Arriving at the Sudanese Consulate at 11.00 I was told that my visa was ready, and he would bring my passport as soon as he had finished attending to the pile of applications on his desk. Take a seat in the waiting room, and I will be with you shortly, he said. 

Fortunately, there was another overlander in the room I could talk to in the meantime. A young Canadian fellow, tall and fit, cycling the exact same route as I was doing on my motorcycle. He had put aside one year to do it. I have the greatest admiration and respect for people embarking on this type of adventure. During my travels, also when I spent a month in Morocco, I have met many cyclists, some well advanced in terms of age, doing incredible distances in mountainous areas at high temperatures. I told Tyler that he had my full respect! Even he had been followed for days by a police escort, trundling along for miles and miles at 20 km per hour. He showed me a couple of pictures of the places he had been sleeping - the floor of a restaurant and a police compound. We were both starved for conversation, and spent quite a while chatting, until sadly, we had to part ways. What a fantastic guy, returning to Canada in a years time to start his studies to become a teacher. I would love to be one of his pupils!

An hour after arriving at the consulate, I could finally hold my passport with the Sudanese visa. I asked the consular whether he would object to me giving the visa a big kiss, and told him I had heard that the Sudanese people are considered som of the worlds friendliest. He didn’t object, and said to me, pointing at his skin - I have black skin and a white heart! Although I didn’t quite get it we all laughed. I said goodbye to Tyler, and was on my way.

Twelve o’clock is not the ideal time to travel in the desert, but I wanted to get on with the 300 km trip through the desert from Aswan to Abu Simbel. The loneliest stretch of road I have ever travelled. It’s a good thing I don’t mind sweating, and I am sure the last 6 weeks in temperatures between 30-40 degrees every single day, has acclimatized me somewhat. There are ways of making it a bit more pleasant to drive a motorcycle, dressed in black with a full face helmet on your head, in extreme heat. Apart from my jacket I only wear a thin synthetic T-shirt on my upper body. I had plenty of water, so taking it off, completely drenching it in water, and putting it back on again gives me 30 minutes relief!

From Thursday afternoon til Friday afternoon in Islamic Egypt, everything closes down. Arriving in Abu Simbel around four o’clock the last ferry had sailed, and I would have to sit it out until early Saturday morning, when the next ferry departed. I struck gold, when I stumbled upon a small Nubian style hotel, called the Tuya. It would also give me a chance to visit the Abu Simbel complex, the second biggest tourist attraction in Egypt, after the Giza pyramids.

The Aswan High Dam, which I had crossed a couple of times when I was in Aswan, was build with Russian help and finance, in the early sixties, and opened in 1970. It delivers about half og Egypt’s power requirements, and produces up to 10 billion kilowatt per hour of hydroelectric power. Having been built across the Nile river, it allowed for the regulation of the water flow, to avoid the flooding and drought problems associated with the water supply of the Nile, before the dam was built. Lake Nasser, a massive water reservoir, was created by building the Aswan Dam. The downside was the relocation of some 90.000 Nubians to other areas. Also a number of ancient Egyptian monuments would be submerged in conjunction with the creation of lake Nasser. UNESCO stepped in, and many countries contributed financially and through expert assistance, to move a number of monuments. The most famous of these are the Abu Simbel temples, built by king Ramses II, a monument for himself and another for his favorite wife Nefertari. In a massive project, the temples were cut into pieces weighing from 20 to 30 tons, moved to higher ground and re-assembled. Seeing them today, you would not know that they had been cut. The original temples were cut directly out of the solid rock.

Apart from a couple of busses in the morning with tourists, the place was almost deserted. There is even an airport at Abu Simbel, built for the sole purpose of bringing tourists to view the temples. I did see a couple of planes landing. It is also possible to see the temples on a cruise ship, taking a 3 day “temple tour” along lake Nasser, viewing several monuments along the way. Gives you an idea how massive this man made lake really is.

Early tomorrow morning I will be heading for the ferry to Sudan. Until then!