeing
around the area, photo 10 shows a typical entrance to one of
the tombs. Photo 12 shows the spectacular interior of the tombs. The
Valley of the Queens was not as spectacular as the Valley of the Kings
but definitely worth a visit. The temple of Hatshepsut, the Pharaoh
Queen, was spectacular, the temperature during our visit to this temple
was extremely high, see photos 13.
Pictures say a thousand words, and really, I would need more than a
thousand words to try and describe the splendor, history and the sense
of wonder that this place instills in you, so I am going to let the pictures
tell the story. Photo 15 shows Jacques in an deep conversation with a
statute, while Colin posing at the Colossi of Memnon as if it belongs
to him, all of us has been away from home too long at this stage of
the tour and losing our minds a little bit in the heat. Luxor temple is
magnificently lit during the night, see photos 17. The temple of Karnak
was inscribed in 1979 on the UNESCO World Heritage List and is a must
see place in Egypt.
From Luxor towards Cairo we took the route via the desert towards the
Red Sea as the road next to the Nile river is town upon town making
our progress very slow. We stayed in Hurghada next to the Red Sea
for a couple of days as we awaited a boat to transfer our motorcycles
from Alexandria to Pirius in Greece. Photo 22 shows a small bit of the