Distance: 117.3 km
Ride time: 8:22:08
Average: 14.0 km/h
Max speed: 25.6 km/h
Total: 53356 km
The head wind was still out in full force, but the temperature had come down from 45 to a much more manageable 38 degree celcius; cycling is once again enjoyable heading north along the Red Sea towards Cairo.
The police was with me as we left Ras Ghareb heading into the desert again. My escort would change every hour during the 8 hour ride so I got to know quite a few members of the Egyptian police force. The car following me would typically be consisting of a middle aged police officer accompanied by a much younger assistant. I would often talk to the assistants as the younger generation clearly speaks more English.
Sometimes the conversation with the police guy would be rather interesting: At some point I was asked if Denmark was more like the US or Russia. I said we were probably somewhere in between to which the young police officer pointed towards his riffle and said “AK47 good, Russia good, America bad…”. Not such a professional comment.
Once again I was told that this area of Egypt is very sensitive and that taking photos was prohibited. I took a few anyway when the escort was changing and I was allowed to cycle by myself for 10 minutes.
I had hoped to find a cheap place to stay in Zafarana. There was indeed a hotel of the same standard as I had been staying in for the last days, but it was full – nothing to do but to keep moving.
I could see on my map that I was cycling into a huge resort area that mostly caters to upper class people from Cairo going on weekend vacations to the Red Sea. Together with the police I stopped at a couple of resorts to ask for the price. In most cases you couldn’t even rent a room from the street, and in the rest of the remaining the price was far over my budget.
I tried to suggest that I could sleep in my tent at one of the police check points, but that seemed like an absurd idea to them. Instead the police called ahead to yet another number of hotels and finally they told me that they had arranged an apartment(!) at a resort for a price that was still a bit over my budget but not too much.
Oh well, now I had my own 3 bedroom apartment with access to a swimming pool and a nice Red Sea beach. You truly never know what the day will bring on the road in Egypt!
Obviously in Egypt: expect the unexpected!