17 January 2008 – Master hagglers!

We cycled 117 kilometers from Luxor to Edfu today. It was a long haul made longer by the three days of rest preceding it. We moved through the first 60 kilometers relatively comfortably, and after a few stops to buy a lunch of bread rolls and fruit, and a later stop to eat the said lunch, we found ourselves at 2:30 pm with 30 kilometers to go till our destination. It was then that I was greeted with my first taste of mind games. That was the longest 30 kilometers that we have done to date. As the road moved away from the lush security of the Nile, we entered a desolate patch that sets the tone for what lies ahead. It is a long road to Cape Town. We have done approximately 800 km of a 12500km journey.

The Lonely planet refers to Edfu as being a one-hotel town. We were escorted by our policemen to the hotel and told that this was that. Gareth and I took a quick look inside to see the rooms and get into a little bartering with the hotel owner. Edfu apparently knows little of cleanliness! My standard of accommodation has reached a fairly low level, and at this stage in my life, a bedroom with a door that closes and that has running water is more than acceptable. That is about the most that one could say about the room that we were shown. It was very basic, and therefore required a comparable price. We managed to get the owner down to 6 Egyptian pounds each for the night. That equates to 6p or R8! Craziness.

It turned out that Edfu is no longer a one hotel town and that the Hotel Medina, as recommended by the Lonely Planet, is actually 100 meters around the corner. So, armed with price number one, we headed off in search of a second offer. A man named Atti ushered us in and Ollie and I took a little scout of the rooms which appeared to be on a par with the former hotel. In fact the same pastel shades even lined the walls and floors, and the bathroom/shower rooms were of the same ilk. Nice. However, hotel number two boasts a solid breakfast – a sure win for a team of cyclists. He started at 25 each, we got it to 100 for the six of us. We have become master hagglers. It scares me that we are fighting over R10 each. But it’s the principle -apparently!

We took a little tour of Edfu and walked to the Temple Horus – a renowned temple in Egypt. We were told to pay 40 Egyptian pounds to enter the area simply so that we could buy a packet of crisps for 15 – retail for 3 in town. It is crazily apparent that these are tourist prices. A young waiter named Musharef decided to take it on board and agrees with us that the goods are overpriced and goes further to explain that for an Egyptian it costs 2 to visit the temple. We decide to move off in search for some dinner back in town.

I am not sure quite how it happened, but next thing I knew, I was sitting in Musharef’s living room with the rest of the team enjoying his mother’s cooking! The hospitability of Egyptians has been truly overwhelming. We were hosted to a meal of beans, soya, egg and bread and an incredibly interesting conversation with Musharef and his doctor sister. She spoke great English and proceeded to educate us in a very open manner about her faith of Islam. I have been in this country a little under two weeks and it strikes me that she is my first solid experience of a local woman. She had poise and spoke in a way that was both open and accepting. It strikes me that there are less differences about our cultures and beliefs than I had imagined, and in her words, “We are all human first.”