Day 100
Sleeping location: Massa Hotel, Edfu, Egypt
Distance (km today/total): 116 / 7783
Estimated climb (m today/total): 100 / 58400
Local aggro: high
Day in three words: Fugitives at large
The milestone of day 100 was sadly tempered by a fairly rubbish day, although it did have some good parts. We awoke early but feeling weak from alcohol and colds, so it took a while to pack up and get moving. Initially we followed a nice quiet route along small roads, which was shady and peaceful apart from kids shouting hello in villages. This route also allowed us to evade three checkpoints, which we could see but weren’t picked up at. Even when we got back onto the main road it was nice and quiet, with a big water channel on the left and big bright flower bushes on the right. We avoided another checkpoint by replying to their shouts with cheerful hellos and carrying on cycling, then took the old bridge across the Nile into Esna. Unfortunately the old bridge was not for vehicles and ended with a very steep set of stairs. Here a swarm of people descended on us to “help”, which made the job way more difficult. Of course they just wanted some money for this “help”.
From Esna onwards there were a lot more people and a lot more hassle. This stretch of the Nile is the touristy part, but most of the other tourists are on private boats, shepherded to temples and select bazaars in private carriages. As a result foreigners are seen as these aloof cash machines, not as actual people. If you responded to a hello from a local the next shout would be “money!”. Each time broke my heart a little more, and soon I was ignoring everything apart from really small children (who really were just excited to see us). There were also loads of pervy shouts from young guys towards Rebecca, and some kids stole a bottle from her panniers and tried to ransom it, and a kid threw a pretty big rock at me but his aim was terrible.
It got dark before we reached Edfu, but we didn’t want to wild camp because of all the bad vibes from the locals, so we cycled through the darkness to get to a hotel. The guy on reception initially quoted a ludicrous 1000 LE (£50) and was argued down to 400 by me saying “I will only pay 400” repeatedly*. The room was average to moderate, but did have a picture of a flower with the inspirational message “sample text” behind it.
The hotel insisted we could only store the bikes in the rooftop cafe, so we went up and saw they were showing Liverpool v Man City, which led to us ordering some alcohol free “beers” and settling down. We also got some deeply average food there as we couldn’t bear the thought of wandering around town and being shouted at. When we went to pay the bill was suspiciously high, so we checked it against the menu and realised the guy had put through items with a higher price, thinking that we wouldn’t be able to read the Arabic**. We confronted him with the menu, so he changed tack and reprinted the bill, now claiming that the rice and potatoes that came with the chicken were additional items costing 30 each, when the chicken was 40. By this point his bullshit had backed him into a corner and the other customers were getting curious, so he gave in and charged us the actual price. His face was absolute thunder as he handed our change over, and it gave me intense pleasure to make the crybaby gesture to him***. After this there was no question of leaving the bikes up there, so we snuck them into our room.
*If anything 400 was still way too much. Thing is, I bet there are idiots who will unthinkingly pay the 1000, which just perpetuates this shit.
**Again...there must be people who fall for this
***The one where you scrunch up your face, waggle your fists near your eyes and go “wah wah”
Distance (km today/total): 116 / 7783
Estimated climb (m today/total): 100 / 58400
Local aggro: high
Day in three words: Fugitives at large
The milestone of day 100 was sadly tempered by a fairly rubbish day, although it did have some good parts. We awoke early but feeling weak from alcohol and colds, so it took a while to pack up and get moving. Initially we followed a nice quiet route along small roads, which was shady and peaceful apart from kids shouting hello in villages. This route also allowed us to evade three checkpoints, which we could see but weren’t picked up at. Even when we got back onto the main road it was nice and quiet, with a big water channel on the left and big bright flower bushes on the right. We avoided another checkpoint by replying to their shouts with cheerful hellos and carrying on cycling, then took the old bridge across the Nile into Esna. Unfortunately the old bridge was not for vehicles and ended with a very steep set of stairs. Here a swarm of people descended on us to “help”, which made the job way more difficult. Of course they just wanted some money for this “help”.
From Esna onwards there were a lot more people and a lot more hassle. This stretch of the Nile is the touristy part, but most of the other tourists are on private boats, shepherded to temples and select bazaars in private carriages. As a result foreigners are seen as these aloof cash machines, not as actual people. If you responded to a hello from a local the next shout would be “money!”. Each time broke my heart a little more, and soon I was ignoring everything apart from really small children (who really were just excited to see us). There were also loads of pervy shouts from young guys towards Rebecca, and some kids stole a bottle from her panniers and tried to ransom it, and a kid threw a pretty big rock at me but his aim was terrible.
It got dark before we reached Edfu, but we didn’t want to wild camp because of all the bad vibes from the locals, so we cycled through the darkness to get to a hotel. The guy on reception initially quoted a ludicrous 1000 LE (£50) and was argued down to 400 by me saying “I will only pay 400” repeatedly*. The room was average to moderate, but did have a picture of a flower with the inspirational message “sample text” behind it.
The hotel insisted we could only store the bikes in the rooftop cafe, so we went up and saw they were showing Liverpool v Man City, which led to us ordering some alcohol free “beers” and settling down. We also got some deeply average food there as we couldn’t bear the thought of wandering around town and being shouted at. When we went to pay the bill was suspiciously high, so we checked it against the menu and realised the guy had put through items with a higher price, thinking that we wouldn’t be able to read the Arabic**. We confronted him with the menu, so he changed tack and reprinted the bill, now claiming that the rice and potatoes that came with the chicken were additional items costing 30 each, when the chicken was 40. By this point his bullshit had backed him into a corner and the other customers were getting curious, so he gave in and charged us the actual price. His face was absolute thunder as he handed our change over, and it gave me intense pleasure to make the crybaby gesture to him***. After this there was no question of leaving the bikes up there, so we snuck them into our room.
*If anything 400 was still way too much. Thing is, I bet there are idiots who will unthinkingly pay the 1000, which just perpetuates this shit.
**Again...there must be people who fall for this
***The one where you scrunch up your face, waggle your fists near your eyes and go “wah wah”
Comments
Post a Comment