Ajdabiya - Alexandria (1125km) (Stage 16) Arriving from Ajdabiya with an overnight stop at Tubruq (Libya) reaching Alexandria in Egypt on 14th January 2003
Monday 13th another wonderful day driving through warm sunshine from Ajdabiya to Alexandria. We left the sea behind us to go across country to Tubruq, where we stayed the night, then followed the coastal road into Egypt to the ancient city of Alexandria, which was named after Alexander the Great.
We didn't have to follow John Mills's journey across the Qattara Depression to reach Alex, even so, we did indeed have a beer (ice-cold of course), well several actually, and decided that we had earned a break having beaten the tight timetable to get to Alexandria for Chinese New Year by quite a margin (over two weeks!).
We were ready to change direction. If we had continued eastwards we would have crossed the Nile on the road into Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and even Iraq - perhaps not - we needed to turn south. Yet another hold-up, this time it was not the weather but bureaucracy, an imposed administrative delay of a whole fortnight while visas were organised. Sadly, we were forced to waste time by a luxury pool in glorious sunshine planning to set off on Monday 27th January (2003) along the Nile Valley. The situation to the east
was becoming more unstable and we decided to stay longer. A wise,
if time consuming, decision in retrospect. As time went on the
situation to the east became more and more unstable and the ever
increasing prospect of hostilities increased as time went on.
Having decided to sit-it-out February and March came and went.
April saw the start of the invasion of Iraq. By this time most
of the teams had 'mothballed' their cars and flown home. There
was an agreement to resume the rallye when things had stabilized
in the region and when the all the team members could organise
to resume. |
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Alexandria marked the end of Phase 2 of the rally; click here to view the phase winners and table of results. Sadly this did not happen until April 1st, 2004. The teams regrouped, serviced the cars, organised provisions and prepared for the first leg after the long break, travelling south in the Nile Delta along the Nile Valley to Sohag.
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