Saturday, 20th Jan, 2007

Luxor to Idfu

Guess what? The name of the queen who pretended to be a man, her name was ... hold on ... let me check ... Queen Hatshepsut. I'm reading a book called "The Last Camel Died at Noon". It's sort of a mystery, fiction, but I picked it out in Luxor because it takes place in this area and in Nubia area in Northern Sudan. Thought, "Maybe they will refer to something that I've seen and I'll get to say 'Hey! Neat!'" Sure enough, the plan worked. When they mentioned the name Queen Hatshepsut, I thought, that's the one! The queen with the architect lover, who pretended to be a man. And there is something famous about a place called Punt, too, but I can't remember what it is. Personally, it just reminds me of a football game.

Today was a very nice cycling day. After the day of rest yesterday, I felt very good. The sore butt syndrome is improving. I only had one major stop, it was in a little town that we passed after lunch. Chatted a bit with the local (men) who were smoking from their shishas. Two kids were very curious about me, but not in an annoying way. Since they were being nice and not saying "money, money", I decided to try playing cards with them. Unfortunately, they don't seem to play cards the same way as they do in Uganda, and we couldn't understand each other, so it didn't work out.

Other than the one stop, it was just nice because we passed interesting sites. There was a railroad track that we followed for a long time and several trains passed. I finally got my camera out in time to get a picture of the caboose of one, for OnDu's sake. Can't figure out how to load my pictures up here, but when I do, I'll show it. I also got a nice snap, at lunch, of me and our security guards - wearing their gowns, turbans, and guns strapped over their shoulders. What a sight! After lunch, I rode most of the day with Jack (from U.S.A.), who was (surprise, surprise) riding sweep today. It was nice peddling along with him. That guy recently took TWO YEARS and rode around the world! Very interesting, I'd love to do that.

Oh. The only other point of interest. At one point, a young man on a motorbike decided to get friendly with me. He rode along beside me, chatting away, mainly saying "What's your name?" because I don't think he knew how to say anything else. It was o.k., except that every time a car came by, he would swerve over into the shoulder, where I was riding, and I kept thinking we'd have an accident. I had just stopped my bike and was telling him, "Sorry, we really can't ride together," when Patrick (from South Africa) and a couple others from our group came along behind me and asked if I was o.k. I told them about the small "problem" and they were very nice and slowed way down (so as to go at my speed) and rode in between me and the motorcycle lad, for a long way, 5 miles or so. Finally, the motorocycle lad said "bye bye" and left and we all said, "bye!"

Very nice day. We are NOT desert camping! Instead, we are camping on a football stadium pitch on the shores of the Nile River, in this little town called Idfu. Tomorrow we reach Aswan, where we will board the boat for Sudan. I'm very excited about that.


-----------------TODAY ---------------TOTAL
Cycled---------- 118.5 km (72 mi) ------700 km (428 mi)
Sagged ---------- 0 --------------------- 165 km (103.5 mi)
Total ------------ 118.5 km (72 mi) ----- 865 km (531.5 mi)
In saddle -------- 6 hrs 2 min ----------- 38 hrs 50 min
Ascended -------- 612 feet -------------- 6,856 feet