Time to relax

Even bijkomenWe start the new year by sleeping in late. No long drive or border crossing today, we will do absolutely nothing. If I draw the curtains late that morning, I look out over a beautiful bay with clear blue water and a long promenade lined with palm trees. Only now we can see the nice spot at which the police dropped us off yesterday night in the dark.

At 10:00 am Peter and I sit down with Billy and Ross for an Egyptian breakfast of round flat bread, fried eggs, a bowl with ground beans, vegetables, fresh cream cheese and some jam. A funny breakfast, but it is tasty. We are still waking up and talk about Libya and the long day at the border.

In the lobby of the hotel they have wifi and that means contact with the people at home. In Libya we had no access to the Internet and we did not even manage to receive any text messages. Although we were only a few days in Libya it felt like we were locked off from the world for a moment. Not only from contact with family and friends, but also from the news . It is extraordinary to notice how used we have become to being in touch with each other anywhere and at anytime and how used we are to being able to read the news whenever we want. The greater part of the day we are in the lobby of the hotel staring at our phones.

Meanwhile, the sun is shining and there is a nice sea breeze. Reason enough to put aside the phones and go for a walk to see where we are. Our hotel is situated on the promenade of Marsa Matrouh, a busy street with wide sidewalks and plenty of space to stroll. On the other side of the road is a small beach with white sand and rocks where a number of people are fishing. Along the promenade there are large hotels, the one even higher than the other with rooms that overlook the bay. In the street are several restaurants, including the well-known fast food chains such as McDonalds, Hardee’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken. At first sight, a bustling city. But that is not the case, as everything is closed! The metal shutters on the doors are closed, the windows and logos are taped and the tables and chairs are piled in a corner of the terrace. Our hotel is the only hotel that is open and we are almost the only guests.

Even bijkomenIt is January 1st and it is Billy his birthday. A good reason for a party, so we should celebrate. We organize a small birthday drink with cake, candles that play ” Happy Birthday “  and non-alcoholic beers. The only alcohol we have is the last sip of our Cointreau which is for Billy. That evening Ross takes us out for dinner to celebrate Billy’s birthday, but also as a goodbye dinner as it is our last night together. The next morning we wave Billy and Ross goodbye as they drive on the boulevard with their roaring BMW-bikes.

Peter and I decide to stay a while in Marsa Matrouh. Not just to rest before we drive on, but also to ’work’. We have good internet so we can update the blog, upload photos to Dropbox and use Skype. The administration at home (for our apartment and insurance, etc. ) also continues with the help of Peter’s mother and occasionally requires some attention. We take some time to read about Egypt and the sights that we can visit. Based on that information, we determine our route and search for places to stay. Peter also found a barbershop for a much needed haircut.

We closely follow the news about Egypt through the apps of NOS, BBC and Al Jazeera. It does not look good. There have been troubles in Egypt for some time now after President Morsi was deposed. The last few weeks an upcoming referendum led to new demonstrations during which some protesters were injured and even killed in several major cities, including Cairo and Alexandria. The travel advice from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Egypt is not positive and gives the idea that we can better ride to the Sudanese border in one go.

Even bijkomenIn Marsa Matrouh we are therefore very wary when we leave the hotel to go shopping or to go out for dinner in the evening. The picture on the street is however very different from the images we receive through various new apps. It looks suspiciously like ordinary life: children going to school, mothers with full shopping bags, construction workers who are building a new hotel, taxi drivers waiting for another client and old men busy talking to each other in the local teahouse. We do see more soldiers and police on the streets than we are used to in the Netherlands. The mostly young boys stand guard at several official buildings, including the library, a police station or a house of a senior official.

We walk through busy shopping streets and pass drugstores, convenience stores, bakeries, butchers, phone shops and market stalls filled with fruit. In one of the streets we are suddenly faced with large rolls of barbed wire that are across the road. Behind the barbed wire are piles with sandbags with every other five meters the barrel of a gun that pops up next to a head with a helmet. Behind them are two tanks and a group of about 30 soldiers. They are in front of the provincial house and appear to be ready to strike any moment. On our side of the barbed wire everyone is just getting on with what they were doing: drinking tea, building a wall or doing some shopping. When we walk a little further, there is no military at all.

The presence of soldiers is probably not for nothing and with the news images on our minds we decide not hang around the street with all the military. We pay a lot of attention to the sounds on the street and look around startled when we hear a line of honking cars in the distance. Will this be the start of a demonstration? It appears to be a line of cars celebrating a marriage, while honking and racing through the streets of Marsa Matrouh with little red harts on the number plates and a white bow on the front of the first car.

Even bijkomenIn the days that follow we go out for shopping and dinner each day. Time and time again we see what we had experienced before, ordinary life goes on. We are kindly greeted everywhere and (as in Libya) welcomed. The young policemen who stand on guard, the supermarket cashiers, the taxi drivers, they all ask where we come from and say: “Welcome back.” They were used you tourists here (unlike in Libya), but have not seen them for the last few years.

After five days in Marsa Matrouh, where I spent most of the time on the laptop to write about Libya, it is time to get going again. We want to Giza to visit the pyramids. From Marsa Matrouh to Giza is too long for one day, so we will ride to Alexandria first.
Alexandria is the second largest city of Egypt with 4 million inhabitants. The town was in the news because there had been some deaths during demonstrations early January, just a few days before we would go there. We wondered several times whether it was a good idea to go there. Billy and Ross had already been there before us and had not reported on any riots. As a matter of fact, their stories on Facebook were very positive.
We had seen in Marsa Matrouh that the military occupation was limited to specific areas or even to a single street in the city. Actually a lot like the Netherlands where protesters gather at the Malieveld or on the Museumplein. This does not mean The Hague or Amsterdam become entire no-go areas. With that in mind, we feel OK about going to Alexandria. Just be careful, trust our intuition and turn around if we do not think it to be safe.

Even bijkomenAfter our last breakfast with bread, beans, vegetables and cheese spread, we also drive away on the boulevard of Marsa Matrouh (albeit with slightly less sound from our roaring little Hondas). The GPS lead us out of the city and on to the highway without any problems. We drive parallel to the Mediterranean coast to the east. The area we drive through is mostly dry and sandy. The first part of the route we can still catch an occasional glimpse of the sea. At any moment the sea is no longer visible because the strip of land between the sea and the highway is packed with holiday resorts. Not your all-inclusive resorts where you can enjoy the sun, but compounds with holiday houses that can be bought as a second house. It looks a lot like the coast in southern part of Spain For more than 150km long (!) we pass one compound after another, each with a beautiful entrance and large billboards with pictures of swimming pools, shopping malls and white beaches.

We set the GPS to the center of Alexandria, where we should be able to find a hotel. The GPS is often indispensable, but in some cases we had better first looked on the map. Today was such a day. Instead of a highway around the city, we drive straight into town. We are still 20km away from our destination when we get completely stuck in Alexandrian traffic.

The traffic here is not comparable to the traffic in any of the towns we drove through earlier. Everywhere are cars, tuk-tuks, motorbikes, donkey carts, trucks and minivans. We drive on a two lane road that is actually used by four lines of cars. On the side of the road is a variety of market stalls and are lots of people who want to go to their next destination by minibus. Those minibuses stop in the strangest places to pick up customers and then suddenly get back on the road again. The road is bad and contains many potholes, which makes motorists suddenly swerve to avoid them at the most unexpected moments. We manage to avoid most of the potholes, but still hit some quit hard. Between all that traffic people want to cross the road. There are no traffic lights or zebra crossings here, so they just have to get on the road and hope that cars stop or that they fit in between the long lines of driving cars. Besides all this, everyone honks, all the time!

Even bijkomenWe drive on very slowly and are not able to switch to second gear. The GPS indicates that we are still 18km away from our destination when it starts to rain very hard. Putting on our rain gear is not an option, so we drive on slowly on the now very muddy road. After 10km we start to understand the Egyptian traffic. Despite the fact that everyone honks all the time, no one seems really angry. Other than we are used to in the Netherlands, honking is not accompanied by hand gestures. Honking here means: “I am next to you”, “I am going to take over now” or “Have you seen me?”. It is not long before we also driving through the streets of Alexandria honking loudly.
After another few kilometers traffic already seems less chaotic than it was at first glance. Everyone seems to be well aware that we share the road and that motorist may make weird swerves. The traffic actually moves in a very organic way, a bit like thick syrup that wants out of the bottle. With our small bikes we just drive at the same pace as everybody else and keep moving forward. Meanwhile, we attract a lot of attention and make small talk with taxi drivers when we have to stop in the traffic jam.

After we have plowed through the busy traffic of Alexandria for over two hours and we are completely soaked and brown with mud, we arrive in the city center near the hotels. It is busy, not only on the promenade along the sea, but also in the narrow side streets. We go to several hotels to ask if they have a room for us. There are plenty of rooms, but a safe place to park the bikes is a problem. After we have wandered from hotel to hotel for more than one hour, we meet the owner of the last hotel just as he steps out of his car. He allows us to park the bikes in the hallway of the building on the condition that we get all our stuff off and lock the bikes. Great! We fit the bikes through the narrow hallway and securely lock them.

Even bijkomenTriomphe Hotel is located on the fifth floor of a beautiful building. In the middle of the property there is a large spiral staircase, with a very old wooden elevator with a metal fence next to it. Once in the hotel lobby it looks like we have just stepped into a book by Agatha Christie. The lobby of the hotel does not seem to have changed since the early 1900s and is filled with ornate chairs, beautiful wood cabinets and framed portraits of former residents, as is our room.

We change our smelly motor gear for a freshly washed set of clothes and go out for dinner. As in Marsa Matrouh we are on our guard as we walk on the central boulevard. Aware of the potential uprisings in Alexandria, we pay attention to the people around us and the sounds on the street. But we have worried for nothing, because in Alexandria (at least in this part of the city) it is life as usual. The city is buzzing! The coffee houses and cafes are full and blue with smoke. People drink coffee, play chess and smoke shisha. Unlike in Marsa Matrouh the cafes are not only filled with men but also by women, often without a headscarf. Many students sit around discussing their notes while sipping coffee and smoking too much cigarettes. After a lovely dinner in a small restaurant, we join them in one of the cafe’s for coffee, shisha and a game of dominoes. A great ending to a relaxing first week in Egypt!

Even bijkomenDistance travelled to Alexandria: 5687km (3533 miles)

Click here for the pictures!

PS Apparently the link we posted to our Facebook page did not work (FB-No-No’s as we are…). You should be able to find us using: “Amsterdam to Anywhere

| Leonie | AFRICA, Egypt

5 Reacties (Comments) - Time to relax

  1. Fabrizio

    Hello dear Peter and Leonie! how are you? Reading your posts it seems you are well! We look for yor posts on your web site every day! We read that you want to go to Sudan after Egypt, be careful! there is civil war now! Its not best moment to go there. But you surely know better than me what to do. We miss you very much!
    Big kisses from Cristina and Fabrizio.

  2. Jan en Mariët

    Lekker ff relaxen en bijkomen, het lijkt wel vakantie!? Liefs en knuffels

  3. Mip

    Super om te lezen dat jullie zo van Egypte genieten! Liefs!

  4. Janny

    Weer genoten van jullie verhalen en mooie foto’s. Oma vindt ze ook prachtig. Ze reageert elke keer heel enthousiast als Anna weer een verhaal voor haar heeft uitgeprint. Ze vindt het heel bijzonder wat jullie doen en meemaken en geniet er erg van.Liefs,Janny

  5. Lill

    Geniet ervan!