Distance: 81.0 km
Ride time: 4:52:02
Average: 16.7 km/h
Max speed: 34.6 km/h
Total: 53550 km
The desert surrounding Cairo is located at a plateau at 500 meters above sea level. This meant that I was waking up in my tent to a rather nice and fresh morning at 18°C. It seems like I have beaten the heat of Egypt! I had an Arabian coffee at the gas station and said goodbye to the police officers at the checkpoint before starting the final ride towards Cairo.
Cape Town to Cairo – that was the overall idea for the ride through Africa, and now I was finally seeing the capital of Egypt there in the distance! Wow, first class adventure through this 6th and final continent by bike! It really is quite an amazing place.
As expected the traffic picked up as I got closer to Cairo – after all a city of 16 million people on the border between the Middle East and Africa is supposed to create a bit of chaos. Finding my way was rather easy – as long as I was descending I knew I was on the way down from the desert plateau towards the Nile.
The Cairo suburbs are not pretty, but everything changes for the better as you get closer to the center. Passing one historical building after the other, you are not in doubt that Cairo has an important place in the history of our planet!
The modern part of town almost reminded me of being back in Southern Europe. I’m getting closer and closer to home!
I will be spending the next couple of days in Cairo doing practical stuff like finding a box for my bicycle. Then I will be flying to Morocco via Tunisia for a short encore on the African continent, and then a bit of summer cycling through western Europe, back to Denmark, over the next couple of months… A few more pedal strokes before we are back home 🙂
Thanks for following along, and best wishes from Cairo!
