Day 91
Sleeping location: Virgin Mary Monastery, Beni Suef, Egypt
Distance (km today/total): 103 / 7025
Estimated climb (m today/total): 100 / 57600
Glorious police-free days: 5
Day in three words: Crops and cops
Our sleep, and Rebecca’s in particular, wasn’t great due to stressing about the nearby kids, so we had a bit of a lie in. A new method of making overnight oats, involving coconut milk and a very ripe semi-exploded mango, was an unqualified success and will be employed again. Along with some coffee this restored us to a cycling mindset by about 8.30am, and we set off back along the rural roads of the day before. We were always following an irrigation channel of some kind, and there were endless fields of crops and palm trees. It felt a bit like SE Asia. After weeks of desert it’s nice to see some fertile land again, although this area (and probably a lot of the land we’ll cover in the next week) is intensively farmed and there is very little unused space. The road was lovely and quiet and had a good surface, apart from in villages where it became outrageously bumpy and we had to pick our way through the bumps, people, donkeys, carts, tuk tuks, cars, mopeds and the odd camel. The upside was that we got loads of waves and hellos.
We had lunch in an unassuming cafe type thing, where two tasty meals and two waters cost a measly £2.50 and the staff were dead friendly. When we left they asked for numerous photos with us, all in front of the cafe’s sign - I think we were providing some kind of celebrity endorsement. I am happy to give my official approval to [unknown restaurant name] as the chicken was grilled to perfection and the pickles were unlimited. Generally, wherever we stopped we had people asking for pictures with us; one woman seemed so taken aback by our presence that she kept saying “Ingilis* ay ay” to herself.
After about 50km our small road ran out and we had to rejoin a bigger one, and finally and inevitably we were picked up by the police again. We had to wait for ages for the escort to be summoned, but at least we got some free tea. The guy in the checkpoint with the best English was very nice and clearly felt our pain at having to go through this again. He had previously been in the Tourist Police, but had up/downgraded to the Actual Police and now got to carry a machine gun around. The afternoon’s police weren’t too invasive and when we reached Beni Suef, a bustling town back on the main Nile, they understood our needs and looked into finding us somewhere to stay nearby. They took us to a monastery on the other side of the river, where we were expecting to be shown a patch of grass but instead got given a pretty decent room for free. It was probably better than some hotels we’ve stayed in, although we did have 101 Dalmatians pillow cases and “Spongebaby Squarepants” sheets. The monastery itself was pretty nice, with good views back across the Nile to Beni Suef. I bought some pickled onions with a picture of the Virgin Mary on the jar; they tasted weird but I still ate half the jar.
*Rough spelling of the Arabic for English
Distance (km today/total): 103 / 7025
Estimated climb (m today/total): 100 / 57600
Glorious police-free days: 5
Day in three words: Crops and cops
Our sleep, and Rebecca’s in particular, wasn’t great due to stressing about the nearby kids, so we had a bit of a lie in. A new method of making overnight oats, involving coconut milk and a very ripe semi-exploded mango, was an unqualified success and will be employed again. Along with some coffee this restored us to a cycling mindset by about 8.30am, and we set off back along the rural roads of the day before. We were always following an irrigation channel of some kind, and there were endless fields of crops and palm trees. It felt a bit like SE Asia. After weeks of desert it’s nice to see some fertile land again, although this area (and probably a lot of the land we’ll cover in the next week) is intensively farmed and there is very little unused space. The road was lovely and quiet and had a good surface, apart from in villages where it became outrageously bumpy and we had to pick our way through the bumps, people, donkeys, carts, tuk tuks, cars, mopeds and the odd camel. The upside was that we got loads of waves and hellos.
We had lunch in an unassuming cafe type thing, where two tasty meals and two waters cost a measly £2.50 and the staff were dead friendly. When we left they asked for numerous photos with us, all in front of the cafe’s sign - I think we were providing some kind of celebrity endorsement. I am happy to give my official approval to [unknown restaurant name] as the chicken was grilled to perfection and the pickles were unlimited. Generally, wherever we stopped we had people asking for pictures with us; one woman seemed so taken aback by our presence that she kept saying “Ingilis* ay ay” to herself.
After about 50km our small road ran out and we had to rejoin a bigger one, and finally and inevitably we were picked up by the police again. We had to wait for ages for the escort to be summoned, but at least we got some free tea. The guy in the checkpoint with the best English was very nice and clearly felt our pain at having to go through this again. He had previously been in the Tourist Police, but had up/downgraded to the Actual Police and now got to carry a machine gun around. The afternoon’s police weren’t too invasive and when we reached Beni Suef, a bustling town back on the main Nile, they understood our needs and looked into finding us somewhere to stay nearby. They took us to a monastery on the other side of the river, where we were expecting to be shown a patch of grass but instead got given a pretty decent room for free. It was probably better than some hotels we’ve stayed in, although we did have 101 Dalmatians pillow cases and “Spongebaby Squarepants” sheets. The monastery itself was pretty nice, with good views back across the Nile to Beni Suef. I bought some pickled onions with a picture of the Virgin Mary on the jar; they tasted weird but I still ate half the jar.
*Rough spelling of the Arabic for English
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