Cross Egypt Challenge - October 24 & 25, 2015 - Cairo, Suez Canal and Red Sea

October 24 - Up again at the crack of dawn, quick buffet breakfast and on the scooters.  Fueled up at the hotel parking lot and off we went – heading to downtown Cairo!  I am so impressed with the police escorts that we have had along the way.  All through Giza and Cairo, the police would be at every on ramp blocking the traffic so we could enter without too much chaos.  Fantastic!  Of course, everyone in Cairo was late to work this morning because of us!  What a sight we were, a long line of two wheelers, first the bikes, then the scooters all in stagger formation.  Wow!

 

We rode past the Giza Pyramids and then onto the Cairo Ring Road.  It was so awesome to be able to ride through the 3^rd largest city in the world on scooters with no traffic to deal with.  Just wow!  Exiting Cairo we merged onto the Cairo Suez Road.  We had police escort the entire way, cars, trucks, jeeps and motor cops, even canine.

Our group had somehow improved overnight and pretty much maintained a good formation with no incident.  For the most part the roads were in fair to good condition but we did run into some stretches of road construction and fortunately no issues.  We rode single file through the construction zones.

As we rode along, the Suez canal was on our left and we saw tons of freighters and big ships.  Our route took us south with the Red Sea on our left.  On our right was dirt.  Yup, lots and lots and lots of dirt.  We stopped for our first fuel break and motored on again heading south.

 This desert is barren.  No vegetation of any kind.  Just lots and lots of rocks, dirt and sand!

 Typical fuel stop along side the highway.

 It's a LONG line of scooters :-)

 Setting up for lunch.

 Taking a chill on the scooter!

 Our fueling station.

A long line of scooters.

 See that hill?  That was the ladies loo today :-)

 See those guys out there in the desert?  That was their loo!

Just a peek of the Red Sea on the horizon.

Oil rigs in the Red Sea.

Our lunch break was at a parking area alongside the highway.  I really had to pee by now.  I didn’t pee at the first fuel stop because there wasn’t any place to go.  Not a bush or hill in sight.  Of course, all the men just turned their backs to the highway and let it go.  I was okay but as it got closer to lunch the more I had to pee.  I mean, really, really, had to pee.  At the parking area there were dirt hills here and there and most of the women made a beeline to the hills to take care of business.  We had been promised a port-a-potty for the ladies but that never materialized until today.  Of course, most of us had already taken care of business.  However, after a struggle of about 30 minutes with the port-a-potty tent, they finally got it set up.  Even so, the first woman who used it had to pick up the actual potty and place it inside the tent!!!

Later that night, one of the organizers mentioned the port-a-potty was full even though some ladies used the hills.  Eric responded that it was full after one woman because we all had to wait so long to go, hahahaha.  (Yes, I ALWAYS carry toilet paper).

Tuna and pita with juice and water and fig cookies for lunch.  Following our lunch break, we headed south again.  As the road narrowed into two lanes in each direction where we went into single file along the right shoulder so people could pass us down the center of the two lanes.  We were warned to beware of the curves but honestly, we laughed.  They would have been a blast on a motorcycle at maybe 65 mph.  But on a scooter at 35 mph they weren’t so difficult, hahahahaha.

It was hot, but as long as we were moving it was pleasant.  The scenery of the Red Sea was spectacular.  The scenery to the right – not so much! About the time my bottom was telling me it was time to quit, we pulled into our hotel for the night, the Cancun Resort on the Red Sea.  A bit dated, but quite nice.  Beautiful views from our room.  I’m not sure when a shower and shampoo ever felt soooooo good.  It’s been hot and humid and stop and go riding creates some nasty sweating.  I think a clothes wash will be heaven!

We finished the evening with dinner and then an ice breaker meeting.  I really didn’t want to do the meeting since I was so tired.  We have had activities every evening after riding and dinner and man, it was catching up to me.  However, we stayed for the ice breaker and I’m so glad we did.  It was good silly fun.  One of the organizers took all of our name badges and then redistributed them about the room.  We then had to find the person whose tag we got and introduce ourselves and find out something about them.  After we did that for a few minutes we then sat down and took turns telling the group about the person we met.  We had to pretend we were that person.  It was so much fun.  I met Otto from Canada.  When it was my turn, I stood up and pretended to be Otto and told the group that I loved to dance.  I wanted to dance some ballroom, foxtrot and west coast swing!  Hahahaha, it was good silly fun.  Many of the peeps were very good at mimicking and that made for some hilarity!

Then one or two peeps from each country represented got up and without saying anything, had to pantomime things that would describe their country.  Hahahaha, I was teamed up with Medium Mikey and we pantomimed baseball, football, cowboys & Indians and Harleys.  The ice breaker meeting was a great way to really meet the other peeps in the group so I’m very happy be stayed for it.

Then, it was off to bed and sound asleep.  Our 4:45 am wake up call was going to be coming soon!

October 25 – Yup, 4:45 am came really, really, really early.  We had a quick brekkie, got on the scooters, fueled up and hit the road.  By now, the group was getting the routine down quite well and what started as chaos was now pretty organized and quick. 

We started out in single file because we were still on the two lane road.   After a while the road opened up and again we were on two lanes in each direction with a very large median in between so we rode double stagger.  I was impressed with how well my group (#2) was doing.  Everyone was riding decently, keeping in their own position and no wandering around.  That made me more relaxed.  Again, the scenery was the Red Sea on our left and dirt, dirt, dirt on our right.  We did pass some military installation that had some interesting weapons and vehicles on display along the road but we didn’t stop.  Honestly, riding along in stagger formation with a bunch of folks you don’t really know doesn’t lend itself to sightseeing.  Mostly I was paying attention to the front.  Thank goodness Eric was always behind me so I didn’t have to worry about the rear!

We made a fuel stop that was fairly quick (no place for ladies to pee AGAIN) and then back on the scooters still going south.  By the time my bottom needed some relief and I really need to pee again, we stopped for lunch.  Yummy, today’s lunch was some beans with who knows what but it was delish!  Of course it was served with pita bread and our sweet treat was a croissant with chocolate filling with juice and water.  No covers were set up today and no port-a-potty either.  Hmmmmmm…….. this is beginning to be a theme.  No peeing for the ladies!

After lunch, we saddled up and headed to Hurghada.  Suddenly, I felt some rain drops.  Then more rain drops.  Then more really, really BIG rain drops.  No, no, no!  No rain in the Egypt East Desert!  Nothing grows out here, how could it possibly be raining?  Ah, it didn’t last long.  So, okay, I figured I’d dry out as we rode along.  I was wearing my riding gear – jeans and a t-shirt.  We stayed dry for only a few miles.  It cleared up as we got to the gates for Hurghada and picked up another police escort who led us into town and our hotel, the Marriott Red Sea Resort.  As we headed into town, the skies opened up with thunder and lightning and the rain poured on us.  I was soaked.  I mean, I was totally wet down to my socks and panties.  Then the water poured into my boots and filled up.  It was big, hard drops – almost hail and it hurt like hail!  I tried ducking down into the tiny windscreen but that only allowed the water to run down my back into my jeans.  I just love the feeling of water trickling down my……you know….

When we entered the city proper, the rain let up again.  This is a fairly large, tourist, vacation city, so we encountered a bit of traffic.  But, our escort was marvelous and stopped traffic so we could manage the round-a-bouts and streets without issue.  It was wonderful to pull into the Marriott lot, park the scooter for the day and get a room.  I was drenched and only wanted to locate my suitcase and room and change into some dry clothes.  The hotel staff was trying so hard to be gracious and wanted us to go into a reception room and have a drink and relax for a bit.  However, all of us who had been riding in the rain only wanted a room and dry clothes!  Of course, the organizers, van passengers and staff were dry because they were in the support vehicles so I hope then enjoyed the hospitality!

 Views from our delightful room at the Hurghada Marriott.

That pretty much brings us current on what’s been going on.  Internet services is extremely poor and we’ve been very busy with riding and then activities and then sleep.  It’s been a go, go, go event so far.  Frankly, while I’m loving the scootering and all, I’m looking forward to our few days in Luxor so we can re-charge a bit.

I know I’ve forgotten to touch on a bunch of things and maybe I’ll remember and post them later.  Also, I’ll try to pull some photos off the Internet from the Cross Egypt Challenge page.  Until then, you’ll just have to deal with my lousy point and shoot photos.

Oh, another thing…I’ll have to check the page but I’m not sure if the Spot tracker is working here or not.  It did die today and of course I didn’t bring any lithium batteries and can’t find any here.  I was paranoid of bringing any more batteries because of all the silly US TSA laws and rules about batteries.  I already had spares for my cameras, toothbrush, etc.  So I didn’t bring any lithiums.  My bad!

Thanks for following along.  More when we get to Luxor and I have time and internet!

Cross Egypt Challenge - October 22 & 23, 2015 - The Scooter Madness Begins!

Oh Yes, It’s an ADVENTURE!!!

We were up at 5 am on October 22 and down in the lobby waiting for our bus to Alexandria by 6 am.  Whew!  That’s early!  There was a group of 10 folks from Taiwan also waiting in the lobby along with a handful of other peeps.  We had to do a bit of a hike to get to the bus as it was too big to fit in the hotel parking lot.  It didn’t take long and we were loaded up and ready to roll.  Did I mention Cairo traffic is awful?  Well, our driver was awesome (of course he was driving a super huge coach) and we got on the equivalent of the Interstate and motored on down the highway in air conditioned comfort.

We made a short stop for coffee, bathroom, munchies, whatever here.  There was a McDonald’s next door but nobody made the effort to go there.  

Back on the bus we again motored closer to Alexandria, our destination for the night.  Upon arrival at the Hilton Alexandria, we met up with the rest of the riders and the organizers.  We spent the next several (too many) hours attending an overview meeting, getting our helmets badged with CEC logo and sponsor logos, and finally, getting our room.

Our organizers and staff for the CEC event.

My new LS2 helmet gets a new look!

I rather like the new look and think I just might keep it!

Don't look at the big butt.  Just look at the cool t-shirt.  We each got 3 t-shirts and one polo.  They call us the "Greensleeves" :-)

Our room was decent, but no view.  No problem, we didn’t spend much time there.  Shortly after getting our swag bag and the briefing, we all met in the parking lot for another bus ride.  This time for a late lunch at a restaurant called The Jungle.  There are almost 70 riders and another 8 or 10 peeps who are riding in a small bus for the Challenge.  We all had a great lunch of chicken and rice.  Interesting, the rice had a delicate cinnamon flavor.  I really liked that!  We also had two varieties of hummus and some kind of slaw salad along with puffed, hot pita bread.  There were white, almost pink, flamingos in the pond alongside the dining tables.  It was quite pleasant and unique.

Koi in the pond.

White (almost pink) flamingos!

I have no idea why my tongue is purple here....?  Weird

Our lunch at The Jungle.

After lunch we got back on the bus and went directly to where our scooters were being held.  Then everything turned into chaos.  We had already been assigned scooter numbers that matched our rider and helmet number.  I was number 11 and Eric got 16.  We thought we were going to get our scooters and bring them back to the hotel.  Nope – they had other plans.  I located my scooter and figured out the controls with the help of another rider.  Okay, no problem, hahahaha.  Oh, more hahahaha.  It turned out, we were to ride the scooters to an event being held at the City Center.  Okay, again no problem….hahahaha.  (I had no idea that the "launch" party was really going to be a huge bash!)

Here is a view of the scooters and our bus driver in the mirror!  He was phenomenal with that massive tour bus in tight places.

Nice parking lot, eh?  There is trash everywhere and is quite bothersome.

Me and my scooter for the next nine days.

By the time we pull out of the mud, dirt, uneven lot where the scooters were held, it was DARK! And, Thursday night is like our Saturday night.  Date night, night to go out and party.  Yippee!  Lots and lots of traffic and people out and about.  We lined up in our groups to ride to the City Center.  Eric and I were assigned group 2 (the motorcycles were group 1).  I fired up the little Sym 150 scooter, turned on the light and got in line.  Finally…….waiting……finally…..waiting…. we took off.  Now, this is my first time ever on a scooter, it’s dark, I’m in a muddy, dirt parking lot, its dark AND the traffic is simply beyond description.

I took a deep breath, pulled on the throttle and the little scooter started to move.  I had my eyes glued on the rider in front of me and entered the street.  Everyone HONKS and HONKS and HONKS.  Now, first time on a scooter, dark, brand new, never worn before helmet and tons and tons of traffic coupled with signs in a language I can’t read or understand.  Oh yes, I’m on an Adventure, no doubt, what could possibly go wrong?

Somehow, I managed to make the next five or six miles without incident.  Although, to be honest, my mouth went dry and I was terrified!  We went to the City Center which is a huge mall and parked in the back and waited and waited and waited.  I had no clue what was going on but I was going to find out shortly!  We were instructed to line up in our Group order and then they gave the signal to go!  And go we did – right to the front of the mall where we were a huge parade of bikes and scooters all branded with the Cross Egypt Challenge (both us and the bikes).  It was surreal.  We rode down an aisle thronged with peeps on both sides, cheering, giving high fives, thumbs up and waves.  There were all kinds of strobe lights, loud music and somewhat controlled chaos.

We actually rode into a blocked off areas after passing under an inflatable arch with the Cross Egypt Challenge logo printed on it.  Gee, I felt like a celebrity!  Really, I did.  Probably a good portion of Alexandria was there and wanted to touch, take a picture or talk to us.  Wow!  They had a big stage set up and a roped off area for us to park the scooters.  Fireworks, live music, laser light show, vendors, food booths and more! Full on television coverage! I had no idea the CEC was such a big deal.  Heck, I thought we were just going on a quiet adventure.  NOT!

It was a great big party.  One of Egypt’s most loved celebrity singer/dancer performed along with some other acts.  Speeches were made, thanks was given and the party lasted until 10 pm.  Man, was I tired.  So was everyone else who was riding.  We’d gotten up at 5 am that morning and now it was 10 pm.  We only had the one meal at The Jungle and it was wearing on us.  I’m thrilled for the organizers that it was such a big deal and a great turnout to launch the Challenge.  I was sorry for all of us that were beat tired and had to hang for the entire program before going back to the hotel.

I have to admit, the entertainment was stellar if a little loud.  But, then again, I’m old, and no longer like loud with flashing disco lights.  Regardless, we had no idea what a BIG DEAL the CEC is!!  We were treated like rock stars.  The media were there, television cameras, interviews.  Tons of people were there and we were the center of attention!  It lasted for hours – really – hours.  We picked up the bikes and left the dirt lot around 6:00 pm and got back to our rooms at 11:00 pm.  Long, long, long day packed full of excitement.  We were tired, very tired.  Fortunately we only had to ride the scooters to the back side of the mall and not through the traffic back to the dirt lot.

Back on the bus, we got to the hotel and straight to bed.  We had to get up at 5 am the next morning.

The alarm went off way too early but we dragged ourselves out of our snuggly, warm, cozy bed and got dressed.  We dragged our luggage to the breakfast buffet and had a few bites and next thing we knew, we were back on the bus to the City Center to pick up our scooters and really begin the adventure.

At the City Center mall getting our first fuel.  This turned out to be "the" fuel truck.  It is on the entire adventure with us and holds all of our fuel for all the scooters, motorcycles and probably the support vehicles as well.   It is specially set up with two pump nozzles, one on either side so scooters can form up two lines and get fuel at the same time to make re-fueling as quick and painless as possible.   (at least that was the plan!)  All fuel was included in the price of the CEC event.

We were sorted into our groups and began our journey from Alexandria to Cairo.  Yes, it was an adventure!  A number of Egyptian riding clubs met us at the City Center to ride along with us to Cairo.  This made our tour group massive!!!  I’m sure we were quite a sight to see and pretty much everyone who passed us had their cameras out taking pictures and videos.  We were definitely what was going on in Egypt!  At first, our group and probably all the groups were just a mad, hot mess.  People weren’t paying attention to lane discipline or keeping up so the group got the accordion effect going pretty good.  We stopped after about 100 kilometers for a fuel stop from the CEC fuel truck.  That was a new experience and took quite a bit of time.

Our first "on-the-road fuel stop.

Quite a long line of scooters!

By now we were riding on the freeway but our scooters would only go 59 mph, (just under 100 kph), tops.  Most often we seemed to be cruising at 55, (90 kph), but then we’d go 35 and then 55 and then slow to almost a stop.  Some of the slowdowns were caused by giant speed bumps – yup – giant speed bumps on the freeway!  We rode another 100 plus kilometers and stopped for another fuel stop and lunch. 

 Our stops took forever because of the number of people on this particular portion of the Challenge.  I’m sure tomorrow will be much quicker and more coordinated as we won’t have the hangers on and hopefully the peeps on the Challenge have sorted out how to ride in formation properly.

Here is a checkpoint.  We stopped only briefly as we had police escort and everything was already cleared for us.

Yippee, we arrived at our hotel, Hilton Golf Resort in Cairo.

The view from our room.

Yup, it’s just a big adventure!  We finished our ride today in a massive windstorm.  The wind was so strong on the last leg of our ride!  I thought we might be in for a sandstorm (how Egyptian is that!).  There was lots of sand being blown about but along with the sand was tons of plastic bags, sheets of plastic, huge sheets of cardboard and other debris.  I thought for sure one of the riders would catch some debris in the face and crash.  However, we all managed to power our way through it and arrive at a lovely Hilton hotel for the night.

We had police escorts for most of the trip today.  They were especially helpful by blocking and stopping traffic when we entered or exited the freeway.  We had dinner and off to bed.  A belly dancer was scheduled for our event later that evening but we were too tired and bed was calling.  No, bed was screaming at us!  It was good to go to bed :-)

Thanks for following.  Internet access is horrible but I'll try to get another blog out soon!

Cheers!