I’ve said before, I don’t really consider myself a cyclist. I don’t love riding a bike but I love where it takes me. It opens doors and like they say, if it doesn’t kill me, it’s definitely gonna make me stronger.
Today my bike is taking me to the Red Sea. The road is excellent, a four lane (sometimes more) divided highway with a nice wide shoulder/bike path plus an exceptionally wide median. The road is so wide and so straight that large rumble strips – 3 sets of 5 – are placed before each curve just to wake up the drivers. Drivers are courteous, often shouting encouragements, tooting horns and shifting lanes to give us more space.
Traffic was’t a real issue on our route from Cairo and down along the Red Sea and drivers were courteous. Note the garbage in the roadside ditches. Of course the desert winds concentrate it wherever a barrier exists. The views beyond it, however, are spectacular.
On the outskirts of Cairo, almost all the way to the Red Sea, construction is everywhere. Mostly rows and rows, and for emphasis, more rows of identical apartment complexes built in an empty desert.
Our first view of the Red Sea is anticlimactic. It looks like a distant blue mirage nestled between honey colored sand and mountains and you have to wonder “Are we there yet?”
Once we reach the sea we begin following it south. For the first half day the view on our left is one of beautiful beach front condo complexes which would rival, if not surpass anything found in Southern California.
The view on our left was, however, garbage. construction debris and plastic – then more plastic. I have been told Egypt doesn’t have a recycling plan. In some places it looks like snow banks piled up against the road bank. I’ve come to the conclusion there is more plastic in the desert than in the Ocean. People. . . so sad . . .
After a short 50 mile ride we sat up camp on the shores of the Red Sea with enough time left to take an open, cold shower and hand wash our laundry in plastic buckets before dinner. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough sun left to dry it.
As romantic and picturesque as sleeping on the beach sounds, the challenge, of course, is keeping the sand out of your shorts. Then again, fighting the inevitable is useless.
We spent about two and a half days with the Red Sea on our left and the desert on the right. This was to become a familiar pattern for our ride. Water and green on one side, sand and desert on the other.
On the upper portion of ride there were a lot of Red Sea condos but not so much as we traveled southward. The further south we went the better we could see the Sinai Peninsula on the eastern bank of the sea.
Occasionally we would travel through a small village. One such village has numerous fish markets all with large white pelicans tied by one foot to the fish stand. I guess it was kind of a living logo saying “Fish Market”. The first time I saw this I was astounded, mainly by the size of the pelican, it was huge and the lighting for a picture was just perfect but I was kind in a cycling trance and didn’t stop. When I did, the setting wasn’t nearly as perfect and I was still thinking of the ride as sort of a race.
I’ve got to remember this lesson for the rest of the trip. No for the rest of my life. Stop and smell the roses pelicans.
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