I pedal up a barricaded overpass, above another busy highway, cars roaring beneath and alongside. Cairo gradually recedes behind me; the light blue skies, streaked white with wisps of cloud, reclaim the horizon, as the towers of bricks and glass lower, and then disappear altogether; the traffic thins, and the road stretches out towards fields of coarse yellow sands. I ride 140km across the desert flats, trucks flowing past, the land dry and empty. I reach Suez and sit by the canal and watch colossal tankers passing by, stacked high with colourful containers, which look no bigger than blocks of Lego on the huge decks.
I take a tunnel under the canal and ride south; the blue waters of the Red Sea to the east, desert plains to the west. There are patches of heavily watered crops; isolated squares of green amidst the still dust. By the water, tall charcoal-tipped chimneys rise from oil refineries, exhaling continuous orange flames and sending waves of black vapour into the sky. Further south the coast is full of high-rise resorts, each protected by tall steel gates, each marked by a wide billboard, showing smiling families in western swimsuits, enjoying the beach. The road is quiet and the wind blows behind me, propelling the bicycle effortlessly south.
The resorts die away and the road hugs the shore; a thin beach separates the tar from the water, and to the west coarser sands roll out to meet banks of rough rock. The sun is beginning to set, the sky beginning to glow a deep yellow, and the contours of the thick-grained desert beginning to sharpen. An old motor-bike chugs slowly past me, a family crammed onto the narrow frame. A few miles on I pass the bike standing isolated on the empty shore, and the mother, her headscarf quivering in the breeze, and then her children turn to watch and wave as I ride by.
The road leaves the sea and winds inland through sandy hills. There are smooth dunes of fine beige sands, peppered with black rocks, and worn banks of sandstone further from the road. Shallow channels run between the dunes, carved out by long-ago rains. I wheel my bike up the dry bed, over grey rocks and pale green scrub, and pitch my tent beneath a lone thorn tree by the bank of the wadi.
I wake while the sun is pale and crimson, and the grey light all around seems to come from elsewhere. I ride east, away from the coast, and dark mountains begin to rise from the sands, low and shallow at first; gentle slopes of brown scree falling into the dust, then darkening and towering above the road, blocking the morning sun, until all around I see nothing but rock. I reach the outskirts of a village; there are date palms and crumbling outhouses, and herds of goats grazing on thorn trees that grow in the crescents of sand beneath the rocks. Further on, there are walled gardens and low houses in courtyards, cluttered in the narrow flats between the mountains and the road. Children run towards the bicycle, pointing and shouting, and I feel like I’m in Africa again. The voices die down and the palms disappear and I turn off the road, and roll out my mat, and fall asleep.
I haven’t been up long and I see another cyclist pedaling towards me. We stop and sit on the roadside and talk about the journeys. He has come from England and is riding around the world; the length of Africa before him, then Asia, Australia, the Americas. He says he will be away for five years. I tell what I can about the roads south, and he about the roads east. I have only two months to reach Istanbul, and I realise the journey is near its end. We ride our separate ways and a little later I reach St. Katherine’s Monastery.
It is strange to ride among the quiet desert mountains, pedaling slowly against the oncoming wind, and to come to a village in their centre, and to see hundreds of tourists. All around there are big groups of South Koreans, Russians, French, English, some in matching luminous t-shirts, others having their visit filmed. We file along the high monastery walls, the slopes of Mt Sinai above, past the old stone well, beneath the pale, rose-brick bell-tower, and into the chapel, amidst all the dangling lanterns, and bronze urns, and chandeliers.
Within a few miles I am back alone among the silent brown mountains, climbing for the first time since Ethiopia, and then freewheeling, for mile after mile, hurtling towards Sinai’s eastern shores. I reach Nuweiba, and ride to the port, and soon I am on the boat, bound for Jordan.
Have a look at Steve’s blog, which is brilliant, at: http://www.cyclingthe6.blogspot.com
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