Penryn adventurer Tony Clarke, 68, is back on his travels, journeying south to Africa and is keeping Packet readers up to date with his exploits in a series of articles. This week it is dreaming of Penryn's Famous Barrel pub as he swelters in 44 degree heat.

It was a long and raw experience – two months of imposed stay in Egypt, including 30 days of Ramadan. I was left feeling apprehensive and anxious.

On leaving Cairo following my triumph in acquiring entry visas for Sudan and Ethiopia, it wasn’t long before I was stopped by the police, and from that moment on I was passed from one checkpoint to the next.

I was forced to sleep each night in police compounds, being woken at 5am to be escorted to my next pickup point, waiting sometimes for hours. At one time there were eight police officers escorting one old driver and one old Land Rover; some were only young boys, all carried automatic rifles. I was 100 miles from Aswan when I was finally allowed my liberty.

I drove 80 miles and by then it was getting late. I don’t like cities at the best of times and never go into a city at dusk or after dark, so I looked for somewhere off road and safe to sleep.

To my left was the relentless rocky desert, to my right the Nile.

There were 30 or so children swimming off a man-made stone beach. I had little choice but to join them, knowing that I would be overwhelmed by their friendly interrogation and broken English, but also knowing that, as this was still Ramadan, they would all disappear at dusk for their first meal of the day.

But what, to my western eyes, was most noticeable was that all the children were boys. Not one girl played near or in the water on this burning hot day. My query was greeted with howls of laughter. I thought, how sad it was that girls were forbidden this little pleasure and have to remain at home, unable to enjoy the cool water of the Nile.

There are still visible plagues which blight this country. The foremost is garbage. It lies discarded by all and sundry, piled high, uncollected by bankrupt municipal departments, picked up by the hot desert wind and spiralled skyward. Nowhere is there fresh paintwork, nor clean cool parks for relaxation. I see the homeless and the poor, among them women in worn-out burkas holding their little children and begging for a crust.

I have now been at Aswan’s Nile Harbour for 28 days, waiting for a barge to take me and the Land Rover down the river to Sudan. There are ten barges here, none of them functioning.

So I am doing what I do best on this trip, waiting . . . waiting for another boat to take me out of this most unromantic town and country.

I have become part of the local evening, drinking tea outside with a friendly shopkeeper and his neighbour. However, relaxing is easier said than done.

Finding a quiet space merely to sit and read my book is impossible, with the temperature rising quickly from 35 in the morning to over 44 in the afternoon, a burning wind blowing off the desert to dry the sweat before it can cool me.

Yesterday I had a mirage of the Famous Barrel, my local in Penryn. Definitely time to get out of the sun. And today there is the promise of a boat . . .