שלום,

My route over the last few days.

After what felt like a holiday for the last 3 days I am back in business. I reached the otherside of the Med. I must be honest that I was so demotivated after all the options seems to fall flat to reach the otherside. The Turkey-Egypt ferry was cancelled, Libya visas are a no go etc etc etc…

BUT, now that I am over and on terra firma again and only a couple of days ride from Africa and I have a bit of a kick up my arse again and ready to hit the road.

So lets take off from the last blog.

Monday morning I reached the port of Lavrio and did all the necessary documentation to get the bike on the cargo boat to Isreal. After a few “what you want” and “yes yes don’t ask again, we call you” I got the bike on the ship. So with my bike on his way, I had to secure a place on the ship for myself. Now the thing is they wont let you know until 1 hour before departure if you can go with the ship as the truck drivers pay more so they hope for one more truck to roll up and bag the extra bucks!

So after sitting on the pavement from 9am till 5pm they eventually told me to “take here and go”. I had a place on the ship! YES!

The Ship. Alios.

As I boarded a friendly chap came to greet me. Salim is the steward or whatever they call him and he took me to my cabin. He explained that this is a cargo ship and not a cruise liner. There are only 10 passengers and 20 crew. You have to eat breakfast at 7am, Lunch at 12pm and Dinner at 5pm. Miss it you miss out! No beer, only water! I bought some beers and coldrinks before I boarded so I was sorted in that department.

My Cabin

Being 5pm I also made sure that I don’t miss dinner. It was quite good!

Leaving the port of Lavrio, Greece and Europe was strangely a good feeling. I was excited at the new option to see the middle east or at least some of it. As you will see my plan was originally to cross Libya, but with that door closed I was basically forced to take the Israel to Egypt option. Not a bad one I guess!

Leaving Lavrio

So I had 3 days ahead of me. It became apparent fairly quickly that unless I found something to do it was going to be a very boring 3 days as there is no entertainment onboard. So I grabbed a beer and met two guys from the UK.

Our view from our home made pub.

This was to be our routine for the next 2 days to our first stop in Cyprus.

Sunset

We where also invited to steer the ship.

Then we managed to twist the 1st Engineers arm to take us to the engine room.

The crew was really nice. We also met Naseem from India who was a deckhand on-board. He showed us around and answered every question we had with great pride.

But the time came for all of us to say goodbye to each other. Vinnie and Brian’s last stop was Limassol and they departed.

Limassol, Cyprus

Vinnie and Brian

I did managed to get off the ship unnoticed in Cyprus and walked around the dock. Atleast I can say I have been on Cyprus.

So after we offloaded most of the cargo, we set sail for Haifa at around 5pm aswell. It was a quit night watching as many James Bond’s as I could.

Haifa this morning.

I AM IN THE MIDDLE EAST!!!!! That’s a good feeling! I spend 6 hours running up and down organising insurance for the bike to get it out of customs. At 100 euro for 1 week its not cheap but what can I do? After a ride around this afternoon I went for lunch and took a couple of pics and headed for Jerusalem.

Haifa

I arrived after dark in Jerusalem so tomorrow I go and explore!

Will keep you posted!

Cheers
Riaan
Jerusalem, Israel.

Info:
No Visa needed for Israel
Fuel: 1.9 euro Per Liter
Bike needs insurance to enter the country. Can be bought across the road from the port at Pool Insurance. In Banking Road.