Something Interesting at the Vodafone Store

While we were at the Vodafone store buying data connections a couple of days ago, we should have checked on our voice phones.  Our phone are not exactly "smart."  They are pretty much what the typical Egyptian shepherd carries with him.  Cheap, rugged and reliable, however.


Yesterday, both our phones suddenly quit making calls - we could receive calls, but not call out.  The phone displayed this helpful message:


We headed back to the Vodafone store.  While I was in the queue to deal with the technical problem - I was stuck behind a Canadian who was buying a data-line (see post below!), Linda struck up a conversation with a woman from Germany.

It turns out that we had run into five people staying at a nearby hotel who were preparing to bicycle from Cairo to Capetown.  If that sounds a bit like a good book title, it is - and a darned good read.  But this group is going on a better organized and assisted version of the trip.

TDA Global Cycling offers this grand bicycle tour departing from the Pyramids Friday morning and arriving in Capetown on May 14th.  Only fifteen of this years participants plan to make the entire journey but about thirty will do part of it.  Check out the TDA website for many more details.

 Our original trans-continental journey and flagship expedition crossing Africa from north to south, covering almost 12,000 km in four months. This will be the 14th edition of the Tour d’Afrique – a test of mind, body, and bicycle. Traveling through 10 countries in all, you will cycle along the Nile past ancient temples, through the Sudanese desert, and up and down the biblical landscapes of Ethiopia’s rugged Simian Mountains. After crossing the Equator in Kenya, you will pedal past legendary Mount Kilimanjaro, to Lake Malawi, Victoria Falls, and along the edges of the magnificent Kalahari and Namib deserts, en route to the finish of your epic journey in beautiful Cape Town, South Africa.

Maybe after Linda gets her second knee replacement in place ...