Saturday, November 19, 2005
Fruit
In the remaining 5 days in Libya we cover about 2000 km, first to Houn. Unfortunately we choose the worst road in the country, between Sebha and Houn we can drive on the right side of the road on bumps or on the left side with the occasional hole. Those holes are usually as wide as the road and car wrecking. Hans manages to get us and the car safely through and we enjoy the shady side next to a youth hostel. As the only guests we are treated kindly. The manager drives me to a shop where I see nice vegetables and fruit like bananas from Ecuador, pears and apples. I buy large quantities. When the Ramadan period is over we receive a plate full of homemade cookies. Everyone is dressed in his or her most beautiful clothes and visits family or friends like we do on New Year’s day.
The internet cafe is one of the few places open and I manage to upload the stories and read the mail. Funny to see that all commands are in Arabic…
From Houn to Ayabidya is a very long stretch between 8 and 5, but there are not many places in between to stop. We sleep next to a police station in the middle of the town, not very quiet but Rik and Bart play with their toys before dinner like at home! Our guide has to sleep next to our car, no place for him in the station this time. Luckily it is only for one night and we continue to the youth hostel of Cyrene (Shahat) right next to the old Greek ruins. Along the way we stop to see the beautiful mosaics of Qasr Libya with lots of detailed animals and humans found in two Byzantine churches. One of the mosaics displays the old lighthouse of Alexandria in Egypt, our next country to visit.
From the mosaics the road crosses the beautiful canyon of Wadi El Kuf where fierce battles were fought between Italian and Libyan forces in 1927. Cyrene is cold when the sun goes down so we eat in the bus. It is interesting to see all the people having pick-nicks in the forest around the ruins of Cyrene in their winter coats! I was invited by Syrian ladies to drink a coffee and Rik gets Pepsi cola. They all married husbands who work in Libya, but they go home about every year. Thanks to Rik I am invited, everyone adores him with his blond hair and lovely smile and he often gets sweets, kisses and pictures are being taken of him.
We stroll along the old sport field of the Greek, the temple of Apollo, the statues of Demeter and walk down to the well and more temples. After seeing another set of ruins we are ready to continue to Tobruk, another battlefield of WO II and decide to stop in a small village to sleep at a police station. This means a good place and food for our guide, but under the loudspeakers of the mosque for us. We get used to it but 5 o’clock in the morning is still pretty early to wake up. But there is new border crossing ahead and it’s time to go. Our last Libyan money was spent in Tobruk buying diesel, water, more fruit and bread. As our guide does his first trip he does not know that we have to hand in our license plates in the village before the border, so we have to go back, ask a few times and he takes our 40 dinars for the plates. Ok, that means he does not get any extra money as we had in mind.
Leaving Libya is still a lot faster than getting in and after 1 hour we are welcomed by the Egyptians. This feels good. Hans gets forms to fill in and the whole family needs to go to the officials and the passports are stamped within 15 minutes while Bart hands out sweets. The import of the car takes a lot longer. First they disagree with the engine number so we have to wait for an expert to confirm, then Hans needs to go from one office to another, change money, get copies in another office and in the meantime we wait, play soccer, have lunch and hope everything works out well. When he shows up with two Egyptian license plates we are happy, put them behind our windows, pick up an Egyptian license card and can continue!!! Egypt here we are, the road is pretty good and the scenery is nice. We try to spend a night in Marsa Matruh on the parking of a luxury hotel, the receptionist agrees but the manager does not. Too bad. In the end we just get off the road, park next to a small school and are allowed to spend a night in some small village. Rik enjoys chasing the donkeys and chickens and we are immediately invited by a local family. It is time to learn some Arabic now although we always seem to find someone who speaks some English.
On Monday we travel all the way to Cairo by desert road. In El Alamein we visit the Italian WO II memorial, a nicely kept garden around it, a small chapel and an old tank. Further down the road we pass the German memorial and a small Greek one. So many lives ended too early…
We try to follow the directions to the campsite and drive straight past the pyramids, but the 2nd canal to turn right never shows up. We see McDonalds and dream about French Fries and ice creams. Unfortunately it is impossible to park the car somewhere and enjoy some. Besides we expect the camping offers something too. Wrong, when we get there it only offers a dusty field, shabby showers and toilets. No cold drinks, no ice creams, but we can see the pyramids. There are also other travelers and we find time to get into contact with them, exchange information and have a good time with Susie and Daniel. They left Germany in April 2002 and are on the way back now… I go shopping with Susie in a Carrefour and I am amazed by everything they sell. I forgot about it in the past 2 months and go wild about broccoli and buy a car load full of stuff including a usb card reader to upload pictures from the digital camera.
I also go in the tuk tuk with Rik to visit an Internet café with them and it’s a nice experience. We have even more attention this time. Rik thinks it’s great and wants to go again in the tuk tuk. Susie drives him and Bart around the campground on our last evening, the boys love it.
On Tuesday it is time to pick up Grandma from the airport. As the traffic is quite crazy and busy, Hans and Bart go by taxi. This is a luxury tour from now. Grandma is happy to see everyone in healthy conditions and unloads enormous quantities of nice cookies, Dutch cheese, peanut butter, Santa Claus gifts and together with the goodies of Carrefour we have a lot of stuff to stow in the car. Somehow it all finds a place, including the nearly empty bags of grandma. She will sleep in a room and Bart sleeps with her. We have dinner, breakfast and lunch together and head for the pyramids the next morning with our own car. It is still quiet and we can park right under the Cheops pyramid. What a great moment. We walk around, do not climb a camel, see the other pyramids of Chefren and Mykerinos and climb down to see the famous Sphinx guarding the pyramids. Impressive to see even though we all know the pictures. The funny thing is that the pyramids look much bigger from a distance though. Maybe because they tower above the whole environment and you can not compare them when you are too close. The road goes in between the pyramids and even we can drive there with our own car. What an experience.
The next day we go by taxi to the Egyptian museum and are nearly returning when we see the large crowd waiting to get in. Inside it is ok and we see the treasures of Tutanchamon very well. The 2 tombs and the famous mask are beautiful, such detailed work. There are also chairs, guards, jewellery and pottery on display. Bart likes the puppet houses and the small boats. Rik enjoys riding around with his new toy cars. We are impressed and use grandma’s book to walk around the first floor and ground floor. The museum is not as big as we expected it to be and certainly not as dusty. Hugh statues from all over Egypt were brought to the museum and as we have not yet visited any sites it is difficult to imagine where they were found. We learn about various kings and queens and decide to visit the internet café to update the Dutch site using the usb stick for the first time. It works well although there are only 2 computers of the 10 with an usb port.
The next morning we leave the busy city full of smog behind us and follow the Western Desert road to Bahariya. Nice and quiet and clean air to breath again. There are regular checkpoints where we have to say khamsa hollandi (5 Dutch persons) and the place we go to. No problem to continue. Around 3 we arrive at Ahmed’s Safari Camp to find many flies, a better room for grandma and a garden full of goats, turkeys, chicken, rabbits and doves for the children to enjoy. As grandma becomes ill we take it easy, Hans cycles into the village of Bawati to buy cola and more fruit with an old lady and the children feed the animals. A nice day to relax but we have no idea where the hot springs are. When we leave we find out they were behind the camp!!! From Ahmed’s many people visit the Black Desert, Crystal Mountain and White Desert, spend a night under the stars and return. Grandma offers us the trip and as she feels better we decide to go. Around 11 we leave after packing all kinds of necessary items. We follow the main road and leave it a few times to see sand dunes (small ones), climb a black mountain to enjoy the moonlike surroundings, see crystal mountain and black desert flowers made of stone. Finally we leave the road and continue through the sand among beautiful white rock formations to set up camp. Two cars are parked in an angle, large pools with cotton are attached to the cars to create a windshield, some sheets on the floor, mattresses on top, small tables for the food, the campfire is lit and a nice meal prepared by the drivers. We have some time to walk around, see the moon rising and the stars shining. A bit later than usual we enjoy chicken, rice and vegetables in this beautiful area. And after the chocolate dessert it is time to put the boys in bed. Rik sleeps in his own bed, wearing extra fleece socks and a shirt and Bart sleeps in his clothes, fleece shirt with his head covered in a sleeping bag. No complaints about this unusual situation, no, we are proud of our 2 small globetrotters adjusting themselves so easily!
In the evening I walk to the other Ahmed camp to enjoy the drumming, small cups of tea and the campfire. Our French fellow travelers already go to bed by 8.
The next day we decide to return with our own bus and sleep next to the White stone mushrooms before the sand gets too soft. It is another nice experience because we see a desert fox roaming around us in the evening. But waking up under the stars or in your own car is completely different. And to watch the sunrise in your sleeping bag is also a great experience that cannot be rivaled by waking up in your car.
From the White Desert we continue to the oasis of Farafra where we buy new fruit, small oasis bananas and bread before we continue to the oasis of Dakhla. More desert stretches, but somehow livelier than in Libya. The oasis are also much bigger and we see a lot of green patches, palm trees and white egrets feeding. We are surprised by the old town of El Qasr in Dakhla. Houses made of clay, a pond in front and green grass surrounding it. The hotel towering above also has a towering price so we continue to the town of Mout. The Sol y Mar hotel has a hot spring but is full, so we stay next to hotel Mebarez but enjoy Grandma’s shower inside. We walk into town to buy local yoghurt for 0,25 £E, white bread, soft cheese and expensive but tasty apples that have traveled a long way to be sold here. They grow a lot in the oasis but we do not see apples, the dates they eat here are still unripe in our point of view, but the local people seem to enjoy them.
The next day we continue to the oasis of Kharga and I get a feeling that we are being followed by a Peugeot 405. Since Farafra Hans has to sign papers that we do not want a police escort and when we stop at a gas station we are surrounded by police cars. We have to move to a diesel pump and a guy (obviously important but he did not introduce himself to us) orders us to put the license plate in a better position, another officer says: Where do you go? So I already get a bit angry by the whole affair. Filling up the diesel I ask him what the problem is but he ignores me, that irritates even more…Now I am sure we were being followed. A blue car waits for us and wants to follow us to the Kharga Oasis Hotel. I tell the officer he can drive in the front and show us the way! They are Tourist police but do not know this hotel and stop in front of a filthy place saying this is it. Don’t think so, our guide books tell us about a palm garden and there is no sigh of a garden here. Another hotel dares to charge us 50 pounds for camping in their garden while we pay only 14 at Kharga Oasis Hotel. No thank you, we move on and park the van between the palm trees and enjoy the view from Grandma’s balcony. She invites us for dinner and we have soup, chicken, rice, mashed potatoes and a salad and fruit as dessert. The funny thing is they never ask us what we like to drink!
From Kharga we drive straight through the dessert to Luxor, the first kilometers with the blue car again, further on we have no problems passing the check points. Before Luxor we already enjoy the green fields, small clay houses and find the campsite Rezeiky without problems. An oasis in the city with overland travelers to talk to and within walking distance of the Luxor temple and the Karnak temple. In the afternoon we stroll along the river Nile and see the cruise boats Grandma took 3 years ago. In the morning we visit the Luxor temple and enjoy the various statues, the obelisk (other is in Paris, France), the carvings of gods, animals and Egyptian letters. Bart loves the animals and Rik recognizes the owl. This time we do not resist the McDonalds and order a McArabia meal and ice cream. A real treat with a view on the temple complex.
Karnak temple is even bigger the next morning and the 134 columns standing so close to each other are very impressive. The columns are papyrus rolls and some are decorated with Amon-Re the god of this enormous temple complex. The Luxor temple was a branch of Karnak and in between the road (2km) was lined up with sphinxes. There are more obelisks and statues, but also some ceilings and walls still covered with paint. Busloads of tourists are guided around but we happily stroll without a guide, just reading the explanation in the guide book to avoid an overload of information. The afternoons are spent on the balcony, reading books, drawing with the kids, typing stories and drinking tea.
# posted by Hans, Monique, Bart en Rik @ 4:31 pm 
