Friday 5 June

Benni Suef to Luxor.

Well that was quite a day. The sort that you have at the Epic and wonder what on earth you’re doing it for.
We started quite early; the temperature was a mild 25 and began the trek south. It didn’t take long and we got separated in bad traffic in a town and we then had a shambles before re-uniting. Bit of sense of humour failure and then we all kissed and made up.
The temperature rose steadily and for most of the day was at 40. It’s like riding with the blast from an over door in your face. Mark reckoned more like a hair dryer, show’s his feminine side.
We had planned on reaching Luxor but by 8pm were still short by about 40km. We then proceeded to break rule no. 1 of riding in Africa and pushed onto the dark. You have to understand these locals drive either with park lights or nothing and then flash bright as they approach. Mark developed a puncture and very nearly lost the bike but held it. It was now dark but very luckily there were some street lights but a very small road shoulder. We thought that a canister of foam might be the short cut repair so Justin set off to Luxor about 10km away. Mark phoned his friend Frank to be told we were wasting time so we started to pull the wheel and do it the hard way. Mark was quite good and managed to hold the torch. Shortly after we started a police man came out looking for us. The police track tourist and in some places escorted us and were worried when we failed to arrive. After a long hard job we had it done and rode into town. The first hotel took our fancy and we checked in filthy and buggered at about 10:30. Some food, a shower and lots to drink cheered us all up.
I reckon I drank about 10 litres of liquid during the day. At 8 it was still 39 degrees!
Today I’ve woken, the youngsters are catching up on a beauty sleep, to an unbelievably beautifully sight of the river. This Nile is quite a river.
Today we’ll regroup and then set off for Aswan, about 3 hours. We phoned Mr Salah and he’s expecting us late.

Jim.