After a leisurely morning (which turned out to be on borrowed time) we left Maryanne’s and headed for the Giza Pyramids.

Like the rest of Egypt, the pyramids were almost devoid of tourists, but that improved the experience as we almost had the place to ourselves.

After being bombarded by Egyptians offering everything from idols to camel rides, we spent a couple of hours enjoying the pyramids, driving on dust and sandy tracks before starting our journey to Luxor.

This was when we realised our mistake that morning, as Tracks4Africa our GPS/Satnav app promptly informed us that the 650km journey would take at least 10 hours and our eta was 1am the next day…

…and so, in the spirit of adventure we decided that it would be a good idea to go for it. What piece of advice were we given repeatedly before we left? Never drive at night.

This turned out to be sound advice. Driving across the desert into the night, on an arrow straight piece of tarmac, was a little like driving in a Nascar race. But half of the cars were racing in the opposite direction, towards us, with no lights on, and apparently ignorant to the oncoming traffic. Which was all quite exciting.

‘There was a nice sunset though’

We survived, though I’m not sure about Ben’s nerves, and arrived at the Reizeike Campsite in Luxor at half past midnight (Melvin: 1, Tracks4Africa: 0) where we settled down for what remained of the night.

James