North Africa & Middle East
 

The catalyst was my sister & family moving to Cairo, the current idea is taking BMW R1100GS on first trip outside of UK. Route being contemplated is "round" the Mediterranean. UK-Marsaille-Tunisia (ferry)-Libya-Egypt-Jordan-Syria-Turkey-?-?-?-UK or the reverse!.
Current issues under consideration and would be only too pleased to receive comments on are:-
Timing. Only have a max of 3 weeks
Tyres. The perennial problem (T66 at present)
Egypt. Entryexit, looks to be horrendous?
Route. To/from Turkey (haven't looked at it yet however it may have to be quick).
And of course shed loads of other things such as modifications, contacts etc.
Final thing is that at the moment it is just me, Beemer and "Pugsey"- Wife's idea- get sponsorship and raise money for Children in Need charity.
All comments, suggetions and contacts gratefully accepted as this is only in the early stages of planning and would hope to go in late summer 2001.

Regards
Mike

3 weeks is pushing it and you may regret it as you cover an amazing area. You'll just have time to wave at your rels in Cairo as you shoot by - but people have done it on bikes a few years ago (in MC Sport) and tobysavage.co.uk (web report) did it 2 years ago in a car.
Think about late summer temps of around 40... (illness likely), Libyan visas (tricky for Brits right now) and of course the arseache that is Egypt (see Chris Brights's report somehwere on this website.
As for tyres, I'd say get the hardest wearing (tubeless) road tyre going.

CHris S

------------------
Author of the Adventure
Motorcycling Handbook. New edition January 2001 ($19.95/GBP12.99)
http://www.adventure-motorcycling.com

I have made the trip from Jordan to the Alps and back. On the way back we "hurried" and made it within your time constraints. But to go roundtrip would be unnecc. tough. I would limit my trip and enjoy more of what is out there. If you want to get a feel for what going through customs in egypt is like go to my webpage www.cng.edu/teachers/hcohen/webpage and follow the motorcycle links to the article entitled navigating with nasser.

enjoy the trip regardless
Harvey

Having just returned from the Egypt and the Middle East I can recommend that 3 weeks will be way to short.
A good route back is through Turkey to Greece where you can get a ferry from Patras to Venice.

Make sure that you have a carnet de passage - essential to get past Egyptian customs. You do not need this for Jordan although the AA will probably say that you do and a carnet for Jordon is quite expensive!

Be very carefull !!! An accident in Egypt ment that I had to get involed in a lenghty (10 days) and costly repatriation.

The T66 tyres should be more than good. If it is your first trip try not to fall into the trap that I did - YOu will be suprised how much equipment you really need. I shed more that half the stuff I had intially set out with after 2 weeks on the road.

Hope you have a great trip !!