Egypt

As we whiled away the day waiting for the ambulances to be fixed we took the obligaotory horse and camel ride around the pyramids, donned in full linen suits of course. Toby managed to get the photo he was after, dressed in exactly the same rig and in the same stance as his grandfather when he was posted here during the 1940s. Lev managed to get thrown from his horse for a second time this year (badly attached saddle) but no substantial injuries this time, and to everyone’s amusement Alberto caught the whole thing on his trusty camera.

On Monday afternoon Ritchie finally had to say goodbye and catch his flight. His fluent arabic and unique sense of humour will be sorely missed! we finally collected the ambulances in the afternoon from the professional desert cars company (conveniently located in between the donkey stand and the mangrove swamp) and although the bill came to almost £500 it was still considerably cheaper than it would have been in the UK.

We left Cairo in the relative quiet of evening  where for about an hour the city comes to a standstill in order for the muslims to break their fast during Ramadan.  As the sun set & the sound of the call to prayer was just fading we found the streets lined with children pelting the cars with what appeared to be water bombs. After passing a few groups we realised they were in fact giving us bags of water, grape juice and sweets to help us on our journey.

We pressed on up the Nile valley for a few hours, and at 2am started the usual fun of where to rough camp for the night. The banks of the Nile are heavily irrigated for agriculture, and also quite densely populated not only by farmers but also crocodiles! After having tried a few dead end tracks we were taken in and given a spot to camp beneath the palm trees in the grounds of a hospital in the aptly named village of Mallawi! Apart from the adjacent train line, car horns, animals and 4am call to prayer we slept soundly, fully refreshed and ready for another eight hour drive in the scortching sun.

More Police checkpoints ensued and just as we were beginning to tire of the continual demand for passports, a Police captain helpfully insisted on escorting us the 100km around the town of Asyut. With sirens blaring, all traffic obediently pulled out of our way and we screetched happily like a convoy of VIPs at a respectable 60mph. Eventually we arrived in Luxor yesterday evening and since we have reached the halfway point having completed 5,500 miles we treated ourselves to a decent hotel (it got a C+ from Shwetank) with a pool overlooking the Nile.

Stu excelled himself yet again with another day slaving over the cars with Toby trying to fix the headlights whilst the rest of the gang explored the famous temples of Luxor and enjoyed a felucca ride on the river. Shwetank by now had had his fill of the rough life and after a very brief three days on the expedition flew home to India. As for the rest of us, we await the arrival of Will and then plan to head south to Aswan and attempt to convince someone to take us down the Nile into Sudan. Its unlikely we will have internet for at least a week or so from now on in…next update from Ethiopia all being well.