Cross Egypt Challenge is a series of endurance scooter rides aiming to promote tourism, alternative sports, and alternative means of transportations in Egypt.

I was accepted a ride for this years Challenge. I am honored and thrilled at this opportunity.

The 2012 season of Cross Egypt Challenge will start from Egypt's capital and the home of the famous Tahrir square, then heads north to the cosmopolitan city of Alexandria at the shores of the Mediterranean before heading west towards the city of Marsa Matrouh. The challenge will then heads down towards the fascinating Sahara desert where the challenge team will ride between Egypt's 5 famous oases, Siwa, Bahareya, Farafra, Dakhla and Kharga before reaching the legendary city of Luxor; the world largest open-air museum, where they will ride down the avenue of the sphinxes to end their long and tiring journey in front of the magnificent temple of Karnak.



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SIWA OAS IS TO DESERT CAMP DAY 4

OCTOBER 14, 2012


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Our overnight in Siwa was short. Siwa and our hotel were listed in Conde Nast several years ago as the place to go if you wanted to see real Egypt. I think they are right.

hotel in siwa
 We briefed right on time and no maintenance delays. So we thought we would have a day on schedule. But no, this is Egypt. (I really got to get back to day 2 so you will understand). Ahmed had to get permission from every official and his cousin, from security to tourism ministries to do this event. He has them all in hand. One says, since there is a gas shortage, we are permitted to have gas. That worked until we got to the gas station in town. We were on schedule for all of 30 minutes. There was a lot of yelling between our guys and gas station guys. We stood in the shade of this banner......

...it says “Egypt Oil welcomes participants of the 2012 Cross Egypt  Challenge”. No one saw it until after the problem was resolved. Maybe they should have dragged the gas station manger over to it and had him read it. Meanwhile we entertained ourselves.
 on the phone again

"think he will carry our scooters"

kids always are coming up


Once under way our first stop was the salt ponds. Rain water, one day a year, collects in the ponds and when it dries they take out the salt.




We kept losing time today, like every day, for reasons I do not know. One was when one of the Official Challenge guys hit sand in the road and went down with injuries. He is still with us but in the truck. We pressed hard to get to our overnight stop which was tents in the desert. 



 tarek with the cleanest scooter in the bunch


 "no man, i told you they went that way"




we transited many military checkpoints in the middle of nowhere

There  was 40 Km of very rough “road” that was really lots of fun to ride. Ahmar, our leader, said “for this part, you ride your own ride. Be careful, take it easy, and be safe and we have to get there before dark.” When he said “go ahead” it was like race horses out of the gate. There are some serious riders in the group and we hauled ass. The 26 bikes were spread over 5 Km. Everyone made it safely to the turn off for the desert camp. Sorry... this part of the ride you did not take your hands off to take photos.

 Then we took off across the desert. Several riders, me included, went down in the sand. No injuries and no breakage. The sun was just disappearing as we rolled in to camp.










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