Well, the good sleep I was anticipating didn’t quite occur; maybe I was just tired from the day before. Several cups of hotel coffee helped focus, however. On rest days we riders are responsible for our own meals; the TDA crew need a break too, although they seem to be fairly busy all day themselves in thoroughly cleaning out the complete kitchen kit, and in undertaking maintenance on various equipment.
Rest days for me start with an personal clean up, laundry and then cleaning of the bike and generally checking it over. The desert sands out here will ultimately take their toll on all the bike‘s moving parts, internal and external, I’m sure. I’m hoping that preventative maintenance will reduce the eventual issues as this tour goes on. So that was my morning.
Lunch with a beer (this is after all, the last day for a couple of weeks without that luxury), accompanied by new friends. Then a wander about town to find a barber; always an adventure trying to first find a place to get one’s hair cut, and then establish just what I’d like done (not that there’s much which could possibly go wrong on that front), and then determining the price. All this in a souk and me with no Arabic and barber with no English. Whatever, the end result is more than passable for my purposes.
Make a quick walk over to the twin temples of Ramses and his Queen; truly an amazing sight. I’d seen them only 2 weeks before, but it’s still imposing, inspiring. And further amazing that the whole edifice was moved in the ‘60s to avoid the rising waters of Lake Nasser.
Discover that I need finally to put a tube into rear tire; the tubeless routine is now history on this tour. Lucky in one respect at least, I get to do it in the waning light of a warm afternoon, floor pump handy.
Then it’s time to re-load our permanent bags back into the Mother Ship, make sure we’ve our passports at hand for the crossing into Sudan tomorrow, attend and listen at the riders meeting, and finally wander out late to look for dinner. I find some very good grilled fish next to what appears to be a fish monger; some of these Nile Perch are huge! And they certainly appear fresh, giving me some comfort at least when consuming my meal.
NB. my photo of fish monger didn’t come out, so a veggie stand will have to suffice.
Back to the hotel (I gave up on the tent for tonight; wheedling my way into sharing a room with Mike). Pack up bag as much as I can, and fall into bed. Again, early-ish start to the day tomorrow.