The Van Plan

It should have been simple, we drive to Aswan put the van onto a barge on Monday and drift slowly down Lake Nasser past Abu Simbel





unload the van on Tuesday morning and drive off into Northern Sudan…….we had not counted on the mass repatriation of thousands of Sudanese construction workers who had been working in Libya.
The boat which usually has 50 or a 100 people on board and on which we had booked a first class cabin…. had 580 ( on the manifest) and was piled high with freight and everyone’s worldly goods that they had managed to salvage from Libya, every nook and cranny including the life boats were full


and our first class cabin…. was a broom cupboard …filthy dirty, baking hot no window and it stank of stale sweat!
We did get a state welcome from the Governor of Northern Sudan with the media in attendance. There was no sign of the barge and the vehicles ( Erkans motor bike, Tarmos van and Lance and Maurice’s landrover as well as our van)
Lance managed to get hold of “a fixer” in Wadi Haifa on his phone who booked one of the few remaining hotel rooms not taken by the construction workers whilst we waited for the vehicles. Magdi Boshara turned out to be a bit of a shark the hotels weren’t full, the place he put us in was a flea pit and our room like a prison cell and we never managed to get a breakdown for the various taxes and duties we were required to pay…feel a bit ripped of ….but hey its Africa! The van and other vehicles eventually turned up on Thursday, last time we pack the bare essentials when we leave the van. We both stank!

Mind boggling is the only expression that my limited vocabulary could come up with …until you have seen the scale and complexity of these sites with your own eyes you just can’t comprehend what the ancient Egyptians did around 1400BC that’s to be absolutely clear 3411 years ago…. ( Stonehenge according to Wikipedia dates from 2400BC)
We visited the Valley of the Queens and the Valley of Kings, sadly photography is forbidden so only a couple of furtive photos.



Ramses the IV and Ramses the VI get the votes and Tutankhamun although disappointing (its very small) has a certain something just because of the history!

We also saw the Temple of Luxor

and of course the Amun Temple at Karnak.
Down from Luxor to Aswan a fantastic drive along the green banks of the Nile past the temple of Horus


to Aswan the van is booked on the ferry, a first class cabin confirmed and tomorrow to the High Dam and to the Nubian beach

We decided to have the van serviced by Mercedes Benz in Hurgharda to ensure all the parts were genuine after 10,000 fairly hard miles….big mistake….. HUGE…..

If you have a blue Mercedes overall you must be a mechanic!

They overfilled the engine, broke the fuel line and then fitted a fuel water/separator so badly it took two days to sort out and its still a bodge….. because they didn’t have the right spare parts. We now have a permanent engine malfunction light on the dashboard but apparently “its nothing serious” just telling us that the fuel line is non standard….
Anyway enough of that…. the diving was superb and the reefs deserted the team at Emperor divers say they regularly had 20 boats anchored on the best sites but we saw no one else.

After Hurgharda we went south along the coast stopping at a couple of dive sites camping alfresco

view from the bedroom window!

and spending more time in the water and sun.


Amazing drive across the Red Sea mountains

and desert from Al Queser ( one thing about the current lack of police in Egypt is the closed desert roads don’t seem to be high priority at the moment so we just turned right) and blasted across to Luxor.

The markers must mean someone is going to build here….

Now we are safely lounging in the Marriott in Hurgharda preparing for the next leap down to the Sudan I thought a summary of our trip round Cairo and through the Eastern Desert was needed.
We decided to try and do the run through Cairo in a “oner” as the tourist attractions in Cairo were all closed…. we were at the height of the troubles!
Set off on the Alexandria Desert road early morning past the usual tanks and road blocks…


fuel was in short supply so we filled up everything we could before setting off.

About 150 miles into the middle of nowhere we found a broken down van and gave them a pull for about 30 miles….not great for our fuel consumption but they were happy. Hit the outskirts of Cairo at about noon and immediately all the signs which had been in English and Arabic turned to just Arabic! We got a bit lost and came across several crowds of protesters and signs of rioting… stones, broken glass, etc, all over the road.

We also saw a crowd round a dead body suspect it was an RTA but could easily have been a looter who had found local justice….. Eventually broke free of Cairo and set off south towards the pyramid of Meidum and Beni Suef a very poor and rather frightening provincial capital which had been the site of serious unrest in the 90’s. We crossed the Nile and got into the Eastern( Arabian) Desert itself

and set off towards the Monastery of St Antony reputedly founded in the 4th century…where we hoped to find secure parking.

Sadly we were refused entry so spent the night far off road in the desert where we judged we would be safe. We returned to St Antony’s early the next morning and had the most wonderful tour escorted by Father Ruwais

amazing coptic wall paintings from the 13th century and earlier and a fantastic atmosphere of peace and tranquility. On again to Hurgharda and a touch of luxury at the Marriott

and some diving in the Red Sea.

Went out to supper last night at the New Marina in Hurgharda, and heard that a big street party was being planned in the town center today to celebrate Mubarak’s downfall and a new beginning for Egypt. We went down in the van after a very strenuous morning on the beach!
Electric atmosphere live music and tourists and locals in jubilant mood many wearing I love Egypt T shirts… very different to the atmosphere in Cairo when we drove through. A privilege to be part of it.

We crossed the border yesterday, more red tape than you can imagine, signs that others had given up included two British registered BMW motorbikes covered in dust and seemingly abandoned.

The banks were still not open so our trip to Tripoli for the visas was worth it! Things were very much calmer than a week ago but a very strong military presence at the border complete with tanks and armoured vehicles.


Despite the armament the atmosphere seemed to be quite relaxed. The north coast near the border holds few attractions except El Alamein where my uncle Geoffrey Macdiarmid was captured …and escaped! So once we had seen the site and the British war cemetery where another (unrelated?) Macdiarmid is buried Sgt Colin Macdiarmid of 3 Sqn Royal Australian Air orce we made a bee line to Sidi Bdel Rahman which the Lonely Planet guide said had the most fabulous beaches. It does…. but the rash of new hotels and resorts makes most of the place look like a building site.

Beautiful beach with not a tourist in sight

Turned up at the Ghazala Beach Resort to be offered a free room as they had no guests….and were interviewed by Reuters about the prospects for tourism in Egypt! Watch out for the van on a small screen near you!
thevanplan on the BBC

Richard and Susan were wonderful again and we even had a Chinese New Year Lunch with a group of their friends in a gorgeous restaurant in Tripoli. During the lunch one of the girls had a call from her Libyan husband warning her to get home as quick as she could as there was due to be a demonstartion….

Chinese New year Lunch, the year of the Rabbit in Tripoli


William James and Richard come to visit the van!

All our paperwork has now been reissued and we have our Visa for the Sudan as well, which means that we don’t have to go into Cairo if things are still a bit unstable.

Idris our “escort” relaxing
News from Egypt looks better and we are going to try and cross again either this afternoon or tomorrow morning depending on flights back to the van( its about 1,400k’s).

Well… plan is to cross into Egypt turn away from the coast before Alexandria and skirt round Cairo on the desert route to the resorts on the Red Sea and wait it out there.
We tried and failed ….spent 4 hours or so in no mans land before being sent away others were allowed to cross but I suspect they were all local. Will wait for a few days and try again.
Meanwhile we will have to leave our van, fly to Tripoli to try and sort out our visas. Luckily we have a friend who can help.

The scenic route to the border between Libya and Egypt,yes it was rubbish both sides of the road as far as you can see!
The Libyan authorities were very understanding and arranged for an escort (our friend Idris again) who found us somewhere to leave the vehicle and took us to the airport where we were escorted onto the fight to Tripoli and met at the other end by another escort …who took us on to our friends, Thank you Richard and Susan.

Interesting trek down from Djerba in Tunisia to the border….Still a lot of military presence on the roads and heaven knows how many times we had to produce passports etc, anyway we made it to the “safe haven of Libya” and on to Sabratah and the first of many Roman Ruins …spectacular.

Luckily we have friends in Tripoli who we stayed with for our first two nights to get the low down, thank you Richard and Susan. Everyone very friendly but the coast really is a rubbish dump. We then moved to Leptis Magna ( not a small town in Somerset as someone said..) which is quite simply awe inspiring



meet you at the sign of the penis….

Our guide Mufti was wonderful and managed to explain what things were and had some amazing computer simulations to show what they might have looked like when they were standing.

From Leptis we drove to Adabya the most filthy stretch of coast you can imagine the journey enlivened by the odd car crash and weird sight…herd of camels in an articulated lorry!

and a combine in the middle of the desert

We are now in Benghazi in a sandstorm and gather that Egypt is going to be exciting when we get there early next week. Mind you situation here pretty tense very different to Tripoli…. Hey Ho who said it would be easy!

The Road to Benghazi

Having decided to make a run from Tunis to the safe haven of Libya (?) and spent two days on the road explaining to militia, police and army who we were and what we were doing we made it to Djerba a well known resort island to find it closed… except for one all inclusive resort catering to the German equivalent of Saga …we negotiated a huge discount and are now safely..tucked up in an over 80’s resort listening to live umpah music…WEIRD but the wine is free.