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Published: June 27th 2009
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Ain't being on the road great? Being on the road you invite disaster to happen to you, and it's always from these bad things that the really good ones happen. Bad thing = lost sump plug. Good thing = saviour by guardian angel.
We left Sinai early (by our standards) hoping to make it to Cairo by mid afternoon. We left with good advice from our new best friend. Our new best friend tripped over to us just as we were planning to leave the campsite, and introduced himself as Calvin. He was the walking embodiment of a scarecrow, slam a stick up him and jam him in a field, and he would have been right at home. Long lank hair, floppy hat, rag and bone limbs, he wouldn't have been out of place on a bonfire. But he was friendly and chatty, in an odd kind of halting English, punctuated with odd false starts and pauses. I asked him where he was from, and was surprised to hear 'England.' His English was almost flawless - as a second language, with odd thought gaps and intonation. I asked how he came to be in Egypt, and he murmured oddly, but
inferred he didn't want to speak about it.
He told us he had been 'out here' for some time, but didn't know how long, but then got distracted, and asked me to go into the adjacent field with him to pick some plants. I helped him, as he said he worked there (maybe I am a fool) and when we had finished picking the dry lavender like leaves, he gave me a bagful, and told me to drink them with boiling water if I ever had stomach troubles or period pain. While picking, I asked him how he afforded to stay continuously in a camp site, 'I make ocarinas sometimes if I am running out of money, but most of the time they let me stay if I pick rubbish up.' As if to prove his point, he dragged a pathetic bag out of a tree. 'I don't really understand people anymore, but I still love music, I've always loved music, that's why I can make the ocarinas - I really get the sounds.'
When we eventually managed to get on the bike and leave, he kept telling the staff there that we were 'on an exciting adventure'
like a child would, and they ignored him like an adult to a child. He waved us all the way up the road, stood at the end of his campsite.
Who was he? Was he a refugee of the LSD generation? Had he gone traveling and never come back? Was he one of those who fall through the cracks? Bad trip and never come back? Gone tripping and never want to come back? Got nobody to go back to, or nobody left inside to come back? I'll be having a drink to all the Calvins out there tonight. But for the grace of God.
Within minutes of setting off we had lost power badly. Maybe we wouldn't be arriving in Cairo that afternoon, each time I twisted the throttle, the motor just threatened to stall and die. We could make it up to a wheezy max of 30mph, with plenty of clutch and in revs out action, but something was wrong.
I had to stop and look at the engine thing. Airbox clean(ish,) so it probably wasn't choking. Fueltap on, so it probably wasn't thirsty. Choke off, so it probably wasn't drowning. What could be its problem?
What else could make a little Honda unhappy? then I checked the oil, and that could well have been the issue. The previous day had been a hot and uphill slog through the heat of the Sinai. 40 plus temperatures and gale force headwinds may have caused the engine to burn a little more oil than normal.
Not such a problem. Unless you haven't changed the oil for the best part of 3500 miles. We had been working on a total loss four stroke system. Just let it all burn off, and then top it up. As a result, our juice was as black as a witch's heart, and thick as Mcdonald's milkshake. Probably time to top it up eh?
Normally I would change my oil discretely, and dispose of the waste, but seeing the crap on the side of the highway, I didn't feel too guilty. Cans and bottles litter the verges, caught by the dirty sand dunes, drive down the road for two minutes and you see half a dozen vehicles dumping their fluid, twice that many humans doing the same. So not too guilty about doing an impromptu oil change into a couple of cans
at the side of the sandy run off area.
Maybe just a little, while people can normally stomach the smell of their own shit, they don't generally like anyone else'. So some guilt.
But moral issues aside, I did it.
I took the 17mm spanner, and lay down to the first challenge. Which way to undo the bolt? Lefty loosy, righty tighty doesn't work when you are upside down, and the last thing I wanted to do was strip the sump bolt. A couple of minutes practicing on less important bolts, and I felt confindent enough to give the sump a heavy tweak. Hey Presto. Success. One good twist and filthy oil gushed over my hand, 'pass me the can' I shouted to Han. Nothing.
She had apparently told me she was about to shoot up while I was head scratching. So instead of conscientiously pouring oil into a Coke can, we just shot it straight into the grubby Egyptian sand. Annnyywaaay, environmentally considering my actions, I stood up to pump the kickstand, to squirt the last few drops out. As I walked around the front of the bike, a gust of wind blew the bike
off of its precarious dusty perch. I caught it before it hit the floor, and dragged it back to more stable sand. Only a minor set back, time to put the sump plug back in and fill 'er up.
Yes. Time to put the sump plug back in. From, er, the seat. Where I left it. Yup, that seat. Before, the, er, bike, sort of fell over.
Down on hands and knees we searched for that elusive plug. Half an hour we sifted that grit, while sand blew in our eyes, and the sun dampened our clothes. How do you move on without a sump plug? Can you fix that hole with gaffer? If it can't be fixed with gaffer, what on earth can mend that rent? How would we get to Cairo? Life was looking bleak when our guardian angel appeared.
I'm not sure how often angels drive red Isuzus, but ours did. Without even asking if we needed help, he assumed we did. In vastly inadequate technical Arabic, I got across our gross stupidity.He didn't judge though, he merely barked commands to his two teenaged companions to fetch 'boxes' from the truck. What could he
possibly have in his box to save our bacon?
It turned out he had a box of bolts as big as our topbox. What were the chances of that?
They tried ten or so, before finding one that was an exact fit. In less than five minutes, our insurmountable problem was, erm, surmounted. I figured the next thing that happened, would be that I was hit with a ludicrous charge, I parted with silly cash, and we all went our separate ways.
People continue to defy my low expectations. Damn them. My expectations should be mine to keep. Our unknown benefactor asked where we were going, and when I said Cairo, he practically ordered us to jump in the truck with him. With help from his two apprentices, the mechanic and I hauled the bike onto the Isuzu while Han directed. It sat perfectly between their toolboxes and spare tyres, and we wedged in around them - hamdu lillah for small bikes. Off we sped at 120 plus kph, a vast improvement on the 60 we would have managed. The dust covered countryside sped on too fast for me to think of appropriate dusty synonyms, and covered
us and the bike in the same hue. The wind flapped my shirt loudly against my body, and dried any sweat that wasn't already soaked up by the talcum powder fine dust.
Money running out, so must continue later.
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