Day 10: Port Said...

At six in the morning there’s a knock at our door. We’re berthed! Although there is still plenty of waiting to do. The boat’s crew take the passports to passport control whilst we all wait. And wait. And wait.

We get asked to move our bikes onto the port, so that the next bunch of trucks can load up. Safely parked on the dock, The American Wanker throws a hissy fit. He says to one of the crew, ‘OK, you are responsible for my bike whilst it’s parked there’. Now ensues one man’s will against another. One man doesn’t care, it isn’t on his boat and is no longer his responsibility, the other man raises his voice. It’s exhilarating to watch. When this is done, TAW and I take a seat at the back of the boat, overlooking the bikes and discuss climate change.

About one in the afternoon, we can leave the boat, the passports are back! There’s confusion on the dock as to where we can go with the bikes, but thankfully the guys we met on the boat manage to find out where we need to go and roughly what we need to do, sweet, thanks guys! We drop the bikes to be held in a pound whilst customs is carried out. Which we’re told may take three days. Hmm.

Two overland trucks were on the ferry the day beforehand, and we briefly met one of the travellers. When we pull into the pound, we see the two 4x4 vehicles parked up too, and their corresponding passengers. We’re reintroduced to Gerry, Abi (his girlfriend) and Roy. We then head of to carry out paperwork fun.

Back in the hotel later that afternoon, we bump into Roy. Roy is an Indonesian guy, who was bord and raised in Holland. He speaks seven languages, works for the UN, and is seemingly running a production for UNICEF. He greets us, and asks who’s on the KTM. ‘Me’ I reply. ‘Oh’ he says, ‘you’re on the good bike, and you’re’ pointing at Rob, ‘on the Harley...’. I snigger, brilliant! We discuss routes, and again he looks at Rob, questioning his mode of transport. ‘Well, I hope you video it, I’d love to see it’ he leaves us with.

So far, it has cost us $500 each for the ferry and bikes from Turkey to Egypt, then $83 to get off the boat and, hopefully, finally $200 for customs (we got this down from $300 each when TAW declared he was an AMERICAN, and he was going to speak to Harley Davidson). Ouch. I think the fuel is pretty cheap though...

And lastly, happy birthday Blaggo!!