Day 93
Sleeping location: Monastery of Saint Theodore, Manfalut, Egypt
Distance (km today/total): 130 / 7266
Estimated climb (m today/total): 100 / 57800
Lies told in the presence of Jesus: 2
Day in three words: The Nile Routine
As we left the nice accommodation we were unexpectedly asked to pay, but it was only a fiver so we went along with it. Thereafter the day conformed to a schedule that’s becoming routine as we journey down the Nile: coffee after 30km, lunch after another 40-50km, get to the last town we can reach before sunset and ask the police if there is anywhere they will allow us to sleep for free, be taken to a religious institution, dinner, bed. All of this along water channels past fields, dead flat, the Nile mostly hidden off to the left with a big desert escarpment behind it, no wind, dusty busy towns every 20km or so, a mixture of mosques and Coptic churches, and lots of people waving and saying hello. One of the towns (Dayrut) we went through today was a bit different as it lay at the crossroads of a few water channels, two roads and a railway line, which gave it this fun chaotic feeling and some good views to boot. The centre of town was a sea of tuk tuks ferrying people from one transport format to another. I really enjoyed cycling through it.
Our captain for much of the day was a lovely guy called Luis who made up for his limited English by being very smiley. He was also blessedly hands off, although he did keep telling us that Jesus loves us, which makes our later duplicity all the worse. During his tenure we stopped for lunch in the best spot for ages, on a quieter road with shade and somewhere to sit, next to a smaller water channel where I was even able to have a quick dip (which was lovely). His team gave us some fresh dates, which are a bit weird and powdery but I still liked them, and in return we gave them some of our figs. We also saw a weird little lobster thing in the shallows, which thankfully didn’t nip my toes. Also during his tenure Rebecca was involved in a minor accident where she skidded out and (according to her) flew off her bike in the cannonball style. I wish I’d seen this as it sounded really funny; it was obviously a good technique as she wasn’t really hurt.
We gave Luis a heartfelt goodbye when he handed us over at a checkpoint; the next lot were nowhere near as good. When we got to the designated “end town” they took us to another monastery. After our situation was relayed to the priest he pondered for ages, then took us to a room where we had some kind of spiritual interview with him, another priest and a nice lady acting as translator. Here is where the lies happened. Lie 1: when asked if we are married we often say yes, because the concept of girlfriend/boyfriend doesn’t really exist here, you’re either married or friends. So when initially asked, we said yes. Lie 2: when asked if we were Christians, we said no, but they couldn’t accept that we had no religion, so eventually we just weakly said “yes I suppose we are Christians but it’s a bit different in Britain” which was accepted. After about 20 minutes of questions about us and our journey the head priest (who was very nice and enjoyably giggly) said we could stay, but then they returned to the marriage question and it seemed very important to them that we were “properly”, ie religiously, married. At this point we backed down and again weakly said that we were married but not in a church, so we were given separate rooms.
After this the monastery staff were all amazing and super welcoming. We had further chat with them, which was kind of awkward at times, especially when I asked the woman if her and her husband had children* and she said “no...in heaven” in a sort of wistful way. Whatever happened it must be a very sad story. They asked if we wanted food, and as we felt bad already we said no, but they insisted and we relented. We were glad they did as it was a very tasty Mulukhiyah soup with all the trimmings. On the way back from dinner we saw/heard a tree which was preposterously full of birds, like some kind of avian Hong Kong highrise. They must have been having a party.
*Usually absolute small talk gold
Distance (km today/total): 130 / 7266
Estimated climb (m today/total): 100 / 57800
Lies told in the presence of Jesus: 2
Day in three words: The Nile Routine
As we left the nice accommodation we were unexpectedly asked to pay, but it was only a fiver so we went along with it. Thereafter the day conformed to a schedule that’s becoming routine as we journey down the Nile: coffee after 30km, lunch after another 40-50km, get to the last town we can reach before sunset and ask the police if there is anywhere they will allow us to sleep for free, be taken to a religious institution, dinner, bed. All of this along water channels past fields, dead flat, the Nile mostly hidden off to the left with a big desert escarpment behind it, no wind, dusty busy towns every 20km or so, a mixture of mosques and Coptic churches, and lots of people waving and saying hello. One of the towns (Dayrut) we went through today was a bit different as it lay at the crossroads of a few water channels, two roads and a railway line, which gave it this fun chaotic feeling and some good views to boot. The centre of town was a sea of tuk tuks ferrying people from one transport format to another. I really enjoyed cycling through it.
Our captain for much of the day was a lovely guy called Luis who made up for his limited English by being very smiley. He was also blessedly hands off, although he did keep telling us that Jesus loves us, which makes our later duplicity all the worse. During his tenure we stopped for lunch in the best spot for ages, on a quieter road with shade and somewhere to sit, next to a smaller water channel where I was even able to have a quick dip (which was lovely). His team gave us some fresh dates, which are a bit weird and powdery but I still liked them, and in return we gave them some of our figs. We also saw a weird little lobster thing in the shallows, which thankfully didn’t nip my toes. Also during his tenure Rebecca was involved in a minor accident where she skidded out and (according to her) flew off her bike in the cannonball style. I wish I’d seen this as it sounded really funny; it was obviously a good technique as she wasn’t really hurt.
We gave Luis a heartfelt goodbye when he handed us over at a checkpoint; the next lot were nowhere near as good. When we got to the designated “end town” they took us to another monastery. After our situation was relayed to the priest he pondered for ages, then took us to a room where we had some kind of spiritual interview with him, another priest and a nice lady acting as translator. Here is where the lies happened. Lie 1: when asked if we are married we often say yes, because the concept of girlfriend/boyfriend doesn’t really exist here, you’re either married or friends. So when initially asked, we said yes. Lie 2: when asked if we were Christians, we said no, but they couldn’t accept that we had no religion, so eventually we just weakly said “yes I suppose we are Christians but it’s a bit different in Britain” which was accepted. After about 20 minutes of questions about us and our journey the head priest (who was very nice and enjoyably giggly) said we could stay, but then they returned to the marriage question and it seemed very important to them that we were “properly”, ie religiously, married. At this point we backed down and again weakly said that we were married but not in a church, so we were given separate rooms.
After this the monastery staff were all amazing and super welcoming. We had further chat with them, which was kind of awkward at times, especially when I asked the woman if her and her husband had children* and she said “no...in heaven” in a sort of wistful way. Whatever happened it must be a very sad story. They asked if we wanted food, and as we felt bad already we said no, but they insisted and we relented. We were glad they did as it was a very tasty Mulukhiyah soup with all the trimmings. On the way back from dinner we saw/heard a tree which was preposterously full of birds, like some kind of avian Hong Kong highrise. They must have been having a party.
*Usually absolute small talk gold
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