Day 9 Saturday, January 20 Luxor to Idfu

by Henry

Temperature range is pretty consistent. We woke up to 9° C, and the high today was 28° C, a little bit warmer than we've been experiencing. 113 km with flat terrain, and tailwinds all the way.

Sunrise during our ride out of  Luxor. Very green agricultural fields.


For the first part of our ride, we followed an irrigation canal that paralleled the Nile.


We rode through many villages. The children were out because it was Saturday. We were bombarded with hundreds of kids with wide smiles shouting in stereo from both sides of the road "hallo",  and sometimes heard "welcome" from the adults. No question we were a curiosity, and the excitement for the day.


We reached a point in the road where the vast breadth of the Nile came into view. It truly carries life-giving water to the Egyptians. 100% of Egyptians live on 5.5% of their land mass, mostly concentrated on the Nile River valley and its delta. I imagine the Egyptian Sun God Ra having too much fun and power creating Egypt's expansive desert, and the Egyptian goddess of water Tefnut staking her claim by painting a broad brush stroke of Nile green that sliced through the desert.


Every Egyptian small scale farmer has a donkey and a cart. The most common crops we saw today were bananas, sugar cane, winter wheat, cauliflower.


Small mosque in the Nile fields.


This candy bar vendor on a motorized tricycle became enamored with Tim and handed him a free candy bar while both were on the move. Egyptians have a great talent of stacking their vehicles incredibly high with their wares using only simple rope to lash things down.


Lunch today was on a small Nile River beach. We saw a bloated dead cow float by.


Many Nile river cruise ships ply the waters. We wash our own dishes and silverware after lunch. Tub #1 is dish detergent water. Tub #2 is rinse water. Tub #3 is a mild bleach solution for disinfection. One garbage can is for regular trash, and the other for compostables. To prevent disease transmission, there is a visit to the mandatory handwashing station before we are allowed to touch any plates, silverware, or food.


The crop of the day is sugar cane. Many sugar cane trucks passed us in both directions. When the trucks slowed down in the villages, children and locals would break off pieces of sugar cane for themselves.

Later in the day, as we approached Idfu, the children in the street became more aggressive, and at times dangerous, by trying to touch us or our bikes as we were riding. The afternoon chants were dominated by "money, money, money!" rather than the more innocent hallos we heard earlier in the day. One child greeted us with his middle finger and a mischievous smile.

We all managed to arrive safely at our camping destination, El Amal Park in Idfu.


We have a daily meeting just before dinner with Colleen, our tour director. This is the last dinner that will be prepared by our two Egyptian chefs, which TDA was required to hire by the Egyptian government. Once we get to Rwanda, we will have a TDA's own chef the rest of the way.

Tomorrow is our last day of riding in Egypt. We will arrive in Aswan and spend three days there. Because of the conflict in Sudan and South Sudan, we will have to box our bikes up again, and fly them into Rwanda for the next segment of our tour.