Go South! The Pharaoh Enduro Expedition

The participants are in the chaotic capital of the Pharaohs, Cairo! The OVERCROSS tour guide 'slips' the motorcycle group from Cairo International Airport through the millions of people in the metropolis to the Customs Government of al-Quahida. Customs papers and stamps fly through the air and after much back and forth land with the passports of the expedition participants in our bags. With the driving permits, we leave the 'office stage' and squeeze through the big city of Cairo like mustard out of a tube as we take the shuttle to the 15555 inhabitants PER SQUARE KILOMETER!! After the hell of the big city, we arrive about four hours later at Alexandria, only 220 kilometers away, where Mohamed Ali Nassar is already waiting for us to help retrieve the YAMAHA Tenere fleet from customs. Alexandria, the gateway to the Mediterranean, where the sun rises from the eastern headland. After a sumptuous breakfast in a dining room from the colonial era, we step out of the hotel where the fleet is lined up in the morning twilight! We start the engines, leaving the sea and Alexandria in the rearview mirror as we eat up the asphalt kilometers like fast food in the odometer! Gas is right, head behind the windshield in cover, and the stench of Cairo wafts over the Kinghighway TO CAIRO: The last required stamp is hammered into the passport, the customs procedure for the enduros is celebrated in 'Egyptian tea ceremony style' in slow motion! The twilight descends, and we squeeze through the dark, completely dirty, and overloaded streets of Cairo heading south to the Pyramids of Giza. Upper Egypt.

One last look in the rearview mirror at the Sphinx of Giza, gently surrounded by the smog blanket. Behind us lies the Great Pyramid, ahead of us the 'lifeline' Nile, which we follow south toward the desert bend of Quena, hour by hour, day by day it gets warmer and sandier along the Sahara.

Along the Sahara, the enduro convoy travels through Upper Egypt to the royal cities of Luxor, which serves as the last airbridge supply point for the enduro expedition group in Egypt. We spend the night on the eastern bank of the Nile in a Nubian village not far from the Valley of the Kings. After night falls, we cross by boat to the Karnak Temple in Luxor. Same procedure every day: The sun rises, we start the engines of the 700 Tenere Rally, cold and sober we set out for a new day, into a new adventure. A tea, a short grin for a 'selfie' at the foot of the statue of Ramses II, which UNESCO rescued in a spectacular relocation action from 'drowning' in Lake Nasser. We cross via the Khazan Assuan Road in 11 minutes the megastructure from the 1960s, which was built in 11 years. We have reached the banks of the Nile and cross the Nile eastward to Haifa towards the Egyptian-Sudanese border.

Our longtime colleague Kemal Abdul Aziss is already waiting for us at the border post, Jojo (our online tour guide) announced us 30 minutes before arrival. As usual, he is astonished by the German punctuality as he collects the passports with his brother-in-law, who, fortunately, 'leads' the border and stamps our papers. You can plan between eight and forty-eight hours to relax for the border formalities in Cairo, Alexandria, and here at the Aswan Dam; on our first trip about ten years ago, I needed two days, on the second expedition only one day, and tomorrow.... in Shala only three hours. The border situation between Egypt and Sudan is simply zaaaaa, the Egyptian IBM computers and users stand for I-nshalla B-uckra -M-alesh. That means as much as, God willing today or not, but eventually the barrier for us will rise into Sudan,,,, Inshalla.

We enduro riders have now become perfectly synchronized like a 'motorcycle snake' heading into the sun, eventually turning right on the tracks of the 'Sudan Express' train line across the Nubian desert. The Nubian Sahara section was also called 'Taseti' (sandy archland) among the Copts; this arc-shaped land stretches like a crescent moon down south, and this Sahara section is among the most spectacular desert areas of the Nubian desert! Hundreds of kilometers through the kingdom of Nobatia lie behind us, while ahead is the desert area between the third Nile cataract and Khartoum, considered a high culture of ancient Egypt. In the desert land of the Hamitic Nubians, we experience the cultural and historical relics of the pyramids of Merore, as well as grave cities and temple ruins that are said to have emerged from the cultural bloom of the Kingdom of Kush before our era. After days in the 'nothing,' civilization has returned to us; we refuel in Khartoum, eat, get on the internet and.... everything is overrated, we hit the gas and turn left at the intersection of the Blue and White Nile into the most densely populated inland Africa, Ethiopia.

Ethiopia is legendary; cultural cities like Lalibela and Gondar in the north will not be traversed by us for the time being, but we will explore the legendary southern part of the country even more. Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world; through deforestation and the fall of coffee prices as well as the devastating war in the Tigray region, the country has been brought down beyond the hunger threshold. Is it ethically acceptable to travel to a starving country where not even every second Ethiopian has access to clean drinking water? A clear YES, for individual tourism brings 100% cash directly into a country, to a population that lives on less than $1.25 a day! On wild Africa-typical tracks, we 'half legally' cross the borders until we reach the area of the Oromos, who are widely known as the lip plate people. We cross the region of the southwestern Ethiopian peoples and the highland origin area of the Oromo until we encounter the lowland Cushitic-speaking groups such as the Afra people, Saho people, and Somali people. A precise location remains disputed here in the rather 'nomadic south,' just like the undefinable border route where we meet somewhere 200 kilometers east of Omorate with Malcome from Addis Ababa. Malcome had conducted the first Ethiopia scout tour with me in 2012 and specialized in being a top ornithologist; due to the old friendship, he receives us (if necessary) at a military post where he has arranged our crossing of the 'green border' with his brother-in-law. In the next few days, we will follow the nomads' trails through 'no man's land' until we reach Lake Tucana, thus entering Kenya!

We leave the Oromo Valley and Mago National Park behind us, and cross a nomadic region along Lake Turcana, through Sibiloi National Park with a military convoy which we have to use as 'toll fees' for this route. Time for an ice-cold BEER in Nanyuki; we have reached the equator, from today we are in the southern hemisphere past Mount Kenya 'under the scraped tunnels' until the destination Naroberi.