Belgian fries

Back in Hurghada I was just in time for Jens’ birthday, celebrated in a small Belgian restaurant serving real Belgian “koninginnenhapjes” and Belgian fries, followed by partying in Hurghada finest clubs. I was not up to this. I arranged my transport to Sharm Al Sheikh. I had heard different stories about the ferry. Some people assured me that taking my bike was not a problem others said it was not possible. I found out that it would be possible, African style, including baksheesh for the captain. So on Tuesday morning I showed up at the ferry terminal. There were three boats. Two of which had clearly a car deck, only they were not going to Sharm. ‘My’ ferry was clearly passengers only. There was a little deck, four meters long one meter wide at the aft of the boat; the proclaimed ‘motosiekl’ deck. Once all the passengers had boarded I drove the bike over the narrow pass way into the corridor, where it was tied down. I muttered an “Ins’Allah”, went inside and tried to sleep. Although the Red Sea is enclosed by land it can be a very rough sea. Its waters cover a major rift, running from North Syria as far as Mozambique, reaching depths of 1500 meters and more. It wasn’t the smoothest crossing ever, although not as bad as the ferry from Saudi. I was the first to leave the ferry with a salt encrusted bike. It had been soaked to the bone during the crossing. It needed a carwash and a KTM workshop.

The good news was that in Sharm there is company that organizes guided off road motorbike tours in the Sinai mountains. Guess what bikes the use. Yes, orange KTMs. Guess what workshop they have, yes a certified KTM workshop. Whoopiee. Sharm is a tarmac strip lined with big ass five star resorts. I had no business here, were it not for my orange problem monster. Just outside town I found the Sahara-KTM workshop. I immediately knew I was in a real KTM workshop when the manager started to fill in forms and safety sheets. They wanted to know all kind of details. What is your job, where do you go, what is your passport and driving license number, what is your shoe size, blablabla…. . I couldn’t see what the relevance was of it all. Apparently these questions come with the KTM guarantee. It reminded me of the ‘certified’ workshop in Doha. Before they start working on the bike, they have to fill in a thousand papers and then –maybe- they will start working on the bike. You end up paying ridiculous man hour fees, being lied to by the Lebanon manager and they are unable to fix the simplest problem in a day. Anyway after a lengthy discussion they would do a full service of the bike. I could come back the next day. For the first time on my journey I was bikeless.

I settled in a simple beach hotel just outside of town. Later that afternoon I got a call from the manager. They finished the inspection, were able to find a used chain in better condition than mine but they had to open the engine to check the timing chain. For that they needed my consent and I had to come down to fill out some more forms and answer some more questions. So the next morning I found my bike back in pieces, clutch plates all over the place. Luckily for me they had found a used timing that would do as a replacement. It would take them another day to fix it and put the bike back together. My second forced night in Sharm.The mechanic of Sahara did a wonderful job and the next day I was riding my bike on the track of Sahara. Hehe, a track designed for pure off road dirt bikes, and I was going up and down with a bike loaded to the max. I could feel that it reacted better than before, had more power and made a better sound. Jeepie. And they cleaned it. I was riding a brand new orange monster. I set off for Dahab, my initially destination in the Sinai. The road from Sharm to Dahab winds its way through the biblical landscapes of the Sinai. These rough grayish mountains, entangling endless Wadi’s are home to several tribes of Beduins, nomadic dwellers that have inhabited these region for hundreds of years. Governments all over the world are not keen on nomadic lifestyles and try to relocate these people. Same on the way to Dahab, I would come across ghosttowns of brandnew houses, uninhabited motionless in the desertwind.

Nomads are Nomads.