.......Up to Egypt

Sorry for lack of updates, below are exerts of Andre's blog to get us a bit to date
'We are now on the Visemar ferry, four days at sea, arriving at Alexandria, Egypt on Monday afternoon. Very kindly the crew on the ferry organized us a UK to Europe mains converter so that we can charge our laptops.

I met up with Lindsay and Delilah at the Visemar ferry port this morning, so now we are re-united for the trip down to Cape Town.

We also met a few other travellers, some on bikes, some with trucks and some with land cruisers, from German, Italian, British to some South Africans. There are also loads of rally cars and bikes onboard as well as some helicopters, assuming to film the rally in Egypt.

The check-in process was quite painless, but quite a wait, but in no time we were on the ship, only 50 or so passengers on the whole ferry … I also managed to organize my own 3 berth cabin

Food on the ferry is quite expensive as you can imagine, a beer is 5 euro and food for the 4 days are about 89 euro, but what can you do. The internet on the ferry is 7 euro per hour .. which is also expensive, but I reckon is not too bad for internet on the ocean. There is also mobile phone coverage, not sure how that works.

Two days later.....Last night was quite rough at sea with some rain, but this morning again, nice and sunny with just vast ocean around us. It’s beautiful and quite cool just to stand outside and watch the water …

It’s the third day on the Visemar Ferry and I think we are just south of Greece and due to stop over in Tartous, Syria tomorrow morning. Some of the guys on the ferry are getting off tomorrow in Syria, these include a German couple also on BMW motorcycles (G650 Xchallenge and G650 Xcountry).

During the day it is quite boring, nothing much is happening, a few TV’s, but all in foreigh language, so nothing we understand. The ferry itself is only 18 months old, so pretty new, modern and clean … very cool and well recommended !

We have met some other travellers, Peter and Matt, also from South Africa. They are travelling in a Land Rover, doing more or less the same route. They even have a freezer and fridge in the back for beer and ice for the gin and tonic, so I guess we are sticking with them as much we can. Matt will only be travelling to Aswan and will then be flying back to London. Peter’s wife will be joining him in Alexandria, Egypt, so from Aswan it will only be Peter and his wife.

The other guys, 2 english, Ted (http://www.touringted.com) and Neil (http://neils.in) will also be travelling the same route, but they still need to get all their visas, so might be slighly behind us on this trip.

There are also 2 kiwi guys, Craig and Cameron (http://cam-africa.blogspot.com) and they have more or less the same route and timescale as us, travelling on a Transalp and a Yamaha Tenere, so we might end up travelling together.

In the evenings, we just sit and chat, play cards, drink “expensive” beer and try and watch foreign TV …

..... and finally the last day on the ferry.....Yesterday after breakfast on the ferry we just hung around the ship waiting for the 14h00 arrival in Alexandria, Egypt.

We finally arrived, but man, was it hot !! I was boiling. The customs and immigration boarded the ship and went through our paperwork, but that was only the beginning. Once we received our passports back and stamped, we were allowed to go down to the bikes to disembark.

We basically rode of the ship, 100m and was ordered to stop. This was in the midday sun, sweating my ass off. We now had to go through the police control, more customs and security checks. Think it took us a total of about 4 hours and we were eventually on our way.

Outside the port gates, lies Alexandria, what mayhem … words could not describe, traffic is hectic, doesn’t seem to be any rules and they are all over the place, not the mention the speeding.

We were looking for a hotel, but everytime you stop just to talk to each other, people surround you, shouting stuff and all try to help in their own way I guess.

We finally found a local guy, nicknamed Micky … quite good english and he found as hotel with “secure” parking for the bikes accross the road. He then spent all evening with us, taking us around the city, taking us out for a meal at a seafood restaurant … lots and lots of food !!

Walked around the city again for a bit … actually quite a long time .. and eventually headed back to the hotel where we are now … about 01h30 in the morning local time. Everything is buzzing, this place is non stop, apparently some the shops stay open 24hrs in the summer !

We will be heading to Cairo tomorrow and after that hopefully some open road away from the cities. We then plan to take the Western Desert route on our way down to Aswan.