50: Interlaken to La Ferte Gaucher

Week 50 Update:

Interlaken, La Ferte Gaucher.

Day 345:

We had some way to travel that day and for a change we were well prepared. We got up early and were ready to leave our friends by 7:00. It was a little sad not be able to spend more time in the mountains, but we vowed to return as soon as we could. I fired Maggie up and let her idle for a few minutes to get the worse of the chill off her. Although the days were warm and comfortable, the nights still saw temperatures below zero and I was not entirely convinced that the fluids that kept Maggie healthy was designed for that. The hand brake light stayed on when I put the handle down and a quick inspection revealed that the cable at the rear wheels was frozen. I tap with a foot sorted that out and we were off.

Our journey took us to the city of Bern where we got a little confused and a little lost as well. We had plotted our route on Google Maps and printed out the directions, but things were happening a little too fast in the early morning rush hour. We still found our way eventually and arrived at the French border by mid morning. There the customs official had a quick chat, told us that he was impressed with our journey and sent us on our way. I think that was the fastest border crossing we had ever had as it took about two minutes and required absolutely no paperwork.

It was nothing more than a travelling day. Once we left the Alps we were cruising through the massive expanse of French countryside in dull and overcast weather. We still saw the snow capped Alps and the far away distance when we left the small country lanes and joined the impressive French motorway network. According to our map we had about 300km left to go. It was almost strange to drive that distance on roads like that. They were obviously designed to be the quickest and most effortless way to travel, but for us they were incredibly boring! The landscape was flat and pretty featureless and there wasn’t really any traffic to speak of. The other road users were all following the rules and our 100km/h chosen speed made us the slowest thing around. Even the big trucks were overtaking us, but then again, they were not trying to save as much of the cheap Egyptian fuel as they could.

It was about 14:00 when we arrived in the small village of La Frete Gaucher. Thanks to my lovely green passport I had to find a place to lay low and spend as little money as possible close to Paris while waiting for another visa. La Frete Gaucher was an hour’s train journey into the city, it had a camp site with mobile homes to rent and it was authentically and deliciously French countryside. It was perfect! Catt’s parents were joining us for the weekend so our chosen mobile home had to accommodate 4 adults.

The owner of the site spoke as much English as I spoke French but fortunately Catt knew enough of the language to get by. We got the key to our new accommodation and found the 25m2, two bedroom palace tucked in a corner of a beautifully tranquil green. There was a concrete floor to park Maggie on and a perfectly manicured lawn leading up to the home. There was a stream that ran though the property and high trees enclosing us on three sides. The road at the back of our new house was small and quiet and we had a choice between three supermarkets within walking distance.

Pete and Annie arrived about half an hour after us. It was brilliant to see them again and we spent the rest of the afternoon chatting away and catching up. It wasn’t like they did not know what we had been up to. Annie had been religiously reading the blog and updating Pete on our progress and Catt had been chatting to her online on every opportunity she had. But that was just not the same as sitting around a table and actually talking to each other.

As the sun was going down we walked to the nearest shop to source some dinner. I was in charge of finding suitable bacon for the next morning’s breakfast and found the task… well… confusing. It wasn’t like it was the first time I had been in a super market before, but the choices were just astronomical! I remembered seeing a movie about a bomb expert in Iraq. In the film the guy return to the USA after his tour and goes shopping with his wife who asks him to get some milk and breakfast cereal. The scene shows him standing in front of a shelf with what seems like a thousand different brands and he obviously finds it all just incredibly overwhelming! Well, that was me. Buying bacon should not be that difficult and it should not be necessary for a single shop to stock 37 different kinds. I counted them… and then chose the cheapest one. As we packed our few chosen item onto the till I noticed the amount of packaging that the western world saw fit to use and felt a little sick to my stomach. The 100g of bacon I chose because of price came in a plate sized plastic tub and the 6 eggs were neatly protected inside a plastic egg holder wrapped in cardboard. The funniest thing was probably the fact that the supermarket did not have any plastic bags to put the shopping in. Don’t get me wring, I am all in favour of not having plastic shopping bags and forcing people to use their own, but surely packaging things in that amount of unnecessary bollocks totally defeats the object of minimising our impact on the environment!

Back at our 25m2 palace we sat around a table chatting while feasting on the 1.6kg chicken we invested in. Seriously man! A chicken that weighs that much? Where did that come from? I accepted the fact that it could not be a happy racing chicken from the mountains of Ethiopia and I didn’t really care too much that it was probably a battery chicken that was fed on power feed and grain. The fact of the matter was that the thing was HUGE and juicy and incredibly tasty! Even the 2 euro bottle of red wine I chose was better than any of the local wines I had tasted in Africa. In fact, the last time I could remember tasting wine that nice was in Kenya and there we bought Californian wine. The carrots were so big that we shared one between 4 of us and the salad Catt made looked like it belonged in a recipe book with a taste to match. I was loving it! All of it and I wasn’t even really shocked about the price we paid for it all. Sure, a single carrot probably cost the same as a kilogram of the same stuff in an African Market and the chicken, although the size of three Egyptian ones was about four times the price, but the quality man! I had not seen that or tasted that since leaving Kenya’s volcanic regions I only then realized how much I missed good tasting food!

For pudding we shared another bottle of cheap French wine and consumed a whole block of smelly cheese with biscuits. I managed to weigh myself the day before and realized with some shock that I had lost 14kg in the year that we had been on the road. I could see that hanging out with Pete and Annie and food like that I would be able to get that all back in no time!

Sleep did not elude us for long and the tiny but warm bedroom with double bed felt welcoming and comfortable.

Day 346:

There was no real need to get up early but we were both awake around 7:00 anyway. It was Saturday in the French countryside and we could hear the chatter of people walking along the nearby stream. After getting up and having a wondrous shower that resembled a steam bath we made breakfast. Actually, Annie made breakfast for us. She even went to a patisserie earlier that morning to pick us some freshly baked croissants. I’m sure that it’s part of a mother’s job description to spoil her children, but she definitely took that idea further than we had any right to expect. We had bacon and eggs and bread with cheese and jam which felt nothing less than a glorious continuation of the previous evening’s culinary feast.

By the time breakfast was done and the washing up dealt with it was almost mid day. We decided to stop being totally useless lazy blobs and went for a walk. That took us through the centre of the small village and along an old disused train track, following the stream that passed by our camp site. It was slightly chilly and overcast day, but we did not care too much. Every person that passed us smiled and said “Bonjoir” as they passed. We made friends with the village dogs and watched fathers teach their sons the finer arts of fishing. The trees had no leaves after the winter and the place was definitely not as beautiful as it would have been in the summer, but I didn’t care. We could walk… undisturbed, unsolicited and in total perceived safety.

On the way back to our palace we stopped in at the tourist information centre. The lady there spoke mostly French but with Annie’s help we managed to find out how to get to Paris for my visa appointment and roughly how much it would cost. The lady behind the desk was the typical caricature of tourist information person. She loved to talk! She never used one sentence when ten would be possible and her enthusiasm was enchanting. She seemed almost disappointed when I did not seem all that excited about going quad biking or skydiving or 4 wheel driving with the various service providers she had brochures for. There was a picture on the wall of a trout and I deciphered the wording as “get your fishing licence here”. When I asked the lady about it she beamed and told us that the area had the best fishing imaginable and the annual licence only cost 90 euro. She could not tell me what kind of fish there was though. There was also no option for a shorter term licence for less money, so I had to forget that idea.

For our Paris trip it was clear that public transport was going to be significantly easier and cheaper than driving ourselves. That took an hour and a half to establish and with our mission completed we walked back to the campsite for some afternoon tea and snacks.

That evening Catt and I got spoilt again. Pete and Annie took us to the village hotel’s restaurant for a meal. The very extensive French menu was fairly confusing to me but with the help of the others I managed to order a salad and a steak. Mmmm Steak…. Not something that I had had since Kenya either… When the salad arrived I was very glad that I opted to share with Catt. The thing was huge! It was fresh and utterly tasty as well and we both deemed it a perfect choice! By the time we finished that we were both almost full. I have to be honest and say that I expected a tiny bit of choice cut beef on a massive white plate with some inedible garnish. I could not have been more wrong. What arrived was a slab of what I guessed to be Sirloin steak with a mustard sauce. Instead of tiny bots of garnish the plate also contained green beans and mashed potato in a perfect round shape. The plate was huge, but only so to successfully hold the huge amount of food on it. Perhaps it was me. Perhaps I was just not used to seeing portions that size any more.

By the time we had finished I could hardly walk. I could not remember the last time I had left any food on my plate and I was not about to start. The problem was that every time I ate the bread roll on my side plate, the waitress replaced it with a new one. I finished my hunk of cow and then half of Catt’s and the half a bread roll she left… which was replaced by a fresh one. Eventually I just had to give up. I had stop with the bread because I had no space left. Funny thing was that I would have been perfectly happy after just the salad.

It was actually totally refreshing to walk back to the campsite. The air was cold and fresh and smelled almost sweet. There was no wind and blanket of clouds made it darker than what I had been used to. We sat around the small table in the comfortable mobile home talking for another hour or so until my eyelids got so heavy that I nearly could not keep them open again. I think that night a food coma set in before I actually fell asleep, but it was very peaceful none the less.

Day 347:

The day dawned with the first rain we had seen since Kenya… I started thinking that I was referring to Kenya too much. But then again, it suddenly seemed like the last place where I experienced a lot of things: Rain being one of them. The smell of wet grass filled my nostrils and made me smile before I opened my eyes. I was glad we were not camping. It was too cold for that anyway, but the rain could have then been an unpleasant experience. I was also glad we were not staying in a hotel where we had to eat their food and live by their time table. I was suddenly thinking that all those Germans in their big 4 x 4 trucks with camper style accommodations on the back had it worked out. They could camp, but not camp and always make their own food while on the move unlike people who slept in tents.

Annie continued to spoil us with delicious breakfast and fresh croissants and by the time we had finished with that it was almost time for lunch again. It kind of all rolled in to one for me. It felt like we ate from breakfast to lunch with an obscene amount of hot drinks somewhere I the middle, but I didn’t mind. The rain stopped us from going for a walk, so we simply lazed around the place eating and drinking for the remainder of the day.

By mid afternoon it was time for the parents to hit the road back to sunny England again. We waved them good bye wishing that we could just join them, but also totally relaxed about where we were and what we had to accomplish. It was our short little holiday at the end of a stressful time before real life had a chance to catch up to us. We didn’t do much the rest of the day either. We made some dinner in the early evening and managed not to over eat for the first time since the ferry. We shared half a bottle of wine instead of having one each and we relaxed on the couch some more until sleep eventually set in. It ended up being a Sunday like Sundays were supposed to be.

Day 348:

It was visa appointment day and we had no time to be lazy. The alarm woke us early after a quick shower and a mug of the good stuff we were ready to take on Paris. It took us about five minutes to walk to the nearest bus stop via a photo booth where I replenished my passport photo supply. The bus was on time… Imagine that! We did not have to go to a smelly bus stop where we had to fight about price and wait for the bus to fill to capacity before it left as Andrew and Lucy had to do for the 18 months they had been travelling. We simply stepped onto it, presented our prepaid tickets and found a comfortable seat with a seatbelt. The driver waited for everyone to sit down before closing the door and driving off to the next stop.

The bus journey took an hour. We had the option to get off at a train station after half an hour, but the most effective way, according to the lady at the tourist information was to take the bus to the end of the line. That just happened to be at Disneyland Paris. We walked past the fancy hotel and shiny entrance into the park and right into the train station to join the cue of ticket buyers. In very broken French we explained the station we needed to get to and paid the sizeable 26 euro fee for our return fare. The trains were running every ten minutes, so finding one was not difficult at all!

The train journey took another hour, but we were very early so it did not matter much. Once we left the station in Paris we decided to walk to the appointment centre. Pete had left us with his GPS and that showed the distance to be about 6km. It was still overcast, but warm enough and not raining, so walking was quite pleasant. We randomly walked past an internet café where I could print out the last of my needed documentation and arrived at the visa place two hours before my scheduled appointment. I was quite amazed to see how many people were cuing outside and all hopes of getting in early faded instantly. That was no train smash though (No pun) we just went exploring. Neither one of us had ever been to that part of Paris before and it was quite interesting to walk around and see what kind of things and people were about.

We had some lunch outside a small supermarket and bought some coffee in a sleazy looking pub where we were not allowed to sit down. I couldn’t really work it out as the tables were all totally empty, but every time I stepped into that area someone told me I wasn’t allowed to. We also found a Formula one hotel nearby and earmarked that as a possible place to stay when collecting the paperwork again. By 14:30 we were bored though so we simply walked back to the visa place.

My appointment was for 15:00. By 14:45 the friendly security guard let me through the door, but instructed Catt to wait outside. I joined a cue of people sitting on rows of chairs and moved up every time someone finished with that station. When my turn came the lady simply looked at my application form, assigned me a number, attached my photograph and instructed me to go to the waiting room. That was a little strange, I though I had already been in the waiting room.

The waiting room had four times as many chairs as the room I entered into and about four times as many people. I looked up at the screen and saw that there were 22 numbers ahead of me and just sighed. It was going to be a long afternoon! At least Catt had her IPod with her and could listen to some music. I wasn’t allowed any electronics when I was and I did not even take a book with me! I sat there thinking back at the previous time I had to get a visa for the UK. That was in a similar centre in South Africa. In fact, it was outsourced to the same company as the one I found myself in in Paris. Only in South Africa the process was smooth, quick and efficient. I kind of expected the French place to be better, but alas, it was like being back in Egypt. When my number was eventually called I was shown to a desk where another lady went though my paperwork. I found that a little strange. I mean, surely the first person who I spoke to could have done all that and saved us all a massive amount of time and money. Oh yeh, that little visa application cost 88 Euros which was hilarious as the shengen visa was free because I was married to an EU citizen.

Anyway, the second person checked my paperwork again and found everything in order… again. She took 1 euro as payment for an email to be sent when I could collect my passport again and told me to return to the waiting room. Another half an hour passed before I was called again and shown into a small room where my biometric data was taken. All my finger prints were scanned, I had state my name for a video camera and my photo was taken… again. When I was done there I was free to go.

Outside I found Catt almost frozen to the seat. It had been two and half hours since I left her there and we both felt insanely frustrated and utterly exhausted! There was simply no way either one of us could face walking back to the train station. The security guard, who happened to be by far the friendliest person in the place, pointed us towards the metro station which was less than 1 km away and so our return journey began:

The metro took about an hour. It was also rush hour so it had standing room only and there was just no conceivable way that people would see that train as full and take the next one. At some point Catt and I were totally squashed in a corner far away from any handles, but then again we were also wedged in so tightly that we did not need to hold on to the rails. It was, to be honest, quite a brutal experience! At the train station we fought our way through masses of ant like people scurrying about and by some amount of luck found the correct platform again. There were people in uniform actually stopping the commuters from over filling the trains. It was bizarre! I mean, surely when an express elevator in a 50 floor building tells you it is overloaded you will wait for the next one rather than risk your life, but there people seemed to think that the metal tube hurtling down a thin track at great speed was safe enough to totally overload like that…. I stood back, watched the carnage for a little while and noticed that we had a choice of another four trains at 5 minute intervals. We eventually took the second one. There was still standing room only.

The train journey took… well, about an hour. I had to stand for the first 50 minutes of it, but at least a friendly man offered his seat to Catt after about twenty minutes. At the second last stop everyone left the train. It was obviously the edge of the city and the end of where people actually loved. I managed to sit down for the last ten minutes and by the time rain stopped at Disneyland Paris I had made my mind up: I would rather starve to death than commute like that on a daily basis. We took a brisk walk to the bus stop, found the right vehicle and hopped on using our prepaid tickets.

The bus journey took… well, about an hour. By that time we were totally and utterly exhausted and I just fell asleep as the big bus meandered through the villages and into the one we were staying in. I woke up as we stopped at our designated shelter, got off the bus and walked into the nearby supermarket to find something to have for dinner. We walked back to our mobile home, cooked and ate in relative silence and shortly after that we crashed…

Day 349:

I got woken up by bird song…. For the first time since Kenya I believed. It took a while before I remembered where I was and contributed that to the utterly deep sleep I had managed through the night. I stretched out, yawned and dragged myself out of bed to put the kettle on for some coffee. When Catt joined me at the table she told me what the time was with a huge smile on her face: It was 10:23.

There was not really anything we had to accomplish for the day. We had to buy some food, but the shops were close by and open until 20:00. The mobile home was too small to be messy or dirty, so we didn’t really have to clean it. So we did nothing… OK, not nothing at all. We drank coffee and ate lunch. We made a list of things to buy in the shop and we talked about our short term goals.

In the afternoon we took a big hiking rucksack and walked to a super market. We had decided to buy one week’s food to try and gauge what living costs had in store for us. When we lived in South Africa we tried very hard to keep our grocery bill to around 80 euro a week and we were interested what it would be in France. On the way there we passed a mobile phone store and enquired about 3G internet costs. To my utter astonishment a sim card cost ten times more than the same thing in Africa and instead of paying for data, you paid for time. Even those costs were ridiculously high. The only conclusion I could come up with was that the phone companies used the profits from Europe to subsidise their bushiness in Africa. I had to smile at the fact that we had more trouble getting online in France than in any other country we had travelled through.

In the supermarket we were in no hurry at all. We took our time making our selections from the 47 different types of everything. Bizarrely enough we found beef mince to be more expensive than pork steak and chicken cheaper than that. We selected some pate and cheese and hand picked the fresh fruit and vegetables we deemed essential. We even loaded up a few bottles of red wine before we got to the till. Now, to be fair, we did not buy any cleaning products or toiletries, but the total bill for seven days worth of three meals a day came to 55 Euros. I was blown away!

The rucksack was almost too heavy to carry and we had to buy a shopping bag as that supermarket also did not offer plastic apart from the ridiculous amount of packaging. We still managed to walk it all back to our mobile home in good time and after we unpacked it all we had to smile at the cat that we had managed to fill the fridge.

Our dinner consisted of half of one those gigantic chickens and some fresh salad and bread. It was fantastically tasty and beautifully colourful with portion sizes that made sense. We were actually starting to really enjoy the idea of village life in France even though we were still talking about achievable goals in the reality of life that was getting closer by the day. That was all too tiring a concept to keep up for long and sleep came easily after a short while.

Day 350:

I woke up with Catt kissing me and when I opened my eyes she told me it was past 8:00. I felt groggy and lazy and not ready to face the world yet, but also did not want to waste the day by sleeping until 10:00 again. I did manage to stay horizontal until the smell of coffee filled the room. When I checked the time it was 7:35. That was a little strange and when I mentioned it to my darling wife she looked confused. The problem was that she checked the time on her IPod, which was still set on Cairo time, which was an hour different to where we were. Anyway, it was time to get up, so I did.

I had an incredible amount of writing to catch up on and after munching on a massive banana which was obviously imported form somewhere, I had a shower and got stuck into the task of documenting our previous week. My hands flew over the keys as I comfortable sat with the doors wide open and the sun shining on my face and flooding the inside of the home. Every time I looked up I saw the stream flowing through the camp site and heard the birds singing from their perches in the trees. I could hear children at play at the nearby school and the smell of freshly brewed coffee filled the room. “Ah the life of a writer I thought”, I could get used to that…

When it was time for a break we started organising Maggie again. After I expertly managed to flood the inside when filling the water tank with melted glacier water at Tony’s house, we had taken most everything out of the car and stored in the mobile home. Every day the sun was shining I opened all the car doors to let the carpets dry out and when I checked them that day they were perfectly dry and ready to receive the payload again. I used a brush to get the bulk of Sudan’s desert sand out of the car and started packing things back in the order we had decided to pack them in. It was quite amazing to see how much space there was left after we did that. Catt did give her mom some curios to take back to the UK, but when everything was in its rightful place we still had oodles of space left.

After a lunch of some more of that delicious chicken and salad we spent the early afternoon continuing our computer based work. By mid afternoon I was totally up to date with everything I wanted to be and proposed a walk to try and get rid of the calories I got from over indulging with every meal the previous weekend. The weather was perfect! There was not a single cloud in the sky and it was warm enough to ware my sandals.

Our walk took us straight out of the village and past the nearby old Château which was perfectly framed by the green fields of crops around it. The next village along had amazingly quaint and pretty little cottages lining the main street though it but it was too small to even have a shop. There we headed down to the river we had walked along the previous weekend. Our return journey took us past an array of old buildings, a few paddocks with horses and the biggest sheep I had even seen in and a long row of blossoming trees full of eager bees. Spring was definitely in the air and the local villagers were out enjoying the warm sunny afternoon in force.

Our evening was, as had become our custom, uneventful and very relaxing. As I was falling asleep I could not help but start to think about that damn visa application. We had booked and paid for our little home for seven nights, and that was night number six…

Day 351:

A lazy start to a long day happened after 8:00. The outside world seemed darker than usual and even though we had a comfortable and warm temperature inside our hide away, it was strangely cold outside. The clouds were low on the horizon and the mist was rising from the valleys. I couldn’t even really see the old Chateau on the hill.

Our routine of making coffee, having breakfast and having a shower seemed to happen by itself without any input from us at all. I was starting to feel as if it was time to move on. Don’t get me wrong, I was enjoying the idea of being stationary, but desperately wanted to be stationary somewhere where we had the ability to start building some foundations for our latest adventure: Life.

In an attempt to give the visa agency as much time as possible to send me an email we decided to hang out in the village for the morning and early afternoon. Lunch time snuck up on us without any warning and the walk to the Boulangerie was well… freezing! The wind felt as if it came straight from a freezer and with the cloudy skies there was absolutely no sign of any golden light warming the patch of earth where we were. In the village square we found masses of people packing away what looked like movable stalls. It was obviously market day in La Frete Gaucher, but only in the morning, and we missed it.

By 15:00 we decided to go in search of an internet connection. Our little village had one internet café and no wifi but we were told that McDonalds in the bigger town of Coulommiers could help us. It was less than 20km away so for the first time since arriving six day before we started Maggie’s engine and took her on an outing in the French countryside.

The McDonalds in question seemed strangely upmarket in décor and facilities. Neither one of us could even begin to contemplate the idea of fast food so we just ordered a coffee each, fired up laptops and hid in a corner while catching up on electronic communications. There was no email from the visa agency. Then again, the woman at the counter asked me to write down my email address on a piece of paper. When she copied it onto her computer she got it wrong and I had to correct it for her… twice. So it was entirely possible that they never managed to type the right address into their system. On the other hand, it had only been 4 days and the process could take up to 10 days, so perhaps I was just being a little impatient. Still, I felt quite disappointed.

On the drive back to the campsite we started discussing options. The week we had spent there was pleasant and relaxing, but the place did not really offer anything more than walks and cheap wine. (Not that there was anything wrong with either of those) The commute to Paris cost about 30 euro at a time so we were trying to plan it so that we could visit the few sites we were interested in on the same day as collecting my passport. We did investigate moving to a place in Paris itself, but their idea of budget accommodation was 100 euros a night, three times more than what we were paying where we were and we could make our own food…

The only decision that made sense was to walk up the hill to the internet café the next morning and track the application with the unique number I had. If it was done we could then leave for Paris immediately. If not we had to just stay where we were for the weekend and patiently wait it out….

That evening I made a fire in our “pack a braai” using a large amount of charcoal we bought in Egypt. I cooked some huge and juicy pork chops and we roasted a mountain of fresh vegetables to go with it. I have to admit that I never really saw myself cooking on an open fire while wearing an expedition jacket, a woolly hat and gloves, but desperate times you know. Dinner was phenomenal and the cheap wine for the evening was the best that we had tasted since arriving in France. We made a note of the brand and decided to stock up before leaving the country.

If I had to do it again:

It would have been really nice to stay in Interlaken a few more days. I could have applied for the visa in Zurich, but when I filled in the application and made the appointment we did not know that Switzerland was a place we would travel to. Not to harper on about it, but if I had decent maps when looking into it I would have realized it and possibly chose that option. Then again, Interlaken is NOT a cheap place to hang out, so we are probably better off where we are now.

It’s a little difficult to spend any money at this stage in the trip. We are in pretty good shape and by some miracle we have actually managed to stay within our expected budget for the year, but now we are starting to look at the next step in life, our priorities have changed dramatically. So even though the next week might be boring as hell, we are just not really prepared to blow cash on things that are not essential.

49: Cairo to Interlaken (Egypt/Switzerland)

Week 49 Update:

Cairo, Alexandria, Vicemar One, Interlaken

Day 338:

It was Friday morning in Egypt’s Cairo and that meant only one thing to us: Run away! The alarm woke us up around 7:00 and after having the normal nice enough shower and drinking our own proper coffee with the included breakfast we waved good bye to Andrew and Lucy, packed our stuff and walked down the flight of stairs, spilling gout onto the sidewalk by 8:30. It took a few double takes up and down the street before I could fully recognise the place and figure out what was happening. The place was totally and utterly deserted!

I looked up the road and saw Maggie as the lone vehicle parked in a place where I expected not to be able to get into the back of the car at all. The sidewalks looked like someone had cleaned them and there wasn’t a single hawker in sight. It was almost spooky, but it was Friday/Sunday morning in the Arab world. When I looked the other way I saw much the same scene. The shops were closed, the sidewalks empty and there wasn’t a single car in sight. However, past the 43meters of street that separated us from Tahrir square I saw a very different scene. The square was filling up with a steady stream of people exciting the various metro stations around it and the road was blocked off by fairly formal looking barriers. The air of a carnival was still there in a big way and I could hear people starting their chanting and shouting in the distance.

We on the other hand, packed the stuff back into Maggie, fired up the engine and after letting her warm up a little bit set off in the opposite direction. It was also just in time. As we turned the first corner we saw the military hardware lining the streets and soldiers blocking off the road we had just drive out of. It was fairly clear that the guys with the big guns and tanks had surrounded the square, but decided to stay out of sight for the time being. With seeing the amount of war machines my feelings on the square also changed. Although I experienced it as a carnival, it suddenly seemed like a carnival with a time bomb attached to it. I had to accept the fact that the thousands of people in the square were still protesting against the government that they used to have and they were still demanding things the military could not deliver at a moment’s notice. I had to accept that the tanks and motorised guns were there for a reason and that they were all ready to roll on a moment’s notice. The soldiers were dressed in full battle gear and it would only take one command from one person to nudge them into action. It was a place that I wanted to get away from quickly!

As we crossed the nearby Nile I started feeling more relaxed and because the streets away from the square were almost as quiet as the condoned off parts of the city, the driving was easy and the progress fast. We found the ring road without trouble and the turn off to our next adventurous destination came quickly after that. As we were leaving the city I saw a massive mall with a big sign reading “Carrefour” announcing the very first European style hyper market we had seen since leaving Nairobi, which felt like a lifetime had passed since then. The road turned into a multi lane motorway complete with a toll booth and other traffic which was a first since leaving South Africa, even longer before. I was just about to relax into first world driving mode when I got shook back to reality. There was a massive truck with interlink trailer in the same lane as us, but reversing back to what I could only guess was the off ramp he missed about a kilometre before. I was totally shocked and rendered almost speechless! I mean seriously: We were going along on a three lane hi way at about 100km/h. I could see a bridge over the high way up ahead and it was definitely a place the man with his 40 tonnes of metal could turn around at, but he chose to stop dead, engage a different gear, and drive backwards, looking only in his mirrors… if he had any…. Or bothered to look in them.

At least the rest of our two hour drive was fairly easy. We arrived in the ancient city of Alexandria without hitting anyone or crashing into trucks and parked on the edge of a open area close to the centre of the city. We could see a monument described as “The tomb of the unknown soldier” close by and the smell of ocean was pleasantly prominent on the wind. We had agreed to meet Andrew and Lucy there that afternoon but expected their train to arrive about two hours after us. That gave us time to try and find suitable accommodation.

Catt and Lucy earmarked a few budget hotels so we decided to start with them. We walked down the first road away from the “Corniche” sea front and ended up at another large square full of protestors before finding any of the planned accommodations. We had no idea what it was called or how aggressive those hordes of natives were planning on being. What we did know however was that it was Friday, and it was mid day. The square was totally full with people on their knees, facing east and praying to their Allah. It was both impressive and moving to see that kind of commitment and dedication these people had to their religion. For us it was not the place to be and the rumbling coming from our stomachs sent us in search of lunch.

The first place we walked into offered delicately prepared gourmet sandwiches for a very reasonable price, but their chef was in the square, praying, so could not prepare food for us. The second place we walked into was substantial in size and obviously had a less religious chef, or stricter owner. They were busy serving what we later learnt was the very first load of tourists they had seen in a month. The friendly owner offered to help us find the hotel we were looking for and seated us a table where he claimed a famous writer wrote a famous book. I had never heard of either the writer or the book though. The food on the other hand was pretty incredible and not expensive at all!

In the time that we are the owner of the place had managed to find out exactly where wanted to go and sent us on our way with perfect directions. We had actually passed the place, but their sign was nailed to the fourth floor of a 5 storey building. It wasn’t exactly obvious. While discussing that I looked across the road and saw none other than Andrew and Lucy walking in our direction. They were carrying their worldly possessions on their backs and had clearly just arrived. So we joined them in the hunt for suitable accommodations. The hotel was fairly nice to be honest. It had spacious Victorian style rooms with shared facilities and a price to match. The downside however was that it did not have what we saw as safe parking for Maggie, which was a priority for us. The place where we had parked was right in front of another hotel, The Holiday Hotel, and their rooms were similar, their parking safe as far as we could tell and had en suite facilities. They were about $2 a night more expensive, but that was a small price to pay for peace of mind. So it was settled; We would stay at the Holiday Hotel, Andrew and Lucy would stay at the other place and we would meet at 16:30 for an investigative walk along the sea front and dinner.

Our walk, and the environment we walked in was strangely “non African”. The coastline and the bay with the old Victorian buildings lining it could have been anywhere in the world. Alexandria as a city seemed almost modern, and was spotlessly clean and had a really friendly feel to it. However: The tea lady who tried to cheat us by increasing the normal price ten fold was authentic Egyptian and embarrassed that we could not be cheated. The square with the protestors was full to the brim by the time we passé that, reminding us that we were still in an unstable country and the tanks and motorised machine guns keeping just out of sight meant that we could never totally relax.

We arrived at the famous library an hour before sunset. The building was very impressive in deed but seemed almost out of place in between the older structures. It boasted to have a copy of every book ever written and reportedly had space for billions more. It had an observatory right in the front of it which was a massive sphere built in a way that it looked suspended in mid air. That was to be flood lit at night which was something I definitely wanted to see, so we decided to wait. We found a comfortable place to sit on the modern granite steps and watched the world go by for a while. There were masses of Egyptian tourists walking around, taking photographs and even asking to photograph us. We had families sitting around us and guys wanting to stop by to practice their English. We were welcomed by young and old and for an hour it felt like things were normal again in Egypt. Every time my eyes glanced over the four tanks parked on the other side of the road that idea changed though.

With the setting sun the light came on and the scene was sci-fi insane! The round metal structure had deep reflective grooves carved into it and the lights were tinted bright blue. That reflected off the artificial pond around the main library which in turn was lit up by yellow lights. It was very impressive in deed, but I still found it sad that it was allowed to have something that contrasting in a city so beautiful. I took some pictures none the less and when the sky turned black the time to leave was there. On the way back towards the city centre we walked past a tank that was sued as backdrop for Egyptian family photos. We walked past and were welcomed by the commander in a way that I sporadically asked him if he would take our photograph in front of his impressive machine. To my utter surprise he agreed. So after explaining which button it was that he had to push, we lined up in front of the camouflage side and smiled at the “birdie”.

The second restaurant we tried had local prices even for white people and the food was delicious! We had a mountain of chicken and salad and bread and were even allowed to drink the local water. We thanked the owner and promised to return the next night… just because he was honest. He seemed really pleased with that result and I was silently praying that he would spread the word: Honestly equals repeat business.

It was a lovely night in the old city so we decided to explore some more. We walked to the catacombs close to the station and got lost in the small alleys and mass markets on our way back. The streets were absolutely packed, but the people were friendly and the scenery very interesting in deed. At one stage we obviously found the area where furniture was made and sold. At least half the shops did not have doors or windows. They were simply marked out squares in alley ways. And they were just left like that over night. It was quite strange to think that it was actually safe to do that.

It was after 22:00 by the time we got back to our hotel. We were dead tired and curled into bed with perfect intentions of falling asleep fairly quickly. In fact, I was already slumbering away when I heard the loud BANG that was unmistakably gunfire… I did not get up. I did not turn the light on and I did not go out onto the balcony to see where it came from. I stayed in bed thinking that the fight was not mine and that it was an isolated event and that I could just fall back to sleep again. But boy was I wrong!

When I heard the sound of rapid AK47 automatic fire followed by shouts and screams and explosions I just had to investigate. I still didn’t turn the lights on but I did crawl out onto the balcony. I saw a large crowd across the park and what seemed like a fire fight happening around a tall building. Maggie was parked right below us and to my left I saw the inhabitants of the room next to us standing on their balcony. Another loud bang erupted from an alley and with that I saw a few hundred people scatter from behind the building in question and run towards us. At that time I also saw the owners of every other car on the street run to their vehicles and drive away. The gunfire was becoming more regular and then and the running masses grew even larger. I asked the neighbour about the safety of Maggie and with a smile he said that his car was parked next to it. We were the only two vehicles left on the street, but it was also too late to move. The roads were barricaded already and manned by armed gunmen. There was nothing I could do apart from waiting and watching.

The fight continued for an hour or two, getting closer to us all the time, but no one ever actually crossed the road to where we were. Eventually a tank arrived at great speed and with dominating noise, but that only seemed to fuel the crowd’s anger. The shouting intensified and the chanting changed from Arabic to English. The shouting of “Give us what we want” was so loud that we could hardly speak to each other. I understood nothing of it and I did not feel safe at all! Before long another two tanks arrived. Someone said something over a loud speaker and just like that, without any warning at all, the crowds started walking away. The barricades were removed, the gunmen disappeared and even the vehicles that sped away earlier returned to their own parking spots. The shops opened again and the shoppers returned. Within twenty minutes there was no trace of unrest left, apart from in my mind.

It was a very long, disturbed and restless night.

Day 339:

We didn’t really wake up because we didn’t really sleep. By 9:30 however we had managed a shower and breakfast and were ready to take on the day. The streets were calm and the evidence of the previous night’s unrest was gone. There was still a tank parked in front of the building we assumed was the target, but apart from that it seemed like everyone was simply going about their daily business.

Our daily business was to find the shipping agents for the company we had booked our passage out of Egypt with. Their name was Incshape Shipping and their address indicated that they were not too far away. The street name was obviously not on any of the maps we had as that would have made it too easy. The area consisted of a network on one way streets that were all just a little bit too narrow for Maggie to drive down. We still managed by folding the wing mirrors back and driving slower than snail’s pace. Every time we came close to where we thought we had to be the road was blocked by a tank though. It was ridiculous! We couldn’t find anyone who spoke English, we couldn’t find parking and we couldn’t even walk past the tanks.

We did eventually find parking and we did eventually find the right building. It was ultra modern inside and beautifully decorated. We were greeted by a receptionist with perfect English and shown into the office of Walhid, one of the agents. He too spoke perfect English and explained the process to us. It was ridiculously simple! All we needed to do was arrive at he gate to the port the next morning at 9:00. We would be met by one of their representatives and taken through the painstaking task of doing paperwork. As there was no police left in Egypt, I did not even have to go to traffic court like all those who came before me. While we were chatting away we were joined by another man in the office. He was obviously the boss and looked about as tired as we felt. He invited us to tea in his office which we gladly accepted.

I never got his name, but we entered into a very interesting discussion about people and politics. He explained that the unrest of the previous evening was all about buildings and what they contained. The building across the park from our hotel used to belong to the security police (a kind of state intelligence service) and contained documents describing who the spies in the community used to be. It reportedly detailed the bribes the police took and the corruption that was going on in the government. The reason for the conflict of the Friday night we chose to be there was that the men who used to work for the state police were trying to gain access to the building to destroy those documents. On the other hand, the masses representing “the people” were trying to gain access to make those documents public and find out who the corrupt people and spies actually were while the army tried to stop everyone and keep the papers safe until the new government that was yet to be elected could decide what to do with the information. “The problem” according to our supplier of tea was that something like 41% of Egyptians were poor and illiterate. All those people could easily be influenced and “bribed” with food to join in protests, demonstrations and even fighting to suit the needs of any wealthy person who wanted to make a point. We had heard rumours before that a large percentage of the people in Tahrir square were paid E£10 a day to stand their ground. It all sounded totally ridiculous to me but only confirmed my suspicions that Egypt was not a safe or stable place for us to be.

I felt strangely content and relaxed by the time we left there. Perhaps it was because I felt confident that we would actually get to leave the Middle East the next day. Perhaps it was because I was just too tired to really think of anything else. Perhaps it was because I finally understood what the previous night’s war was about. Whatever it was, it worked. We braved the narrow alleys after refusing to pay baksheesh to some idiot who claimed that he “looked after the car” only to be parked in front of our chosen sandwich shop by a lady wearing a reflective vest and promising to keep an eye on our prised possession.

The sandwich shop was deliciously cosmopolitan! The owner, a local man who used to live in Sharm El sheikh, came by for a chat. He shared his views on the politics and explained that although he knew times would be tough in the short turn, he honestly believed that things would change for the better in the long run. His food was phenomenal and his knowledge of the city, its people and the sites were equally impressive. I almost started wishing that we had more time to explore the place… almost. We did try to visit the Alexandria museum on our way there, but that road too was blocked by weapons of mass destruction.

After paying our car lady a couple of pounds for her time we parked back at our hotel. We paid another random person another random amount to look after Maggie there and walked off in search of a printer. We had to print out ferry ticket. I could not actually believe how difficult that simple task was! It took an hour to find a single internet café and then another thirty minutes to print two pages on A4. On the walk back to the hotel we gave up on the idea of changing currency but we did find a barber shop to trim my ridiculously messy hair.

In terms of grooming I had my hair cut short before we left South Africa. After that I paid for another cut resulting in a lice infestation in Malawi, a serious amount of man pampering and hair cutting in Kenya and then Catt tried her luck at hair dressing in Ethiopia. So it was time. The friendly barber could speak as much English as I could Arabic but we soon established the correct length of hair that I wanted to be left with. He set to work with clippers and scissors and before long, to Catt’s great delight I looked almost presentable again. Every once in a while I glanced in the mirror to see my darling wife making faces and tried very hard not to laugh or move while there was someone with sharp scissors around my ears.

When the deed was done and the hair was short the barber grabbed a comb and some smaller scissors, positioned my head back a little and proceeded in trimming my eye brows. I thought that was a fantastic idea but at the same time I did not dare to look at Catt. In fact, I could actually feel the floor move ever so slightly from the way her body was shaking with laughter! I closed my eyes at that stage and soon felt the cold steel of the small scissors inside my nostrils. I couldn’t believe it! The guy was actually trimming my nose hair as well. The man next to me at that stage was getting his ear hair trimmed and just thinking about the amount of amusement that would cause and the ridicule I would no doubt never live down made me want to burst out in hysterical spasms. I was spared though. Perhaps I was still too young to have ear hair worthy of his expert techniques. When I did turn around Catt was blood red and could not wait to get out of there. She managed to compose herself just long enough for us to leave the shop and I actually thought that she was going to physically roll around of the floor as she was laughing. I on the other hand thought it was brilliant! A place where you could get a full groom without any shame while being pampered in a very manly way…. I made a note to find a suitable pampering establishment when we arrived at our final destination.

That evening we met up with Andrew and Lucy again and as promised went back to the honest restaurateur and his affordable chicken. The food was as good, the prices the same and the owner as friendly as the night before. Was that the one then? Had we finally met an honourable Egyptian on the night before we were due to leave the country? It was also time to celebrate a little so on the way back to our hotel we stopped at the local bottle store. We invested in some beer and wine and spent the rest of the evening chatting away while consuming the bulk of it. It was past midnight by the time our friends wished us “safe travels” and we crashed down on the two single beds, exhausted but relieved.

Day 340:

It was a band new morning in the ancient city and the alarm startled us awake early. Considering everything that that going on there we had had a perfectly peaceful night’s sleep and both felt quite positive about the day that lay ahead of us. We scoffed the hotel’s breakfast while drinking our own coffee, packed our stuff into Maggie once again and left unceremoniously after thanking our host for keeping our car safe.

It was just before 9:00 by the time we reached the port gate. I was about to start wondering how to find our representative when someone knocked on the window and asked if we were there for the Vicemar Ferry. That was it, the contact was made. We were apparently waiting for two other vehicles so were asked to park just outside the port entrance. That in turn was made easier by the fact that the harbour policeman (They were obviously still there) opened the barrier and a clearly crazy person helped us park. The same clearly crazy person organized us some coffee and tea at local rates though, so I kind of liked him. We left Maggie in his capable hands and went in search of fresh bread to buy for our lunch and dinner.

The bakery was fantastically local and hidden in a small alley way. The usual idiot trying his luck wanted to sell his bread to us at 10 times the price but when the baker saw this, and our reaction, he marched us past the crowds and into the shop. I handed over my pound coin and he handed over a stack of 20 breads. It was officially the first time in our 6 weeks in Egypt that we managed to buy the right amount of bread for the right price. I explained that we only needed half and he promptly produced a half pound coin as change. I urged him to join ranks with the honest restaurant owner to spread the word that it pays to be that way and handed the change back to him as a tip.

Back at the port gate our crazy friend was even more crazy. He was just starting to change from amusing to irritating when the Inschape representative came by and told us to follow a police motorbike into the port. That in turn parked us in a large area marked us “passenger waiting area”. It was 10:00 and we were the only people there. We knew we had a long time to wait, so pulled out some chairs and made ourselves comfortable. I tried to be a little productive with writing and sorting photos, but was strangely cold. The sun was hidden behind clouds and the wind was fairly strong and even though we managed to hide from it behind our car, the temperature was still low.

A while later a man with a van arrived. He introduced himself as Sammy. He had been living and working in Egypt for a while and when the proverbial shit and fan met he flew his family to Holland where they were from. He had to come back to retrieve the family vehicle and that was the reason why he was joining us on the ferry. The second vehicle that arrived was a small delivery truck with Swiss number plates. That was inhabited by a father and son who looked distinctly Egyptian. We soon found out that the father had been living and working in Switzerland for some time and that the son was an extended school holiday thanks to the revolution. All three the people we met were supposed to leave on the ferry the week before which was the one that Catt really wanted to be on. The reason the Egyptians did not make it was because the truck was stolen. They managed to get it back, but had to replace the wheels before they could drive it. That was also in Cairo, so the damage caused to Maggie in the city seemed almost insignificant. Sammy did make it. He drove there from Cairo and did everything he was supposed to do only to learn that the ferry had been delayed by bad weather. He then found out that the bad weather was due to continue and decided to postpone for one week. Another Egyptian man arrived in a shiny new Mercedes Benz but he could not speak English, so I never got the gossip on him.

Just as I started thinking that we were going to be the only people on the boat a nice shiny red Land Rover and a VW camper arrived. The Landy was Worchester (UK) and was actually heading to Worchester (RSA). They had just come off the ferry we were trying to board and ended up at the same place to do their paperwork for entering Egypt. I did NOT envy them! They told us that they had a plan to go through Libya from Tunisia. They ahd postpone their trip because of the riots in Tunisia some months before. Then they went there, got rained on in the Sahara for the single night they could spend there, and could not get into Libya because of the unrest there. They then had to get a ferry from Tunis to Italy and the Vicemar from Venice to Alexandria. The whole thing cost them two weeks in time and a mountain of cash! For the second time in ten minutes I did NOT envy them!

While we were chatting the customs guys arrived with their paperwork. Our company rep helped me to fill it all in and told me the fees to pay. He took our passports and walked off to immigrations. All I had to do was wait. I kinda liked that. The man who stamps the Carnet arrived shortly after that with a mechanic in tow. The latter took stencil rubbings of chassis and engine numbers but also travelled with a number punch. When I asked what that was for he simply said that if he could not find the engine number, he made one. And to think that was the single thing I had feared since discovering our lack of number on the Zimbabwe Border almost ten months before. Not that we had problem any longer and our engine number passed without as much as a second glance.

The Carnet guy marched us into a building and made us sit on a bench. Sammy the Dutchman who was borne in Iraq spoke fluent Arabic and perfect English and he made it his duty to help me out with everything. That was nice. I was worried about the fact that I did not have a Traffic Police Clearance and also the fact that we had overstayed our customs permission by three weeks. I had my speech prepared about how we tried to extend it and failed because of the revolution and I was pretty sure that I could conjure up some tears if needed as well. However, all that happened was that my fine for overstaying was added onto the rest of the fees. It wasn’t like it was a bribe either. Well, perhaps it was, but there was a receipt… in Arabic… which I could not read. On the other hand, the fine was insignificantly small that was seriously never worth the effort of trying to find a customs official to extend our paperwork. Not only that, but the customs guy wrote my Traffic Police Clearance and asked me to sign it.

Don’t get me wrong, the process still took two hours because of the ridiculously slow pace of walking and the insane amount of tea drinking and cigarette smoking that was happening. The Swiss truck also had some issue with its paperwork and the Egyptian/Swiss father had to resort to some crying to get his stamp. But at the end of the day, with the help of the representative the process was easy, sensible and trouble free. The best of all was that he did not expect payment from us. Perhaps some Baksheesh because he did not know me, but it’s not like they could take the stamp back!

When we were all done with our stamps and tears we walked back to our vehicles and followed another motorbike to another hangar sized building. There a grumpy man looked inside each of the vehicles and after pointing at our packed rucksacks or suitcases, marched us all into the building. It took a while to understand what was happening but when I did I wanted to laugh! They were scanning our luggage. That was it. Once they were happy with that we carried the same luggage back to the cars and drove to the ship. We parked at the ramp where we all got out and walked a couple of dozen paces away. Another truck came by and scanned our vehicles… with the luggage we carried inside them. When they were happy we were not carrying the world’s supply of contraband or explosives, we started our engines and were directed onto the ship.

A distinctly Italian man shouted “Bo journo” as we handed over our boarding pass. It should have been quite clear that our car was longer than 4.9 meters and higher than 1.85 meters and that our fee should have been about 200 Euro more than what we paid, but according to the website the fine was small enough for me to take the chance. He didn’t care either. He simply smiled and asked us to drive to the top deck. We were parked next to Sammy’s van and watched the others roll up and park while taking our bags (The ones that had been scanned) as well as some other things (That were not scanned) form the car. When everyone was there we were walked to reception.

So that was it. We were four vehicles and 6 passengers in total on a ship with a top deck of 187 meters long. Maggie looked like a tiny speck on the massive expanse of blue runway and was literally tucked into one tiny corner of it. The distinctly Italian reception man assumed we were the Du Plessis’ as we were the only couple there and instructed his distinctly Philippine helper to show us to our cabin. I walked with a smile. In fact, I couldn’t really believe it! The ship was the cleanest thing that we had seen since leaving Kenya. It was only built in 2010 and was sparkling! The crew obviously took pride in their work. Apart from that, as an establishment of accommodation, it was the fanciest that we had seen on the whole trip! Our cabin was right in the front of the ship, facing forward. It had two comfortable beds in, a wardrobe and a full bathroom. Out of pure habit I turned the shower on to see the water pressure and feel the temperature and I was immediately impressed. In fact, I was so impressed that as soon as I locked the door I had a shower. It was 16:00.

Catt and I settled into our new environment without any problems at all. We were allowed to go to the car whenever we wanted, which made me giggle again about the bag scanning incident, and the coffee shop was open about twenty hours a day. The restaurant had specific times, but really expensive compared to what we were used to. Besides, we had enough food to keep us busy for most of the journey and we packed our MSR stove and coffee making implements. After a short tour of the ship we returned to our comfortable cabin and tried our very best to use up the Internet Data we had bought in Egypt. That was done while drinking a bottle of wine and even making dinner on the stove without setting off the smoke or fire alarm. I thought that was pretty handy.

It was 20:30 when we set sail. The harbour was smooth and the ship steady and while we were slightly inebriated from the wine we fully understood the significance of that moment. That was the moment that we left Africa. We had managed to cross the whole continent from foot to tip. (Tunisia has the most northern tip of Africa, but we counted Alexandria as the most northern achievable place) It had taken us 340 days in which we drove just more that 45 000 kilometres. We had survived both a referendum in Sudan and a revolution in Egypt and contrary to how I always thought I would feel at that moment, the only thing that came to mind was relief. I was honestly relieved to leave Egypt. I was relieved that we managed to get Maggie out and that we were still safe, which was funny considering that we were at sea in a metal tub. I was suddenly totally and utterly exhausted as well and fell asleep quickly while noticing the creaking of the metal frames around me.

Day 341:

There was obviously no need to wake up early. In fact, there wasn’t really any need to wake up at all. When we did wake up we noticed that it was 10:00. The skies were cloudy and the sea was rough! I could feel the nose rise out of the water and felt and heard it crashing into the waves. I even braved a little look out the porthole and saw a mass of white tops on huge waves. I was more than a little scared to be honest and just layed back down and closed my eyes again.

As a teenager I was sea sick once. After that I never really suffered form motion sickness again until the end of 2006 when Catt and I joined some friends on an overnight sail off the southern coast of England. That was on an 80 foot sailing yacht and we were watching the waves break over the nose of the boat. I never threw up, but I felt fairly rough on that occasion. While remembering all that I looked over at Catt who had turned a visibly green. With every crash of the bow into the waves I could see her flinch and not enjoy the ride in the least. At some point I braved a prone position again and even managed to have a shower. When I emerged from the tiny bathroom I was feeling rough as a goat’s knee but still voted that shower as the best we had seen since leaving our house.

Catt managed a shower an hour or so later and came to the same conclusion, but we also agreed that lying down was by far the most comfortable and that we should do as much of that as possible. In the late afternoon when the sea had calmed down some we even braved an exploratory wonder around the ship. We found Sammy at the coffee shop and invested in two large cappuccinos. They were FANTASTIC! I suddenly realized that I did not even really like the coffee in Egypt even though I had been drinking it for six weeks. Then again, the Italians did know how to make coffee!

We returned to our cabin before long and braved another meal made on the stove. We fired up the Mac laptop and watched a movie until we both fell asleep, comfortably.

Day 342:

I woke up in the early morning with water splashing on our porthole. At first I couldn’t work it out. We were, conservatively estimated, about 30 meters higher than the water and I was sure it wasn’t raining. Without opening my eyes I felt the bow of the boat rise out of the water again and I heard the crack as it crashed down into the waves again. I felt the movement as the massive weight broke the surface and then I heard it again?: Water splashing on the window. I got up slowly and moved the curtain away to have a look and immediately wished that I had not.

Right at that moment the bow was coming down. I saw it crash into the water and felt the shock through my legs. I saw the splashed water rise high above the ocean and watched as it hit our porthole. I promptly lay back down and closed my eyes. I knew it was going to be a long day!

I think it was about mid morning when I heard a knock at the door. We were both awake, showered and dressed but feeling terribly sea sick from the rough ride. I got up, unlocked the door and opened it. It was the reception man. He had come by to make sure we were still alive as he had not seen us that day. I assured him that we were surviving but he probably saw the colour Catt had turned because he then told me that the weather was due to improve dramatically in the afternoon.

He wasn’t wrong. After finishing the last our cheese, tomatoes and crackers for lunch the sea was perfectly calm and it felt the boat wasn’t moving at all. Looking out the portal I saw a straight horizon. I saw the wake the boat was making but no waves at all. That was more like it. It was comfortable to get up and walk around and we decided to brave the communal area again. By the coffee shop we found Akhmed, the Egyptian son and Sammy having a chat. We invested in another cappuccino and joined them.

Akhmed was showing us all some video that he had shot in Cairo. In it he was wearing a pro revolution T shirt. He had an Egyptian flag painted on his face and he was in Tahrir Square. He was pointing the camera anywhere he liked and he seemed to “interview” people as he walked. The date on the screen was 25 January 2011, the day it all kicked off. It was amazing to see! The emotions of the people were incredibly prominent in the footage and he even got some shots of the army trying to disperse the crowds. He was proud that he was there when it all happened and even though he obviously did not fully comprehend what was going on, he assured us that he was looking forward to the “New Egypt” as it had been called.

That evening we ate in the restaurant. Catt and I was obviously not schooled in the way of ferry restaurants as we just said “yes” to every offer. We ended up with bread rolls, pasta, meat and salad each and a bill of 36 euro. We did not realize that every item carried its own price tag and no one ever told us what that price tag was. In fact, with the portion sizes they were dishing up we could have shared one plate of pasta and a salad for about 10 Euros. Saying that, the food was incredible and we did manage to finish it all… eventually. We were also told that we were not allowed any animal products into the EU. That meant that we had 4 litres of milk to get through before making port. We expertly managed half of it over dinner, but could just not face any more of the white stuff.

It was about 21:00 by the time we managed to roll ourselves back to our cabin. The boat had started pitching again and we decided not to brave the movements for too long. We made it with not a moment to spare as well. By the time we settled into bed with a movie and some wine the crashing had started again. We were safe and managed to fall asleep without too many problems.

Day 343:

The alarm woke us at 6:00. The sun was just about to peer over the blue horizon and the sea was as calm as a bathtub. The Egyptians had a saying for that: A sea as smooth as oil slick. We were being a little lazy and still slumbering when a knock on the door informed us that we had to get ready for our arrival in Venice, Italy. So we got up, had a nice long hot shower without the added challenge of everything moving around us. We packed all our stuff into the bags that were scanned in Alexandria, took the bags that was not scanned as well and marched downstairs for some good old Italian coffee.

In the coffee shop we found the rest of the troop. Akhmed and his dad were still drinking milk and eating cheese in a desperate attempt to finish their supply. We were roped into the mission and Sammy’s help was also sought. Standing in a row, drinking the moo juice and looking through the massive windows we could see land. We were sailing in between two massive lines of light almost resembling landing lights and even though it looked like an industrial area, we could still make out the ancient buildings of Venice in the far away distance. I think that was the moment.

That was the moment where both Catt and I got shocked to the reality that we had left Africa. It was the moment when we realized that we had arrived in the first world of Europe and that our trip was nearing its end. We never intended to “tour” Europe on that trip. Our plans were simply to take the fastest and shortest route to the UK, trying to make it on the fuel that we had on board. We had no guidebooks, no maps, no real plans and only a vague idea of the direction we needed to go. It was by no means a sad occasion. I was definitely still very relieved to have left Egypt in tack and even though it was a little scary, I was also very much looking forward to being in Europe.

While waiting for the expert captain of the massive vessel to reverse us into dock we sat down at a table and had our very first look at a map of where exactly we were and where we needed to go. Our next main destination was Paris and as I drew a line there from Venice I saw the name “Interlaken” appear from under my finger. I felt a sudden rise in adrenalin in my body and a smile appeared on my face. Interlaken, Switzerland… A stone’s though away from one of my favourite places in the whole world and it was pretty damn feasible to go there! I had been there a few times before in my life, on BASE jumping expeditions to Lautebrunen town and the Jungfrau valley. I knew of places to stay there and we had a couple of friends who were professional skydivers there… So it was decided, that would be our destination for the day.

When the ship finally made port we watched as the massive ropes were winched in place to keep her steady. The ramp came down and we all started the engines of our vehicles to let them warm up a little. It was pretty chilly outside, but nowhere near as bitter as I had expected it to be. Sammy was let loose first and we waved good bye as he drove off. Next was the Egyptian businessman with his shiny Mercedes and then we were allowed to drive. On the dock we were stopped by a man in uniform and shown to the immigration porter cabin. There someone took our passports, disappeared into the building and came back two minutes later with a “welcome to Italy” smile. Customs was next. The guys there asked me to open the back doors. They had one look, asked if we had more than 10 000 euro in cash with us and waved us through. So that was it: A six minute border crossing and we were in the European Union. It was almost a total anti climax compared to the ordeal of getting the bloody visa to go there.

When we drove out of the port without a single idea of where to go we simply followed the Swiss/Egyptian man in his truck. We knew he was heading to Geneva so he could not have been too far off track. We did stop at the first service station on the high way though. Our windows were so dirty that I could hardly see out of them and we also decided to take the plunge and invest in a road map. I had hoped to have GPS maps for Europe by then. In fact, the day we left home we were at a party with the big boss of Garmin in South Africa, Fraser Mchenry. Fraser promised then to provide us with any maps we desired and I started contacting him from Sudan. At first he was very helpful and asked the serial numbers of our GPS’s but when the time came to send us a link to download the maps from he all but disappeared. He ignored me like an Egyptian traffic light and no amount of emails or messages I sent got a single response. If I knew he was going to go back on his word like that I would have bought the damn maps off the Garmin website. Then again, I was having a great deal of inner conflict about supporting a company which managed to make great promises and let me down twice!

Anyway, we found a map book in the service station. The scale wasn’t ideal, but we could at least see the towns we had to head for and the road numbers we were to use. The other nice thing was that everything seemed to be sign posted… In letters we knew and a language we managed to decipher. The only two things left to do were to find an internet connection to get our Interlaken friend’s phone number off Facebook and actually drive there. The driving part was incredible! The double lane hi way was smooth and perfect and although there was more traffic than we had been used to on major roads, everyone was actually following the rules. The most aggressive man did not have right of way any more. The trucks were not reversing back to the turn off they had missed and all the vehicles seemed to be road worthy. The slower ones (Like us) drove in the slow lane and the faster lanes were left for passing. It took at least three hours to get used to that!

We pulled over at a road side hotel and coffee shop at some point. The wifi was expensive but fast and the coffee was affordable and delicious! Tony from Interlaken on the other hand did not have his phone number on Facebook, so I had to just send him a message and hope for the best. It was a beautiful sunny day in Europe and I was pretty sure that if the skydiving season had started in Switzerland he would be jumping all day. I was a little worried that we were too early for that and that he was somewhere else in the world waiting for the season to start, but at least I knew of budget accommodation in his area.

Our first toll gate cost is 13 Euro officially making it the most expensive toll we had ever paid! We did try to avoid those roads but every time we left the hi way it took us 40 minutes to find an on ramp again. We had wasted at least an hour and a half doing that so had to make the decision to simply pay the money. For lunch we walked into a super market and were utterly shocked by the prices! We bought some bread, some cheese and a single tomato that cost the same as a kilogram in Egypt. We came up to the Italian/Swiss border at some point and fully expected customs to stop us. They seemed totally uninterested though and simply showed us through to the Swiss toll booth. There we paid 35 Euro for something I guessed to be road tax. Not the most expensive we had paid, but still unexpected.

Once in Switzerland we started the navigation process again. The problem with the paper maps were that they did not show mountains. Everything was two dimensional and the road numbers did not come with any information. We found our desired turn off without any problem what so ever only to arrive at a barrier informing us that the mountain pass we wanted to use was closed because of snow. We couldn’t see any snow at that point, but there was just no way to pass. We found the hi way again and an hour later the second place we could change direction to Interlaken. We drove through a village called “Wasser” that resembled the kind of photos you see on chocolate wrappers and found our very first sign indicating that we were heading in the right direction. As we left the village we found another barrier: Pass closed… We reluctantly turned around and stopped next a builder’s van with two guys in it. I tried, in my very best Swiss/German (Both words I remembered) to ask for directions. They tried in their very best two words of English to help me and eventually we all managed what we wanted by playing an expert game of charades and pointing at the maps. I was dead tired and because we had had no word from Tony I was beginning to think that he was not in town. I suggested that we simply find a place to stay in Wasser and mission on the next day.

There were two hotels we could see. The mountains towering over the village were totally covered in snow and we could even make out some ski slopes in the distance. The first hotel was small and quaint and typically Swiss and charged a whopping $60 a person a night. The second was bigger and more modern but charged the same for a room with a shared bathroom. I suddenly felt less tired and more determined to find our friend Tony, another hour’s drive away.

It was clear that we had arrived in the mountains by then. The road consisted of a massive network of tunnels and mountain passes and the one we were driving on was obviously the only road that was never closed. One tunnel we used was 18km long. I mean seriously! An 18 km long tunnel complete with a junction in the middle. Who thought of that one? The next was a mere 4km long and so it continued. We got spat out the other side close to a village called Miringen and the last stretch to Interlaken was mostly over land. We arrived in town as the sun hit the horizon and the street lights came on. We did not break rule number one… Then again, we were also not in Africa any more.

It had been ten years since the last time I had been in Interlaken and even then I took a train and did not know the road networks at all. I knew it was a small town but I still had no idea how to go about tracking down our friend. So we simply drove into the town centre, parked up and walked into the very first shop we saw. It happened to be a ski rental shop who was also a booking agent for other outdoor activities. I asked the guy behind the counter if he spoke English. He smiled and said “yes” in an unmistakable Australian accent. I then asked if he by any chance knew a guy called Tony Shimmin. Again he smiled and said “Of course, everyone knows Tony”. He even had his cell phone number and he knew exactly where he was at that time! He was a ski instructor in the winter and his girlfriend, Heather, was working in a ski shop. That was handy…

When I phoned Tony he was still on the slopes. It was one his friend’s 50th birthday and they were celebrating their way down the mountain to a town nearby. He instantly invited us to join him at a pub in that village and then insisted that we stay with him and Heather for the night. Perfect! The only confusing thing was that we could not see any snow. It was hard to believe that he was actually skiing 10 kilometres away from where we were. So we hopped back into Maggie and drove to Grindewalt, found the snow, parked up and walked to the Avocado Bar as instructed.

When we sat down in the massive leather couches in front of the roaring log fire and the barman asked us what we wanted to drink all my energy suddenly left me. It had taken us ten hours from leaving the Vicemar Ferry to get there which made our average speed 53km/h. The roads were fantastically good and the scenery impressively interesting. The driving wasn’t particularly stressful, but it still took the whole day and there was one very distinct flaw in our planning: Switzerland wasn’t part of the EU. It did not use euro, but Swiss Francs and we did not have any of those. Apart from that little issue, the area we were in was probably one of the most expensive places in the world, especially in the ski season. The barman changed some euro to francs at a very favourable rate… for him. And we ordered two coffees at $3.50 each. Tony arrived before we had finished them and after a short reunion flawlessly made fun of me for not having an alcoholic beverage in front of me. He remedied that quite quickly by placing an exceedingly large glass of beer on the table.

I had never been a great lover of beer. Don’t get me wrong, on a hot summers day what I am thirsty and sweaty I like it as much as the next guy, but we were in the Swiss Alps… In the snow. I took a tentative sip and felt my eyes open wider and wider. It was delicious! It was a million times better than the beer I tasted in Egypt, a trillion times better than the beer in Ethiopia and a thousand times better than the other beer I had consumed in Africa. Perhaps it was just because I was so tired and so relieved to be there, but I loved every bit of that draught.

We met the man whose birthday it was. His name was Cregal. He was born Swiss, unlike the majority of people in the pub, and his biggest claim to fame was that he was the last surviving high altitude shepherd. Every summer he took 500 or so sheep over two glaciers to pastures as high as 9 000 feet above sea level. There they were fed and fattened up and reportedly became the best and tastiest mutton in the world. He had pre orders from restaurants all over Europe and the amount of money he asked for his services was absolutely astonishing! He was also a world class skier and even though he hated teaching novices, he had to do something for money in the winter. His passion though was to mentor someone he saw as worthy and that young man was right there next to him. His other passion was single malt whiskey and he insisted that I shared one with him. A single measure in Switzerland was 40cl, not 25 as I was used to, but then again I never ordered singles at 25cl’s. The whiskey was smooth and oaky and incredibly delicious! When he offered the second round I managed to use “I’m driving” as an excuse to sneak out and drag Tony with us. It was 22:30.

Tony and Heather’s house in Interlaken was as authentic Swiss as the high altitude shepherd. It was the second floor of a three storey high wooden structure and came complete with flower boxes over all opening windows and an enclosed balcony where you could take your shoes and coat off. The furnishings were carefully planned to be functional but not over bearing and the heating was turned up to “tropical” in line with the temperatures of Heather’s native land, Zimbabwe. We had arrived an hour and a half later than Tony had promised Heather we would be there but she simply took it in her stride. He gave us a delicious plate of food and opened a bottle of wine and welcomed us like old friends.

Day 344:

We didn’t wake up as late as I thought we would. The sun was shining from a cloudless sky and the temperature was surprisingly warm. In fact, a T-shirt was all that was needed to stay comfortable in the sun outside. I abused Heather’s espresso machine a few times before lingering in their fabulous shower and getting ready to take on the day.

Tony had offered us some old skis and boots for the day, but the $60 a person ski pass was not really within our budget. Instead we decided to go into the Jungfrau valley and take a free train up to a village called Wengen. I had to let Maggie idle a little to warm up and get used to the mountain air. In a place BASE jumpers often refer to as “The valley” I parked up and showed Catt the massive towering cliffs I had jumped off. As if on cue I heard the familiar cracking sound of a parachute opening and saw the two jumpers gently glide down and land close by. It wasn’t anyone I knew, but it was nice to see anyway. The valley floor was still covered in snow but it was warm. I mean really warm! There was certainly no need for jackets and I even considered a pair of short pants. We parked Maggie on some white stuff and took some pictures before returning to the village and parking in the free car park behind the Horner Pub, famous from a scene of one of the earlier James Bond films. (I forget which one)

The short walk to the train station took us only a few minutes and the ski train up the mountain delivered us to the picturesque and perfectly Swiss Alps village of Wengen before mid day. It was like being in a fairy tale! The village had a little snow left on roof tops and sidewalks and the village green was still perfect white. On the outside though we saw the groomed slopes and the paths used by everyone to ski back to their lodgings. We took a long walk to the highest point in the village and watched in awe as the many people came whizzing past us. We looked back at the village on the far slope and I just smiled. It was incredibly beautiful and very “Heidi” and it was really the last place in the world I had expected to be towards the end of a trip through Africa.

It was late afternoon by the time we made it back to casa de Tony and Heather. I filled out fresh water tank with melted glacier water and tried to wash the worst of the dust of Maggie. We had some delicious Italian coffee while watching the sun go down and for dinner…. Wait for it… We had a c cheese fondue… In the Swiss Alps… Incredible!

If I had to do it all again:

Don’t go to Egypt?

Well, apart from that… We never could have guessed that our hotel in Alexandria was across the road from a State Police Building. We could not have planned for the sites and museums in that town to be closed because of that little thing they refer to as “The Revolution” and we did not exactly plan to have such a limited time there. I think that Alexandria as a city could be quite pleasant when you’re not stressed about personal safety and getting your car containing your life’s savings out of the country. To be perfectly honest though, I do not see myself going back there. It’s funny as well, a week after leaving Ethiopia we started thinking that perhaps it was not as bad as what we had thought when we were there. Now, a week after leaving Egypt I feel that it was perhaps a lot worse than what I had thought it was when I was there. Apart from SCUBA diving in the Red Sea I can not see a single reason for me to ever return there and even then I would only consider an all inclusive package holiday where I never need to deal with anyone or anything or “negotiate” the rip off price of a cup of tea. For the hand full of honourable people we met I truly hope that the country recovers form the unrest in a positive and democratic way and that tourism returns when it is deemed stable again. But honestly, that will all have to happen without me being there. I have had as much of that place as I could take in a lifetime.

Now the Vicemar Ferry: That was brilliant! It was clean and modern and the staff were professional and helpful. When coming from Europe I’m sure the 25 euro a day for three meals would be perfectly affordable as well. If the trip is all about Africa, it is the cheapest and quickest way to get to or from the continent and the paperwork on both sides is straight forward and easy. The Vicemar One gets a huge thumbs up from us.

The trip to Interlaken and meeting with Tony was an unexpected bonus as well. In fact, the only thing that I would change is never to trust Garmin’s South Africa’s management again and buy decent maps before I get to a place.

As a note: Andrew Mchenry, big boss of Garmap promised us a large sponsorship in exchange for track logs. The principals and amount was all agreed on, but then he recanted without explanation and started ignoring all my attempts at communication. Fraser Mchenry, Andrew’s brother and big boss of Garmin in South Africa wanted to give us free GPS’s which we graciously declined and then promised to give us free maps whenever we needed. He too spectacularly recanted on that agreement and in true Mchenry fashion is still ignoring every email and message I send him. It is unfortunately almost impossible these days not to have a Garmin GPS for travelling, but I will try my very best not to support those two guys ever again.