Pharaons Rally - Pre-race

This week the Pharaons Rally starts off at the Pyramids and will do roughly a 7 day race around the desert south of Cairo.

They start of Monday morning from the pyramids... Current plan is to leave Thursday after work in the Jeep and the KTM on the hitch and head down to the Baharia oasis to meet up with the teams and ride along with them in the desert...

Here are some pics from the 1st day of tech inspection.



Team ReMax Egypt, driver and friend Khaled Capo! Been riding with him a few times and has done some work on my bike!

Good luck Khaled!

Pic from earlier this week...

Really nice rally car, beautifully engineered!

Some one said this is the factory Husqvarna team... Best looking bikes!

Check out the swing arm on this Beta... See the hose and banjo bolt! Thought that was weird... Asked and it turns out that all cars and bikes must carry a few liters of emergency drinking water aside from the normal drinking water... So the team modified the swing arm to carry this emergency. Perfect position, off the rider, and at the lowest point of the bike for a low CG and takes up no space....

Click the link below to see more....

6hr of driving for a few hours of kite boarding in Asia!

6hr of driving for a few hours of kite boarding in Asia! Call me crazy but that's what I did this past weekend! Wind had been howling all week at Soul KiteSurfing in Ras Sudr, Sinai Egypt and I was not going to miss it!

Originally I had a date with the Desert Camel (my off road motorcycle) and some fresh suspension fluid, was going to give her a suspension oil change but when I was not able to buy any... Plans changed at 10pm and by 6am I was in the Jeep on my way to ASIA!

ASIA!! Yup... As you may or may not know the majority of Egypt is on the African continent, but the Sinai Peninsula is part of the Asian continent!

Then after 5hr of kiteboarding I drove back to Cairo to make it to a friends going away party!

Breakfast in Africa, kiteboarding in Asia and then party in Asia all in one day!

Asia and Africa are separated by an artificial sea highway called the Suez Canal that was opened in 1869 and allowed transportation by water from Europe to Asia with out having to sail around all of Africa. To cross the Suez canal there is a bridge at the north and a tunnel at the south which is what I use.

Well enough with the history and mumbojumbo... Here are the pics of the kiteboarding action.

I took these pics and the video I will some day post using a new mount I got for my GoPro camera. It mounts to the center to lines that go from the control bar to the kite. I then also used a new wifi remote control to.... Control the GoPro from my wrist...

The A.R.C. Gloria, Flagship ship of the Colombian Navy

Those that know me can attest that I am very patriotic towards my motherland of Colombia, to the point that I always travel with a Colombian flag just in case I have the opportunity to wave it proudly!

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit the floating pride of Colombia, El Buque Insignia A.R.C. Gloria on its visit to the port of Alexandria, Egypt.

Picture from Google image.

As you can imagine this was an opportunity I was not going to let pass up! Especially since Thursday night the crew and the Colombian Embassy in Cairo was holding a cocktail party. Select members of the Colombian community and ambassadors of other Latin American in Cairo were invited.

But first let me give you a little background on the ship.

A.R.C. stands for Armanda Nacional de la Repubica de Colombia which translates into the Navy of the Republic of Colombia. The Gloria was commissioned on September 7th 1968 at the Port of Bilbao Spain. Our 2nd day on the Gloria happened to be its 44th "birthday". The Gloria is 65m/212ft long, has a sail area of 1,500m^2/15,000sq-ft and a displacment of 1,300 tons.

The main mission of the Gloria is as a training ship for the cadets of the Navy as well as a messenger of peace and promoter of Colombia and our culture.

The Gloria sails around the world every year with the 4th year catets and officials of the Navy. On this particular voyage it left from Cartagena Colombia on April 20th 2012 and is expected back on November 5th after visiting several ports in the US, Spain. Monaco, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Portugal and Jamaica.

The Gloria arrive on a Thursday morning in Alexandria but unfortunatly I was tied up in the office and could not see the arrival... Good thing for pictures!

Below are a few pictures taken by Carolina S. who I met at the cocktail party.

Above two pics by Carolina S.

Having seen the Gloria previously in Miami I can tell you its a very emotional moment when you see that huge Colombian flag pull into port and the crew dressed in the Colombian colors on its masts.

Here are the pics of her at the cocktail party and some of the guests.

[Click pictures for larger size]

Perseid Meteor Shower!

So last night was the the annual Perseid Meteor Shower and I took the opportunity to head out to the desert and camp out for the night. Drove about 1.5 hours from my house out in to the desert and camped out. This morning I woke up at 5am, drove home, took a shower and by 8am I was in a meeting at the office!

Click here for some more info on the Perseid Meteor Shower

If you are reading this on Sunday Aug 12... It may not be too late for you to go out and see the meteor show... 

Aug 12th is actually a better day then the 11th that I went out!

Over the course of the night I saw over 150 meteors, most of them standard shooting stars; which are impressive to say the least! But out of all that I saw there were 6 truly spectacular ones... Like unbelievable computer generated ones! Huge and bright with very long sparkling tails that covered 50 degrees in the sky from tip to tail! Magical!

In total I took 54 pictures, most 30 seconds in exposure... Some of them you will see below... But of all 54 I only managed to capture ONE meteor... Unfortunately it was in one of the pictures I planned to delete.

Because its pitch black (no moon at this time) you really cant see anything so to set up the position of the camera you take test shots and instead of waiting 30seconds to see if the camera is aimed as you want it, what you do is lower the exposure and boost up the ISO to the max of 12,800... This results in a very very poor quality and grainy image but it serves the purpose of aiming the camera. This is the type of picture that captured the meteor.... After a bit of post processing I can make the picture worth showing!

On top of that the meteor that came out was very very dim. I probably would not have seen it with the naked eye.... The big meteors are 10,000 times bigger and brighter then the one you see below!

Please click the pictures to make them bigger and to see them in even better

 quality click the options button and download the picture!

Pics taken with a Canon 50D 10-22mm glass.

What you are seeing is the Milky Way.

Hope you liked the pics... If you did leave a quick comment below!

Now I am off to pack! Tomm night I leave on a 10 day trip to Scandinavia which starts off in Iceland where the Aurora Borealis is forecasted to be in full swing!

Peak at BCN....

Cap de Creus, Spain... More to come...

Click for larger version.

1 Year Anniversary!

Well folks... Today is 1 year since the 1st post on the blog and it been a lot of fun and a great way to keep in contact with friends and family! Glad people enjoy my ongoing blabbering and pictures... Helps keep me sane!! :)


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Enough of the past... What does the future hold?

Here are a couple of sneak peek pictures of a recent trip to South Africa... Still not done doing the post processing on all the pics!

Here is a map of the trips I have planned (so far) over the next 12 months. Some are purley for pleasre others are work and pleasure :)

But certinly the most exiting trip I am looking forward to is Climb For Colombia! www.ClimbforColombia.com

Where hopefully joined by friends and family like you I will lead an expedition to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro to raise money for one or two select  charities in Colombia! Stay tunned for more info and let me know if you are interested in joining!






All the best!
AEGS