Haifa to Cairo

Okay, here goes. Saturday afternoon I gathered up a couple pairs of pants, a few long sleeve shirts and one short-sleeved, many socks and underwear, toiletries, money, a hat and scarf, and camera into my backpack and took the bus down to the beach where I waited at the ticket counter which had the windows closed so that I could clearly see the sign posted on it stating they had opened two hours ago and would still be open three more. Hmm. I tried the self-checkin kiosk, but could not purchase a ticket there, only retreive one I'd previously bought online (which I had not).

I wandered back over to the still-closed ticket counter, and was about to walk around the station with a lost look on my face hoping someone would help me, when I heard movement inside, and then the window opened and I was able to get my ticket to Eilat. Phew. The bus that my friend's ticket was for was full, but I was able to reserve a seat on the second bus leaving at the same time. No problem.

I sat with a couple other students that were headed to Tel Aviv for the weekend until it was time for them to go catch their train and then I walked down the beach a ways, and laid on the beach listening to the waves, looking at the stars, and trying to picture accurately where the stars are in relation to the Earth's orbit and the Sun that they can be seen each night...it made my brain hurt and I decided I will ask some of my science friends to make a model to help me better picture it.

I listened some more to the book-on-tape that I'm on now. I'm re-listening to "Uncle Tom's Cabin"--so good! You probably read it in school, but it is worth a re-read as an adult. And I've found that many of the concepts set forth in it are exhibited in full force in this area. It has been incredibly interesting to be reading it while traveling in this region.

At my alarm's reminder, I head back to the bus station to meet up with my friend. She told me that another of our mutual friends might join us and shortly after, he arrived (boy, am I glad he joined us!). The ticket booth was then truly closed, but he was able to get a ticket from someone who's friend had to cancel their trip at the last minute, and we were all on board and ready to sleep the five hours to Eilat. Sleep would have been nice. I did not. But I at least enjoyed "Uncle Tom" and some music along the way, and praise God for Bonine! :-) Too bad I had the non-drowsy formula. :-P

We arrived in Eilat when it was still dark, and I watched all the other passengers dissapear in various taxis, shuttles, and busses. I met up with the two who had been on the first bus and we wandered down to the beach, remarking that the Red Sea was not red at all, and looking for a piece of beach where we could take a few-hour nap, debating if we should perhaps go to a hostel (though I did not want to pay for a whole night when we'd be leaving in just a few hours--"Can we push through??"). We found some lounge chairs stacked up on the beach, but unfortunately they were chained together. We joked about climbing up on the pile and I made a comment about the story "The Princess and the Pea", which neither of them had heard of, one being from Paris, and the other from Tokyo (apparently it's only an American fairy tale?). I tried to tell the story and realized I don't actually know it, either! I got the general gist of it, but on top of not remembering the begining or end, I was also telling it in the best Hebrew I could muster at 5am after a night of no sleep. It was probably very amusing to anyone nearby who might have overheard it. As time went on and our weariness crept up stronger and stronger, we found more and more things funnier and funnier. It was quite a good morning.

We walked along the boardwalk area and over a bridge until we found a map of the city posted beside a hotel. There we found where the tourist information center was and on our way to that, we found a grassy (well, fake grass, anyway) area next to the beach. We plopped down, one friend took a quick swim, and the other and I took naps, with my head on my backpack, and feet on my swimming-friend's luggage, to hopefully discourage any theft while we slept. :-)

Between my cardigan over my face to block the fly that was buzzing around, and my sunglasses to lessen the sun's rays when it rose, I slept pretty soundly, even though it was rather short (maybe half an hour or an hour), but I felt much better when I got up, ate the orange I'd brought, rinsed my hands in the Red Sea :-) and began a search for coffee. (Below, the mountains in the background are Jordan! I always find it fascinating when you can see one country or state from another (other than directly across the border patrol, of course) and later we saw a Jordan flag so large we could see it across the desert, through the trees of a little oasis.)

We took a taxi ($) to the Egyptian consulate, found that it did not open for another half an hour, remembered one of my friends and I had forgotten to bring the photo of ourselves we'd need for the visa, took another taxi ($) back downtown to get that, and some breakfast and coffee, and then another taxi ($) back up to the consulate, as our friend called and texted us to hurry, because they were going to close about half an hour after opening! (We had to wait in the photo shop for quite some time as it is not perhaps the most professional of places, and it seems each service they provide requires quite a tedious process, and a decent fee, as I'm sure they know they have "demand" on their side. ($))

We didn't spend much time in Eilat, but I'd been told it's mostly a resort city, and boy was that apparent. Fancy hotels everywhere! I was glad we'd spent the night on the bus and on the beach, but they were fun to look at, anyway. :-)

But we got our visas, (more $)

made friends with the other travelers there, and after walking (no $) back downtown, stopping by a store for some water and other supplies, we loaded on the bus to ride the 15 minutes to Taba, the border city between Israel and Egypt.

Egypt, here I come!

I was all ready with my passport and visa, but forgot someone had told me also that there are border fees to pay. (Are they included in plane tickets? I don't remember paying them before anywhere.) So, we paid our exiting fee to the Israel boarder control ($), exchanged money at the exchange place they so conveniently have right there for you with their set exchange rate ($),

and passed through the duty-free store, out onto Egyptian land, across some open area which I thought was Egypt, but apparently was not,

through security (which was the first time in Egypt I was complimented on my looks), past the taxi drivers eagerly offering rides to Cairo for this price and that (which was the second time in Egypt I was complimented on my looks), and finally through Egypt's passport control. Phew!

I'd taken a picture before leaving Eilat of several flags all in a line (I seem to have an unexplained attraction to flags), and then saw another line shortly after arriving in Egypt, and it struck me that the lines were very different. I recognize several of the nations represented, and don't recognize some of them, and don't know what the difference may symbolize, but found it interesting anyway. Shrug.

We stuck together with the other four we had met at the consulate and bargained with a shuttle driver to take us to Cairo for 100 Egyptian Pounds each. ($) Not quite a bargain, but the best we could get. The bus would not come for four more hours and would take eight hours from the boarder to Cairo. (And the van came with snazy seat-covers, so that sweetened the deal. ;-))

Our driver quoted we could pay the 100 EGP to leave right then and arrive in Cairo in five hours. *cough*

About an hour later, we were on our way. We dropped off one of the travelers at the bus station, as he was not headed to Cairo, and started on the road, quickly arriving at the first roadblock where we had to pay our entrance-to-Egypt fee/Port fee thing, and...oh, I forget what the other money was for, but anyway, two more things that were required of us before we could continue on the way ($). After some waiting for change--hoping the "policeman", who wore no uniform, would indeed return with our change, we set off on the long highway to Cairo.

We passed a few resorts--which offered the only green, and the blue sea, and then were into the desert, all browns and reds. We stopped for fuel, where I looked for at ATM in vain, and assured the driver that it was okay, I would use one when we got to Cairo. He said he didn't know where one was, but I assured him it would not be a problem--large cities around the world have them.

About forty-five minutes into the drive, our driver stopped on the side of the road in apparently the middle of nowhere, and then turned around without a word. After quite a bit of questioning from all six of us in the van, he explained that the road was closed up ahead and we would have to go back and take another road. Go figure.

The drive was long, sprinkled with roadblocks where additional un-uniformed "policemen" checked our names, nationalities, and passport numbers which we'd written down on a pad the driver passed around, but we got some sleep, and had fun singing along with one of the songs he played about a dozen times, and yelling protests at two of the other songs he put on a few times that were so repetitious as to be perhaps a good tool for interrogative torture. I was ready to tell him whatever information I might have if only he would turn off those two songs. The scenery looked mostly like Nevada, but once I did see a shepherd, which shocked my brain back to this other side of the world.

One of the other travelers is hoping to become a Bible translator, so we talked Linguistics, and talked quietly about how incredible it was that anyone might walk in land like this for forty years, and swapped stories of our own walks.

A few times, the driver pulled off the road and informed us that we were to go to the bathroom and drink something. While none of us felt these needs, it was clear he did, and we were happy for him to take some care. There had been some concerned discussion amongst us as to whether his eyes had really just closed for a moment or not, and if the swerving was simply his style, or related to his state at the moment...after some coffee and with a large bottle of water, he became quite animated, singing and clapping along with the music (against his head, so he needn't take his other hand off the wheel), and I think chatting up a storm with the passenger in the frontseat. We were relieved, entertained, and inspired toward a better mindset than we'd had since entering the country.

At one of the stops, I did get out to use the bathroom: "Might as well try, eh?" And again remembered I was in a different country! Although, I must say this was the only time I happened upon a "squatty potty" while in the country. All the others I used were very westernized. (Squatty potty is the term I learned years ago in Thailand, where all the toilets, save those in the hotel, were not too unlike this one.)

He pointed out to us when we entered the tunnel under the Suez Canal,

and when the evening came, men on the side of the roads handed in through the windows juice and dates to break the fast for anyone celebrating Ramadan.

Outside the city-skirts of Cairo, our driver pulled over in the dark next to a smaller car and told us we'd arrived. It was apparently the middle of nowhere, and while this was my first time to Cairo, I couldn't somehow believe we had arrived. He explained that if we took the van into the city, we would have to pay an additional fee, but by taking the car instead, there would be no charge. Sure, that makes sense. Shrug. (I think I have shrugged more this week than perhaps the last decade.)

Being not in the city, there was no ATM, naturally. A few minutes of figuring out what to do, and we were able to borrow from one of my friends some USA dollars to make good with the driver, and head into the city eight or so hours after leaving the border.

Eventually our new driver dropped off each passenger and as my friend had forgotten her friend's address back in Haifa, we got off at the hostel of the final person to see about a phone. A bit of an adventure, but we found a phone, an ATM, and the metro to our new friend's flat where we stayed in a suburb near Cairo for the duration of the week. Tada! Welcome to Cairo. "Are you happy?"