Dear All,
Almost two months have passed since I left the shores of the holy land, where I ended the travel with my motorbike. The time of the journey has gone faster than I could imagine and the unexpected was far more pleasurable than anyone could guess. It is now time to write about the last legs of my journey, in order to seal its real end.
The most important destination of the trip was for me Jerusalem, there I sit in front of the Holy Sepulchre and felt that no step further should be taken. My heart was peaceful and content and all the images of my trip crossed my eyes. Here comes what was not yet written.
I left Hurgada on Sunday early in the morning with Ahmed and two other friends dressed in their long traditional Djallaba, coming to say bye bye just before I could leave the key to the bakery next to Ragab’s barber shop. One of them, whose name I forgot was impatient of cutting the ritual greetings in order to say something important, I could tell this by his fast moving eyes and by the position of his arms, continuously changing. Finally with his hands clasped, he found relief from his mental burden and told me with a satisfied sight: “It is my duty to let you know that Islam is the only way which leads to the real truth, do not forget this if you want to be saved, hopefully one day you will put it in practice” the rest was nodding and patting his shoulder.
I smiled, very surprised about that statement. It was clear that I am a Christian and that I appreciate their friendship for the mutual exchange arising and not for any further interest. Why to say that? It really seemed as if they had to comply with an inner sense of duty. On the other hand I already surprised them enough by giving Ragab a cross as a present and by suggesting focusing their riots on their electoral rights to three more years of legislation rather then on the fact that Egypt is a Muslim country and thus Sharia should rule. That is why I thought smiling would be a proper behaviour before getting on my bike and kicking hard its engine.
It took a good half an hour to pass over the various touristic resorts and then I was again in the desert. However the red sea was rather a good companion on the eastern side. The strength of the wind compelled me to proceed with a flexible inclination to the ground between 90 and 80 degrees. I kept a perfect 80 km/h average and as no traffic at all was on the road, in five hours I was in the suburb of Suez.
For many of you Suez might be quite a popular name in the drawers of your mind. As I was getting closer to town I started wondering about my heroes and explorers either real or fantastic who passed from there during lost ages (Philips Fog, Livingstone, Stanley, Burton, il Duca degli Abruzzi, Karen Blixen, il Generale Gordon, Saint Daniele Comboni, Vita Sackerville West…). My curiosity and my pride were fermenting in my heart, I was getting closer to such an important ground, centrel to so many disputes, one for all the secret agreement between Israel, France and the UK to get it back from the Egypt nationalization of President Gabel Abdel Nasser.
My Shwia Shwia Arabic started to be less understood the more I was going north and I couldn’t find a hotel. Two fat guys on a vespa offer themselves to show me the way to a cheap place. Not considering the size of my bike they started brunching in narrow one-way road, obviously against the proper way. Good enough just after I decided to let them go, I saw a sober nice pension right in the centre. There was a public garage next door; it was exactly what I needed. The only available room was at the fourth floor and there was no elevator, indeed I was happy to do some gym and carry up my 30 kgs luggage on my head since one of the shoulder straps got broken in Hurgada.
I was way too hungry to wait for the end of the daily fasting and so I entered an empty restaurant and I ordered a big grilled fish with bread and hummus. I spent the rest of my time wandering the street of Suez and looking for a Coptic catholic church, which I soon found. I was amazed by the beauty of their sign of the peace as well as their communion made of true bread, later given to the people to be eaten in plenty before going home. To exchange peace, they opened their hands as if they had to hug somebody and eventually clasped them allowing each others hand between the one of the other person. Then they turn their hands to the mouth and they kiss them.
The evening went by while I observed the people turning back to life after another day of Ramadan while I was eating a full basket of fresh apricots. I wanted to sleep early to leave the hotel just after sunrise. The leg of Sinai was ahead of me. I had my friend Ashraf from Sudan calling me every other day to know whether I was still of the idea of passing there and if so whether I was alive or not. I knew the islamist were some 200 km north of my route but a lot of attacks to the army took place in the peninsula during those days. As usual prayers were a very good company in my trip.
I passed under the famous channel and I soon brunched south toward the middle of the peninsula. I saw some monuments to those who fell in the 7 wars which took place in the last century, over-there some trenches with sand bags around them were still waiting for something. At the various checkpoints I showed my documents and asked about the conditions of the way and its safety. They all answered Mia Mia! All good.
Once I was closer to the junction that branch from the road that leads to Sinai’s southern tip (Sharm-El-Sheik) to the east where St. Khaterine Monastry is, I was feeling more relaxed and this made me to enjoy the contrast of colour of the desert with the blue of the sky and the surrounding rock red, yellow and black.
An army officer stops me once again and after getting to know my destination he mentions that I will have to pass through Sharm-el-Sheik. Here my arrogance comes in. Ingeniously I think he is new there and does not know geography very well, so I tell him that there is a shorter way that cuts in the peninsula from El Fayran straight to St Khaterine. He smiles and says “we are in El Fayran here! Look, the road is closed”. My dream of an early arrival got broken. I start complaining and said that no one told me this before, it was unfair, I was coming from far away, sica kaf bataal, de ma kweis I told him. My words were sliding on his gun while his face expression was peaceful and even smiling. I realized how ridiculous I sounded. Upset like a baby who finds out that he will have to walk still very long before getting to destination, I kicked my engine and headed south. On top of it, my clutch cable got broken just few km from there. I had to add another 250 km to the 386 that I planned to do that day…
I saw Sharm from a petrol station where I ate some bread and left immediately branching again north on the eastern coast of Sinai this time. Wonderful and immense sceneries accompanied me up to saint Katherine slightly ascending to reach the 1300 m.a.s.l., the more I was proceeding towards the hinterland the more huge erratic monolithic with crazy dinosaurs shapes were feeding my fantasy. I thought intensively at the people of Israel in their exodus from Egypt in those space likely to be just the same of 3,000 Years ago.
I arrived at 4.30 pm at the feet of Mount Sinai and asked for hospitality at the monastery guesthouse. I was the only visitor. One of the Bedouin there was happy to see me as he guessed from my outfit I would have wanted to climb up where Moses is said to have received the tables of the law. He immediately started to tell me how the sunset was gorgeous from the peak and better then the sunrise, it did not take much for me to understand that he was not enthusiast at the idea of missing the ftour before sunrise during Ramadan and not to be able to sleep in the morning. His plan got hand in hand with my anxiety of seeing the peak.
He showed me the Christian monastic way to the summit, which is composed of 3,750 steps known as the penitence steps. At six we were there. I long dreamed of that place and I couldn’t forgive myself for not being as excited as I would have imagined. The hours in the desert were quite a burden on my eyelids. I read the passage in the book of the Exodus (20-2,17) regarding Moses receipt of the Ten Commandments and just after a thanks giving prayer, the sun went down and exploded in a huge sunset burning red while on the east the moon magnified by the horizon came up gloriously, just on time. A cat passing by the summit was the companion with whom I shared such beauty, as the dark was gaining ground I joined the Bedouins jus hundred meters below and after tasting the soup which broke their daily fasting I went down with my guide who surprisingly was very curious of the sexual habits of Italian people.
The day after, after visiting the gorgeous monastry, I took a big breakfast and left, I crossed the peninsula back to the eastern cost in Nuweiba where I could catch a ferry to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The boat left around seven in the evening, a time when you can definitely grasp the etymology of the name Red Sea. The iron rich mountain with their reddish colour both in Arabia and Sinai flamed the water close to their shore with a mahogany red.
I entertained myself in some talks with Egyptians who were pro-General Al-SiSi. It was interesting to see how in few minutes a conservative religious man came to warn one of the more talkative and to remind him that we were in Ramadan. According to the religious man the other party should have been less loud in manifesting his dissent of a politician like Morsi who after all represented his religion. Rather complicated when faith messes too much with politics.
Within two hours we spotted the shore, Aqaba was there well enlightened by thousands of streetlights. I thought of my dad, telling me the story of Lawrence of Arabia who was the only one capable of conquering that town, too well fortified from the sea, none could have imagined that a man would dare to make his army cross the impenetrable desert to win that battle. That was the case of Mr. Lawrence.
The arrival was so smooth, which made me to realized how, marked is the difference between Africa and Jordan. I had a policeman all for me, who guided me through the three steps needed to register the bike (insurance, temporary permit and metal detector check), he gave me some good advise on where to sleep in Aqaba and even told me “do not worry if you broke the lights of the bike, we have plenty of street lights, you will be fine!”. So I drove the six km to Aqaba in the pleasant darkness and started enjoying the energetic night of Ramadan.
I was so eager to reach Petra that I almost didn’t see anything in Aqaba. For the first time since one month, I felt cold once again while climbing up towards the plateau of the famous Kings Highway; the ancient trade route known since biblical times, which connected Damascus with Aqaba and the latter with the Nile’s delta.
This is a land where Bible echoes are felt particularly strong. Petra was inhabited by the Edomites since 10th century BC whom later got mixed with the Nabatean people. The former were the people who descended from Esau, son of Isaac and twin brother of Jacob. Their story is an appetizer of the turmoil, which hit the region ever since then. Rebekah, Isaac’s wife went to the doctor to find out about the pain she was feeling in her womb. There she received the prophecy, she was bearing two twins that were already fighting and would have fought for all their lives, the younger would have ruled the older. Indeed Esau came out before Jacob whose name means leg puller, which was what he was doing during the birth, pulling his older brother by the ankle. Esau, a much stronger hunter than the sedentary Jacob sold for a bowl of soup his birthrights to the brother who eventually deceived their father Isaac, as he became blind, in order to receive the blessing . Since then there has been war among the descendant of these tribes. Not much has changed if we think about the wars which torn the region up to two decades ago.
It is easy to understand why one of its first famous visitor wrote that Petra is a lost rose-red city half as old as time. Despite the number of visitors it gives a sense of wonder which few other man-made places on earth can give. Thousands of carving in those colourful rocks, which seem to have imprisoned the dusk light forever. I started enjoying the temples of Petra in the night accompanied by thousands of candles down the main canyon known as the El-Siq. Being in semi-darkness I could feel the mysteries of beauty while lulled by the Bedouins’ music. The day after I felt just like Indiana Jones and the last Crusade, even though I had to make an effort in order to ignore the tens of people offering me a ride on a donkey, camel or horse. I went for the longest pathway of Petra, the one leading to the place of the high sacrifice. An incredible trail where you can feed yourself with the breath of your imagination, while observing tombs, lion shaped fountain, altars and every sort of urban sculpture of the time.
I even forgot to eat while walking thirsty to see more and more of that beauty coming from such an ancient aesthetic tradition. In the attempt to find the most famous monument (known as the Monastery) I walked through the wrong valley and find myself among goats and shepherds.
My experience in Petra ended with a frenetic quest for a (functioning!!!) internet point as I had to take a test for a UN position at the DPKO, for which I was not eventually selected and a nice travellers reunion with two Spanish and a German who happened to stay at my hostel.
I enjoyed the sinuous hills on the road to Amman and even the stop by police was really unusually nice. Entering into town was like triumphantly getting into real civilization after crossing half of Africa. Old roman monuments were neatly exalted; cross-lights were working properly and shops were beautiful and clean. The house of my friend Davide was just as cosy as it would have been in Rome, Sondrio or Milan.
The time was ticking and Paolo’s wedding was getting close, I wanted to spend as much time as possible in the holy land thus I packed and get ready to leave. Good enough I decided to check online whether the famous King Hussein/ or Allenby Bridge was a passable point for people travelling with private means. The crossing point has two names, depending in which country are you, once referring to it. It is pretty easy to guess which name was chosen by Isreal. Allenby was a general know as bloody bull who guided the Anglo-Egyptian army to the conquest of Palestine and Sinai at the end of WWI. Lawrence, who supported him in his military campaign said of him that he was “morally so great that the comprehension of our littleness came slow to him”. Also King Hussein was a remarkably great person, probably the Arab leader who had more faith in the peace with Israel, numerous were his negotiations held on both side of that bridge. Eventually, I had to call the bridge to finally be sure: it was not possible for me to use that border post. Good enough, I headed north towards Syria and branch west at a crossing point know as Jordan River northern crossing.
I was happy to go back to Israel and despite their natural inner arrogance I felt as if I was going home. Israeli securities welcomed me with a four hours mix of waiting, luggage and body searching and all sort of question on my relations with Arabs whom I met during my work and my journey.
The bike was not a problem at all and good enough they recognized on the licence plate the flag of South Sudan, which is not an arab State. Considering that I was cutting the trip short in order to be back home by the 3rd of August, day of Paolo’s wedding, Israel was my last country. Being it the holy land felt even more as the destination of the whole trip, once the passport was returned to me and I kicked the bike I was thrilled at the idea of being only a handful of kms away from Nazareth, where the journey of Christianity began.
Hic verbum caro factum est. Exactly there, in that little room which was more similar to a cave. The set of facts, which gave birth to Europe’s religion were very clear in their timing to me and most of the population in the world since they eventually set the beginning of our era. However their geography was for me a matter of fantasy. Up to when I first set foot into the holy land. Witnessing the coordinates on this planet where the coming of Messiah was announced was for me like grasping part of their mystery; like finding part of the missing coordinate on a system of Cartesian Axes.
From Nazareth I moved to Ashdod harbour as I agreed with the broker of the shipment company that I should have shown up, to put my bike on the next carrier. The boat was late and this was even better for my plan, so that I could have reached Jerusalem on the bike and return two days later to ship the bike just a day before taking off with the plane from Tel-Aviv.
The holy city is the most intense place I have ever been on earth. You can feel the will of millions of people longing to be on that ground. Jews, Christians and Muslims for all of them the mystery starts there. It is the centre of gravity of the supposed absolute good yet it is currently producing atrocities and tragedies. The conflicting nature of human being is found there at its strongest point. But I do find some fascinating aspects in this mess. It is only through mastering these clashes that we will achieve the true good, that we will acknowledge and feel how united we are with each others.
While walking the narrow lanes of the old town I found myself in front of a checkpoint where tourist were being rejected. I was not dressed like a tourist, I wore only jeans and shirt, by chance I was wearing the Taqiyah (a round hat widespread among Muslims) which was given to me as a present in Sudan and my beard was long. I walked through. The Israeli policeman kindly greeted me in Arabic and I answered back wa El-eikum Salam u rakmatullah u barakat. I found my self inside the compound of the marvellous Dome of the Rock mosque! Last year I tried with Anna to enter and I was rejected, the same happened the following day with a german looking Italian friend met in the hostel. The mosque is breathtaking in his luminous beauty. The blue tiles were glittering together with the golden roof and its octagonal shape gave majesty to it. It was the time of the Asr prayer, the fourth during the day and I felt as if my presence was disrespectful to the solemnity of the ritual. I gave one last intense sight to the Dome. I imagined the Sancta Sanctorum the holiest place of the Jews temple, I thought at its second destruction in 64 B.C. by Pompeo who desecrated the temple up to its holiest chamber and then at the time of the caliph conquest in the VII century when the Dome was built. That little plot of land is probably the most wanted piece of real estate in the world. The very rock hosted on that ground is sacred to the three monotheistic religions for being the foundation stone, in other word the peace of land from which all the rest of the world and the universe stemmed out when created by God. For the Muslim furthermore it is the place where Mohammed ascended into heaven, it is said that proof of this happening is the footprint of the muslim prophet on the rock as the latter wanted to proceed to the sky with him. After all this mental wandering I left secretly happy for the wonder that my eyes had seen.
As mentioned earlier, the fate made me to meet with Marco in the dormitories of a sparkling Jerusalem hostel called Abraham. He was from Brescia and came to visit his girlfriend. He was a terrific travel mate, curios to explore and willing to find out about those fascinating places. He was also the perfect excuse for me to repeat the little I remembered from my last visit in the holy land.
We visited the Getsemani’s garden where the gorgeous church of all nations covers the rock where Jesus cried to our Father, just next to the cave where Juda sold Jesus next the centuries old olives.
Then the holy sepulchre church with The empty grave and that hole so powerful to me; the cenacle and the dormition church on top of Sion where the Virgin Mary fell asleep.
The last day, me and Marco went to the museum of the holocaust, known as Yad Vashem, which in Aramaic means a Name (yad) and a Place (Vashem). In order to give a memory to all those innocent victims whose memories could not live anymore and which need a place where to live. The entrance leads us into the left side of a long triangular conic figure along which the museum is developed. The left side is the narrow one while the more it goes to the right, the more it opens up. Each historic event is well described with original findings from those years, documents and short movies. The onlooker feels the weight of those years, the guilt of those who acted as well as those who omitted to act. Just as it leads you to the right end part, you see more light coming in. The last room surprise you for its magnificent size and the apparently bottomless hole in the middle, which symbolizes the deep scar that such historic episode left on the Israeli people as well as on the entire humanity. All around the hole, a lot of shelves are organized stretching up to the high ceiling hosting countless books with the names of those who perished whose number is yet increasing as investigations proceed.
Just a week after I visited the Yad Vashem I finish reading an enlightening book on the Israeli-Arab conflict The Iron Wall by Avi Shlaim. Either we want it or not the experience contained in that museum is root to the behaviour proved by Israel along the twentieth century, and both parties involved missed a lot of occasion to achieve peace. May this century bring forward what thousands of years did not manage to bring, peace in the Middle East.
An important Rabin in the history of Israel: Rabin Akiva’ who was a martyr killed by the Romans, once asked to reduce Judaism in one sentence, chose one from vhapter 19 of the Leviticus book. Also known as the golden rule, it is quite banal and as such often I forgot it: Love your neighbour as yourself. A student of Hebrew told me that in the original language, the meaning is more close to Love your neighbour and so love yourselves. As if only by loving your neighbour you will be able to truly love yourselves.
So my journey on the bike ended and two months of enjoinment in Italy started. A special wedding (Paolo&Stefy), Seaside with my family, Mountains, Friends and a French course to get ready for my next duty station Goma where I will fly on the 16th of October. I won’t go there by motorbike, but I have some time to think how to come back.
Many friends asked me what did this journey served for. I answered them five things:
First: admit your fears, cry over them, talk about them to be able to eventually make love with them. Loneliness increases the size of your fears but it also shows clearly their shape.
Second: do not look only at the target, particularly if the target is far in time and effort, worry about the very next two steps you are doing. You will enjoy them better. You will keep motivation and you will not lose the right way.
Three: trust the people you do not know, they are the guardian of solutions you yet ignore and either you believe it or not it is the main way in which God acts. The vast majority of time I asked, I was being helped, and I would have not progressed with such a light heart without that help. Indeed that verse of William Blake is true: I sought my God and my God I could not find. I sought my soul and my soul eluded me. I sought my brother to serve him in his need, and I found all three—my God, my soul, and thee.
Four: learn to wait. We do not master time; shape our wish being aware that everything is a gift. Having authentic hope in what we pursue and having the patient to wait will make us achieve anything we can think of.
Five: Listen to your neighbour; the meeting is the birthplace of all great enterprises and all ideas. Forgetting to listen precludes us access to this treasure chest of opportunities.