awayonmybike: Week 22 - Farewell to Africa

Farewell - my final sight of Africa, leaving Cairo airport

Well I've crossed off one major item on my bucket list.

After 152 days, 26,000 kms and 13 memorable countries I've traversed Africa's Eastern side from "Cape Town to Cairo". It's been a marvelous trip and shown me beautiful sights. More importantly I've met wonderful people who despite suffering enormous poverty, corrupt governments, hugely unequal wealth distribution plus a mix of ethnic and religious tensions have always given me a wave, a smile, friendship and help when I've needed it. Africa you've lived up to my dreams - I'll be back.

Me leaving Egypt was easy but there is a huge amount of bureaucracy for the bike to join me. I opted for the cowards way of dealing with it, namely paying the shipping agent to do it. The fee initially seemed large ($400) but exposure to the first stages convinced me it was money well spent - first they had to take me down to immigration to get me registered as a temporary resident (not certain why, but apparently essential), this involved lots of queuing (Arab style, ie elbows out, no quarter given) at two different counters, detailed discussion and some shouting in Arabic at each and a final signature by the"chief", then we were off to the other side of town to visit the local court to get official Arabic translations of a power of attorney to the shipping company to do the rest of the process on my behalf. That took the best part of a day, I couldn't even imagine how long it would have taken if I'd tried to save a few dollars and do it by myself.

Despite fears on my part that there might be a hiccup all apparently went well at the port and the bike left on schedule. Unfortunately it didn't leave for the right destination - instead of coming direct to Greece the Ro-ro ship is taking it via Israel and Turkey. Who's fault? Nobody owns up and it doesn't really matter but a promised 3 day delivery trip has turned into a 10 day one.

I've spent the first few days of waiting wandering around Piraeus and Athens initially suffering culture shock - mentally I thought Greece would simply be a small step up from Egypt in its "westernisation" but it's not, it feels a huge jump (which probably shows how acclimatized I've become in Africa to that continents way of doing things). Things which struck me immediately included the traffic, (both that it obeyed the road rules (red traffic lights now mean stop and one way streets are what the name implies - I hadn't realised how much I've got used to both just being suggestions rather than absolute rules, I'm going to have to change my riding style again) and there are no animals and limited pedestrians wandering down the middle of the road), the vast array of processed foods for sale instead of everything you need being made (and frequently in the case of meat, slaughtered and butchered) right in front of you, the change of shops from predominantly those either selling locally made items or repairing items to those selling manufactured items and in fact the whole movement of people at from business right on the streets to business all being in shops.

Alexandria, Egypt tram - I was told the oldest had been in service since 1910 (and some of them looked like this was true)

Pireaus, Greece - but will it last as long?

Piraeus is the main port for the country and for the inter-island ferries so there's plenty of ships and boats to gawk at whist waiting for the bike. It also seems to be where the rich keep their super yachts.

150 metres or more in length and a paint finish you can see your face in (imagine how nerve racking that must make mooring it)

Not as flash - but a ton more class

And if you prefer sail.

As well as the monied few, Piraeus is like most port cities filled with plenty of people doing it much tougher and there is still lots of life on the streets even if it is not as dimmable add I've been used to. There is also the extra dimension that it hosts refugee camps for displaced Syrians - something that is not universally popular with the locals. Probably about time I start catching up with European politics, something I've been ignoring for 6 months.

Demonstrations, both pro and anti appear to be a near daily occurrence. Fortunately all noise and no violence - but there are always a lot of well armed police between the sides just in case.

A half hour up the metro track from Pireaus is Athens so I've been getting a bit more culture. It wasn't planned but I've realised that doing the trip from south to north had been a good choice as I feel I'm moving through the time-line of civilisations history; the birth and expansion of modern man out of Ethiopia, our spread north and development through Sudan, Egypt and now Greece and soon with the modern history Europe to come.