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"Now I�m stronger than yesterday" - Britney Spears

Final Middle Eastern report: Amman to Cairo (14 January 2002)

Roundtheworldbybike
2005-11-17 20:49:05

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Bank. So when soldiers found our campsite in the night they were naturally less than happy and moved us on to rest elsewhere. We peered through their night-vision goggles at the grainy-green far bank. Were the equally paranoid soldiers over there squinting back at us�.?

Dana is the most beautiful place between London and Cairo. Christmas morning in Dana outshone even Petra, the famous rose-red city half as old as time. Santa hats, tinsel and very loud Carol singing as we pedalled along the crisp, fresh King's Highway. Never let the lyrics or tune get in the way of high volume Christmas roaring! Local Muslims shared our high spirits. "Merry Christmas!", "Happy New Year!", even "Happy Birthday!" they cried.

PicturePetra provokes ambition and far-sightedness. It mocks the triviality of our "I want it now" lifestyles. It gave me renewed strength: I can make it to Cape Town.

Where better to read TE Lawrence's 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom' (he really was a dangerous 'dreamer of the day' as I wish to be�) than in Wadi Rumm. The vastness of Wadi Rumm reminds you of your own insignificance; its timelessness highlights your own fleeting time flowing frighteningly fast. Lying on the desert floor the black silence is so absolute that you can literally hear yourself blink. Its enormous majesty of course provoked very childish naked running and aeroplane impressions.

I met an Irish conceptual artist. He was over here on business. With a disposable camera he was to take 24 photos of different Arabs writing Arabic on postcards of London and mailing them to another artist in Britain. The art? Sending a postcard of a place you have never been, to a country you have never seen, to a man you have never met, in a language he will not understand. "Ingenious", I lied.

To avoid a troublesome Israeli stamp in my passport I was forced to take a ferry across the bay to Egypt. And so the unbroken tyre tracks, over 7000km long, stretching back to Calais and a very different me have finally been broken. The 'Slow Boat' carried out its job brief magnificently, being so slow that we disembarked in a chaotic Egypt a splendid eight hours late.

And then I was alone again. Simon and Arno have put me back on the rails; I have rediscovered laughter. Hopefully in return the difficulties of the road have shown them that you only know your strength once you start to take the strain.

An easy ferry ride to Hurghada beckoned. It would save me 10 days of tough, unnecessary riding around the Gulf of Suez. But if I'm going to do this I'm going to do it right, so I pedalled for days across the Sinai Peninsula directly back towards England. Not good for the soul. My water bottles froze solid, my tent blew down, hailstones (hailstones?! This is meant to be a desert!!) bit my face. I fought as hard as I could into the teeth of a gale. I screamed at the skies and shouted at everything I saw. Which wasn't much as I was in a desert. The Middle East has been so lusciously kind to me that she wasn't letting me leave without reminding me of something important- "That which does not kill us makes us stronger"- also the motto of Stella, Egypt's beer.

Road signAcross the Suez Canal. To the banks of the Nile. The haughty, hazy outline of the pyramids. I have arrived in Africa. Hailstorms and headwinds, silent majesty and beauty, the ambition and perseverance of ancient peoples, Santa hats and bad singing: the perfect tonic to give me strength.