It’s funny who you meet travelling sometimes – other times it can be downright chilling.
The sun has long retreated behind the dunes and escarpments encircling the Nile-flanking town of Aswan, the last settlement of any particular note in southern Egypt, before the open desert of Sudan heading south. It’s about 9pm, but the temperature still obstinately lingers in the mid-30s. It will drop a few more degrees before seething back well into the 40s by early next morning. The air tastes artificially heated, not a trace of humidity.
I sit outside a fiteer shop waiting for my flaky Egyptian-style pizza to be cooked when I first spot him: gaunt, disorientated, lips blistered and caked in a desert-crust that sweat has turned to mud in some places. One hand is bandaged, probably self-administered.
He rides lingeringly past the shop, his head bobbing around like he’s searching for a familiar face. His mountain bike, which seems in far better condition than its rider, has a covered box- trailer attached. A faded flag on a spring pole bobs back and forth with the inconsistent rhythm of his pedalling. In the darkness I can’t make out the colour of the three vertical bars on it. A half-filled water bottle sits in its rack secured to the bike’s frame.
The road comes in from outside of town, meaning he has ridden scores of kilometres through the barren desert-scape in temperatures that force the locals to seek shade and retreat into lockdown-siesta mode, emerging only in the evening. The assembled Aswanians tut and quietly exclaim disbelief.
He sees my sunburned face and executes a hasty U-turn. His own face, placing him somewhere in his 40s, bears the weight of someone who has been on the road for a while. He sips from his water bottle that is probably filled with local water – brave.
“Do you speak English?” he says in an unmistakable Dutch lilt, eyes darting around. He is clearly agitated. I ask him his name. No reply. He needs to get something off his chest.
“Today has been horrible – I’ve got no money,” he says. I begin to do some mental calculations. Shall I buy him some water? Yes. Can I afford a little more? Probably.
“They are horrible – the little shits,” he continues. “I’ve ridden from Edfu. They threw rocks at me today, but I sorted it out.
“I’m carrying knives, you know – and I’m an ex-commando. I threw a knife at one of them [rock-throwing children] and it went in his leg. I went over to the little bastard and pulled it out – and it had, you know, barbs on it so… I gave him a kick in the bum.”
He mimics the knife throwing for my benefit. His face contorts menacingly. After taking a step back, I decide not to believe this story, but of course I don’t tell him this. Egyptians are generally extremely hospitable, but they certainly don’t take too well to having their children used as human dart boards. He surely would be in jail – or worse, the subject of some swift local justice.
Small inconsistencies creep further into our conversation as it meanders. I go to offer him a drink, but more of his story spills out. He repeats that he has run out of money on his homeward trip. Apparently, he planned to ride through Syria but the borders are now closed to foreigners so he must change his route.
He loses interest in our conversation and walks over to the fiteer shop owner a few metres away – I don’t take offence. He begins to recount his story even more animatedly, first asking, then almost demanding, free food. The owner points to a road-side falafel stand nearby. The rider doesn’t take rejection well, muttering barely under his breath. “Nothing in this country is free,” he explodes.
“He is crazy,” the owner whispers to me. Perhaps he is a recent war veteran, damaged in some conflict. I wander over to him to suggest he heads back up to Cairo on a local train to see his embassy, silently thinking that I will probably be funding this 15-hour trip.
“I have tried them [the Dutch embassy] two or three times and they will not help – bastards.”
He is lying or, more likely, delusional. More inconsistencies unfurl. Now it seems he ran out of money when he was back in Holland, not while on the road. I want to go to Sudan, he demands, seemingly with little concept of how to get there, how much it will cost and the 50-degree desert temperatures that would, frankly, fry someone. And then there’s the unstable political situation. A wrong turn will take you through a volatile area like Darfur. It seems he has no intention of heading north to safety but south – to where and from what he does not surrender.
I explain that the Sudanese visa, which we got last week, can take up to two weeks to obtain – I don’t mention we luckily got ours in a couple of days. Dissuasively I exaggerate the task, portraying it as a bureaucratic and logistical impossibility. I openly urge him not to go.
“I will cross illegally then,” he spurts. “That should be okay, right”. He goads me for a trace of re-enforcement. I offer none. No money, no visa, over searing landscapes and improbable distances. “You’d better not go down there. Try your embassy again or can we call one of your relatives. You’d be…” I catch myself just as I’m about to say the word “crazy”.
He repeats the story about running out of money, his agitation now completely physical as he sips more water. I can sense he wants me to give him some money. In fact, I knew this when he first laid eyes on me. I offer to get him a drink, but this is met with a blank stare. He remounts his bike, ready to head to the falafel stand.
I make the decision not to give him money; he’s not going to spend it on water or food or getting to safety in Cairo. I could very well be funding someone about to ride to their death in the deserts of Sudan.
He rides off without a goodbye, still muttering under his breath. I sincerely hope I don’t see him in Sudan. And not for my sake either.
Steve Madgwick
