Egypt diesel situation

For other overlanders that may be reading, diesel is somewhat of a concern in Egypt at the moment.

For instance we reached Baharia Oasis (300km’s into the desert) on Wednesday with a quarter tank to find out that all 3 stations were out of diesel. After approaching some locals a desert tour guide kindly took us for a drive into the back alleys to a man that was hoarding diesel in his garage and we filled the tank and jerrys for some peace of mind.

Down the road in Farafra Oasis though there was plenty of diesel but we also found that only one station in Sharm had diesel earlier in the week and we queued for some time to fill up. We queued again this morning in Al Kharga and met many friends handing over their mobile numbers! Diesel supply seems patchy but isn’t impossible to find, just be prepared to wait for the pump! And always ask locals if you are worried as they will find anything you need as quickly as possible.

Time for desert…

We finally had to admit defeat and depart from Dahab after staying an extra 3 nights and really enjoying our first taste of summery downtime! Great place for a totally laid back summer holiday if anyone is interested… Much nicer than Sharm unless you are looking for an Egyptian Vegas.

We continued on to Ismailia on the Suez Canal for the night and then west into the desert for our first camping… Two whole nights without anything but ourselves and the truck, our preparation proved thorough and we wanted for nothing (other than a shower after 3 days!). Desert driving has been weird, wonderful and everything in between! We are now missing a coating of paint from our winch and absolutely everything is full of sand but it was worth it for the experience. You can’t go anywhere in Egypt without meeting the nicest people. Everywhere we stop people buy us tea, soft drinks and even lunch/dinner. Today we asked the tourist police where we could buy a good lunch from in Al Kharga and next thing a police car comes down the road with tea and a bag full of food!! Even one of the guys who helped us out of the sand bought us drinks when we bumped into him at the car wash two days later.

We are in Assuit tonight back on the Nile and hope to reach Aswan tomorrow… However, this is a long drive made longer by heavy donkey traffic and so we may be stopping in Luxor, let’s hope the donkeys, camels and tuktuks are on holiday tomorrow.

Baksheesh for the horse!

Hi again,

It’s been pretty Internet free for the last week, we have a really slow wifi connection for now so thought we should pop in to say hello.

We have done temples, tombs, pyramids, boating, ballooning and the odd bit of drinking over the last 8-ish days. It’s been ideal but we now have an even better driving route planned for our return to Egypt with the truck so have ants-in-our-pants until we get back to Amman in a couple of days.

Hopefully the Sudanese are good to us for a visa and it turns out that we now need another visa for South Sudan which was only created a few weeks ago! So far we have has nothing but the worst timing!

Pictures of all the usual Egyptian sights to come soon 😉

Jo and Rich x

Why did the kiwi cross the road?

 

 
So for most of you, this experience is old news but for us it has been an education! Today we “grew some” and decided to get this Cairo street crossing malarkey sorted. It’s all a bit terrifying but funny at the same time as the passing Egyptian drivers find it hilarious we are just standing there waiting for the traffic to miraculously clear. We started following locals as they cut a path through the moving cars, bikes, buses and horses/donkeys with carriages but we are getting there and attempted the above all by ourselves. Only came close to being run over twice! Not bad eh.

It’s been a while since we had an update, mostly because the last 5 days have been totally hectic and we have been covering routes that we will have to do again anyway so figured we may as well wait until we have the time to do things properly. There should be another one of RW’s little vids to come and pictures of Jordan and other things but best leave it until we have time to actually enjoy the surroundings instead of wondering where the speed cameras are as we race from stop to stop in order to meet deadlines.

We are missing the truck (already!)… Thought we would enjoy the time off from driving but after one day it’s all we can talk about! Poor truck. Hope the guard with the massive gun outside the carpark is doing a good job!

Anywho, time to meet our tour guide in the hotel (two days after we started the “tour”). Go figure.

X Jo and Rich