Welcome To The Fall

As you might have gathered from the blogs of my compatriots, I am well and truly behind in my posts - a good 2 weeks, by my estimation. This has a lot to do with my prefered posting style, which tends to be rather detailed, and chronologically ordered. I do apologize, but resta assured, the gaps will be filled in.

However, I am going to break with protocol for this one post, since it is an important one, and jump ahead to the events of 2 days ago - since many of you are appropriately most concerned about those at the current moment. Plenty of time for Syria and Jordan afterwards.

It was Friday morning, 5:00 am sharp, when we woke from a mere 3 hours of sleep in the cockroach infested attic apartmet of a Giza toiur gude. More on that later. Our plan had been to make the Moday ferry in Aswan to Wadi Halfa, meaning that we would have to be in Aswan by no later than 9:30 on Sunday, due to the extremely chaotic, and onerous, customs procedures - but we had been delayed by mechanical problems with my bike, and the associated struggle to find replaceent parts in Cairo's sooqs. So we had a long ride ahead of us as we set off southwards.

The first thing we noticed was the handling of the bikes. Tyson had spent a good full day with some mechanics at Zogomar, in Cairo, replacing our pavement-oriented Pirellis with off-road tires, which are studded with chunky rubber knobs. These tires didn't have early the grip of the Pirellis, and caused our bikes to wobble at or around 110 kph. As such, we were't making great time at all. To compound matters, Tom was haing problems staying awake, so we stopped at Al-Fayyoum for a coffe/nap break. The town's denizens were haing none of Tom's sleeping in their city - he had 2 men clustered around him, asking questions on where we were from, what we were doing, and where we were going by the time Tyson and I got back. Ad so we set off again.

Some time around here, my navigation got thrown out of wack. The Garmin's map had petered out around here, showing two lines (the highway we were on, and the highway we wanted to get to) fading into nothingness. The physical map was alright, but the roundabouts were getting increasingly chaotic, the signs increasingly unitelligible, and the roads more or less indistinguishable. Apparently, english subtitles quickly peter out as you leave major urban centres. As such, I decided to chance a route directly from our current position to the highway we wanted, ad took the crew southeast out of the city. Soon, we were on country lanes and dirt roads, passing through dusty egyptian towns, sleepy roadhouses, and verdant fields. I was actually ejoyig the scenery - this was rural Egypt at work - but getting increasingly anxious at finding a reasonale road to the highway. Projecting the line of the highway we wanted on the Garmin, we should have been coming right up on it, but the country roads just kept on going. Partly out of frustration, and partly out of desperation, I picked up the speed on my bike, shifting into 4th gear on a paricularly ice, tarmaced part of the road. Bads move. I had forgotten, or chose to ignore, the cardinal rule of motorcycling - don't ever let your emotions dictate your actions. Just as I was at my most distracted, and travelling at my fastest, I rounded a curve and saw a massive speed ump just up ahead. I hit the brakes - not too hard relative to Pirellis... but hard enough that I lost traction on the knobbies we had just put on our bikes. I went into a skid, which I managed to control at first, just as I approached the speed bump. I quickly thought "give it some throttle, and get your traction back!" ut it was too late. My ike hit the bump in a slide, and any remaining stability was lost. My bike leaned to the left, and I leaned to the right in an attempt to counter. No good. I felt the bike, and my left knee, hit the ground, and soon I was in a slide. I did a full turn with the bike, then broke free, coming to rest some 4 meters from Buffy, who did another full turn ahead of me.

I looked around, saw no traffic, and started to get up. Yes, I know you're not supposed to do that, but what can I say? The adrenaline was rushing, and I wanted to check out the bike for damage. Plus, nothing screemed in agony - quite unlike the fracture I had sustained in India - so I had a pretty good idea nothing was broken. I got up shakily, stood for a moment or two, took a pace towards the bike... and collapsed to the ground. My left knee had gien out from under me. "F*%K!" I yelled, then again. "MY F*%KING MCL!" I was worried that I had strained, or even torn, my MCL (medial collateral ligament, for all you non-meds-geeks out there), which keeps the medial portion of your knee together. If that were the case, this trip was over for me, and the situation could not have een more prevetable. I was right pissed. I sat on the ground, and quickly started doing the knee exam on myself, swearing all the way. Fortunately, there appeared to be no positive findings, except for some pain on pressure on the patella, and tenderness in my gastrocnemius. No laxity in the MCL, thank God. However, I was relieved when Tyson came over - some of the manouevers are far more sensitive when done by another party. I quickly told him my worst fears, and he set to work testing my ligaments himself - good news all around, but for a bit of crepitus on the grind test. Bah, I've always had crepitus there -I am 32, after all.

By this time, a crowd had gathered, seemingly out of nowhere, and was milling about. Tom was off to check out Buffy (only some scratches on her Peli, thank God), and Tyson, with the aid of some of the locals, was moving me off the road to a bench. Fortuantely, I was able to touch weight bear, and even bear some weight in certain geometries, so things were starting to look up from just moments ago. We got to a bench, and I took my pants (which had a tear along a seem just above my knee) off so we could do a full physical exam on my lower extremity. On inspection, I had an angry looking scrape over my patella, and nothing else, really. No punctures or wounds - really, it looked no worse, and perhaps even looked better, than some of the injuries I've sustained on my bicycle. Again, there were no significant findings on exam. Tyson and I cleaned the scrape with some alcohol pads, dressed it, and applied a tensor bandage lightly over the knee. Then, we set ourselves to deciding wat to do.

The adrenaline still rushig in my veins, I insited on getting back on the bike and riding to Aswan. I think Tyson and Tom were shocked out of their gourds, but they were stoic in the face of my insanity. I wanted nothing other than to get back on the road, and basically started prepping mysel for doing so, putting on the shin guards I had purchased in California which I had intially planned to bust out in Sudan, and getting my gear back on. Tyson tried to reason with me - "This is where you apply RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) right?" My response - "That's what the highway pegs are for. Hell, I can throw my foot over the handlebars!" Tom looked at Tyson worriedly, then piped in "How are you going to support the bike, Jerry?" My response - "I'll stop with my right foot." He continued "We'll probaly have to help support you at a stop, or at a turn..." Silence. Then, Tom asked Tyson for his opinion. They both thought that we should put my bike on a truck, and head to the nearest town with a hotel... I was still adamant at clambouring on my bike, though I was now talking about getting to Asyut, and checking my leg there. Tom tried again "Look Jerry, why don't you just try and get on your bike then, and see for yourself?" I was just about to do just that, when reason finally alighted on my brain. I thought, we're a team, the three of us, and I can't make these decisions unilaterally. Grudgingly, I asked both of their opinions, and finally relented. We were going to miss the Aswan ferry, and I felt right poorly.

The locals had also thought me daft to think I could continue riding, and had been motioning towards a pickup truck a it further up the road, apparently owned by some friend of thiers. Now here's were my experience really soured. Suddenly, we found ourselves haggling oer the price of the transport - the bidding stared at 300 egyption pounds. I'm sorry, but I've never been in, or helped out at, an accident where price was haggled over in this way. Sure, we were planing to offer some cash for the trouble of the transport, but this just seemed weird. Finally, we settled on 200... 100 of which went to the guy who made the phoe call to his friend. And so, Buffy was loaded up on a pickup for the second time this trip, and I got myself, under my own power, into the cab. Damned if I was going to let anyone help me there.

We drove down the road a few hundred meters, made a left turn at a small town, drove a further klick or so, and there was te highway. Man I felt stupid. So close, and yet so far... We passed it, and headed for Beni Suwaif, a medium-sized city about 150 kms south of Giza on the banks of the Nile. I was glum. Now we were going to have to spend another week in Egypt, our journey on hold as I convalesced, and as we waited for the once-weekly ferry to Wadi Halfa. The ride to eni Suweif was a long one - some 40 kms, and at one point, we lost Tyson due to some electrical problems. We also had a security escort for part of the way - the truck driver apparently didn't know the locations of any hotels. At one point, I though we were caught up in another scam, and hid my larger bills in my glove seruptitiously, though as it turned out, my suspicions were unfounded. Also during this trip, my knee and calf started ballooning - the long trip was starting to take its toll. I kept checking pulses and wiggling my toes, and tried to keep the damn thing in the air, which was akward in the cramped confines of the cab. What higway pegs would have done, I know not. In the end, we arrived at a hotel in Bai Suweif, the truck driver was paid (his flateed apparently hadn't survided Buffy unscathed), and I got carried fireman-style by Tom and Tyson up 3 flights of stairs to the top floor of the hotel - the only floor on which there was a vacant room.

There, I threw back a few more Advil and fell asleep for a while, in the hopes that rest might help keep the sawelling down. About a hour or two later, I awoke - the swelling was still there, and actually increasing. It was actually staring to hurt. Tyson and I, in true U of T Meds fashion, started to consider the most unlikely conclusion - compartment syndrome. Of course, the pain was minor, there was no paraesthesia, and my dorsalis paedis, never mind my posterior tibialis, was strong and regular, but no matter. We were concerned enough to walk down 3 lights of stairs, clambour into a taxi, and drive o to the local clinic, where I was placed in a wheelchair in a waiting room full of egyptians who actually had something to complain about. The guy next to me took one look at my leg, made a wrapping motion, and directed my attention to his own thumb, which he had very nearly severed with an axe.

For some dumb reason, I was rushed in to see the good doctor aead of all these people, which made me feel even worse for having come. He took a look at my knee, plapated around the patella and along the joint line, and sent me off for an x-ray. Tyson snapped pictures as we waited, and whe the films were done, the technician passed them over to us. Our 2nd year meds opinion - they looked fine. The docor concurred, and was abou to conlude the exa, when I asked about the swelling. Almost as an aterthought, he mumblled "Edema no problem". Well there you go. The whole thing, plus prescriptions (for Diclofenac potassium, chymotrypsin/trypsin, and a broad spectrum antibiotic) cost a total of 130 pounds. Wow, what a bargain. At least my mom will have some piece of mind in that my bones are structurally sound.

And so, for the past few days, I've been chilling in an air-conditioned room on the banks of the Nile. It could certainly have been worse, and I'm thankful for that - the trip will, hopefully, resume tomorrow.