Cycling from Hurghada to Marsa Alam

(originally posted on my German blog in November 2013)

I’ve already described the journey from Hurghada to El Quesir twice (here and here). In October 2013, we finally did a two-days-trip to Marsa Alam.

*****

I’m awake even before the alarm clock rings – I didn’t sleep well, as usual, when I have to get up early. A glimmer of dawn is peeping through the curtains; I jump out of bed, quickly grasp my camera and tear open the door of the bungalow. A few steps only take me to the beach, just in time to watch a blazing fireball rise from the sea, dyeing the sky from a pale twilight into a bright red. Overwhelmed do I stand and watch this natural spectacle, listening to the quiet wash of the waves. Can I ever get enough of this?

Yet, I have to hurry, my cycling mate wants to climb the bike at six; so I go back to wash myself and brush my teeth. However, the tap stays dry – do they think here that we don’t need any water at night? – and I help myself with the remaining mineral water.

Moments later I’m standing in full cycling attire in front of the breakfast buffet or rather where it is supposed to be; because there isn’t any.

*****

We finally leave at half past six; the fire ball has metamorphosed into the well-known sun. Temperatures are still pleasant, it’s still cool and we mutely are rolling on for an hour. I need some time to get awake, my legs are tired.

Suddenly, I’m getting aware of anything moving on my right hand side and I give a jerk: a dog is striding silently beside us. Normally, dogs bark and try to catch us – but this one here, it’s a she by the way, seems to have great fun accompanying us! She doesn’t let go, runs on the asphalt or changes the side of the street looking for a better terrain just to keep up with us. I watch her fascinatedly: her forelegs lunge out and her body stretches athletically… 

After a couple of kilometres we stop; I want to give her a biscuit and she gladly takes the refreshment. Yet, we have to go on, it’s getting warmer and we’ve only cycled a small part of the 135 km. We vigorously continue pedalling and the dog joins us, however, she increasingly falls back. She can’t keep up with us any more although she doesn’t give up for a long time. Again and again, I turn my head to see if she’s still there… eventually, I can’t make her out anymore. I’ll possibly never forget this encounter for the rest of my life.

*****

I’m pedalling and pedalling. My legs move up and down, my hands are trying to find another position on the handlebar. The long asphalt line stretches in the sun, bends to the right and to the left, ascends naughtily in order to cling to incredibly steep hills, only to drop down boldly on the other side of the hill. I don’t notice the desert anymore and there’s hardly any traffic. All I can see is this long sordid asphalt line, the countless hills in front of me and the sparkling sea far to my left. 

From El Quesir on, there are street signs indicating the kilometres: Marsa Alam 85km, Shalateen 335 km. Marsa Alam 80km, Shalateen 330 km… I feel as if the distance decreases at slow motion only, whilst I’m pedalling with all my strength. Only much later, actually just before Marsa Alam, we find out that the distances given are inaccurate. The distance between El Quesir and Marsa Alam is 137 km; from Hurghada to Marsa Alam it is in total 270 km.

*****

Does the street really have to climb and fall steadily? Since we’re at the sea! I feel terribly hot and am longing for some cold water. Stupidly, we didn’t cool down our stock of mineral water during the night and I have to count the costs… Cooling form inside is what I wish right now. On the way uphill short before Port Ghalib, I can see a petrol station. “Cold water” crosses my mind. Yet neither in the petrol station shop nor in the coffee shop beside can I get hold of the sought after liquid – although there are piles of boxes full of mineral water outside the coffee shop. The display refrigerators are locked and inside of the coffee shop I can’t find anybody. Well then, yes, it’s Eid El Kibir, the most important Muslim holiday and the guy might be having a nap somewhere… I’m disappointed and climb my bike again.

*****

We pass by the turning to Port Ghalib and I console myself with the idea that tonight, I’ll be sitting there with a cold beer. For now, we roll down to the next plane and climb up the next hill.

I’m so tired that I actually should be falling off my bicycle. Yet the music in my head phones encourages me and as soon as I am on top of a hill and see the next valley ahead of me, I joyfully and boldly precipitate… just to climb up again a few minutes later. At every ascent, I fall back further behind my cycling mate – a clear sign that I’m at the end of my rope.

*****

Suddenly, Marsa Alam is ahead of us. No “Welcome to Marsa Alam” sign, completely unspectacular, almost disappointed we arrive at our goal. We stow away our bikes in the escort car in a side street and I gulp down ice cold coke and water to cool down my working temperature.

*****

We drive back to Port Ghalib where I stay two days while my cycling mate returns to Hurghada.

I frankly admit that the day after, I was so extremely tired, that I didn’t want to move at all but rather sit somewhere or even better: just lounge around. And eat. For two days running, I had two breakfasts and two lunches!

On my way back to Hurghada I honestly wondered how I could have cycled those 270km within two days – it’s still a miracle to me! But I made it and I’m proud of it.

(German)

Overestimated intelligence

(published on my German blog on March 27, 2014)

So he does: El Sisi is running for the presidential elections. Many Egyptians argue that he is very clever and intelligent. Each time, I used to answer that if he was really that clever and intelligent, he would not run for the presidential elections. He may have been a good defence minister. However, this does NOT guarantee that he will also be a good president.

But he does. What a pity. I would have thought him to be cleverer. Sooner or later he will fail. The problems to be resolved are enormous. In addition, he raises too many hopes and once these hopes are deceived, the people will revolt once more.

Finally, if he IS that clever, how come that he is willing to participate in another round of fake elections?

Oh dear, what more Egypt has to face.

Beat

"Beat" is the short break in the cinema when the second part of the film is being prepared and you've got a chance to buy a drink.

However, I neither mean the first nor the second; please bear with me if I don't post anything these weeks. I'm once again in my homecountry for a couple of weeks and helping out my former employer.

I've got a lot on my mind, including lots of subjcts about Egypt. Yet, we need to be patient, especially myself. Same as waiting for spring to come:

Sexual Harassment

(posted on my German blog on 19 February 2014)

Several times, I wanted to write about this issue. Why I didn’t? Since in Egypt, it’s an omnipresent issue that the media addresses continuously. So why do I finally write about it? Well, because I’ve been affected myself. Many foreign ladies, who live here in Egypt, read my blog and I beg you: don’t be silent anymore when you’ve been harassed! React, contact harassmap or other organisations! In addition, I call on the men to discourage harassers, to rebuke and to lecture them! Set a good example!

Definition of sexual harassment

Change or candies

Why bothering for change when sweets do the same job?

Luxuries in the desert

Luxury is something different for all of us; here in Egypt it might signify that a family gets hold of enough food every day. For others, to allow themselves to eat meat once per week, to send their children to a good school or to wear a new jacket on feast days.

Luxury might connote going on a two-weeks-holiday to Rimini once a year, to own a car or to call a yacht one’s own.

Those managers, housewives and other highly committed citizens, who rush from date to date, quickly do their shopping after work, hurry to the gym in order to be at home just in time for the late  news, set their alarm clock for 6am so that they can continue to hurry next morning… All those might declare “having time” as their luxury.

For me, it means to do something at that moment when I feel like doing it. This has really become a luxury good in our consumption stricken affluent society. It’s kind of a liberty that we hardly grant ourselves.

Yet, there is something even rarer to find in the era of technology:

Utter silence

Where can it still be found? Far away from civilization, i.e. on top of a mountain peak. In the sea. In the desert.

I’ve missed this absolute silence since I lost the mountains in the Alps. Here in the desert, I’ve found it again for a moment. To halt… amidst this infinite vastness… to stay motionlessly… to breathe deeply and listen. To listen and take in the absolute quiet: it was a wonderful experience.

I was surprised about the vastness: I underestimated the distance between the Sea and the first rocks of the Red Sea Mountains. In fact, the sand plain extends up to 40 km into the West, before reaching the black, light grey and pink rocks – far enough from the noise of the civilisation.

The one who thinks he will be ready for the uncertainties of the mountains or the desert, just because he can afford the up-to-the-minute brands and technical achievements, might be deceived. Just remember the numerous avalanche victims of this winter. Owning a Barryvox doesn’t protect you from an avalanche or the avalanche death! Just as little as one doesn’t climb a mountain off-handedly, one doesn’t enter the desert off-handedly. Some experience, reason and prudence are necessary in order to be able to face unwelcomed surprises or life-threatening conditions. It is recommendable to engage a specialist, a mountain guide in the mountains and a desert fox :) in the desert.

My long cycling trips on scarcely used highways bestow me somehow with this silence. Yet I felt happier on a mountain bike on the sand tracks (although it does need some stamina)! Hence, just because I was further away from civilization and because there was no sound at all. Just silence.

My luxury.

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25 January – 3rd anniversary

29 dead so far across Egypt. Nice celebration. People think they are celebrating the 3rd anniversary of the revolution. However in reality, they celebrate something rather different, as I noticed in Hurghada today: they hail their hero El Sisy. The men on the photo told me joyfully “We don’t want the Muslim Brothers, we want El Sisy.”

All those people that I saw in the streets this afternoon, seemed so happy and glad. Whereas I felt like crying.

It makes me sad to see how short and small the memories of the people are; they forget what 25 January was about, they forgot the police brutality, they forgot the thousands who died for a real change in Egypt and they close their eyes before the ongoing crackdown on all that are not WITH the regime. We speak about a period of three years only!

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