Planning is ESSENTIAL

---

For a journey of this magnitude planning in advance is critical. Plan everything in advance, check the plan and modify the plan as necessary. Write it down and keep notes of what has been done and what is left to do. Believe me it is worth the trouble.
To insure the safety and security of the experience plan to learn about the culture. Do not show the bottom of your foot it is an insult. Do not touch someone with your left hand, it is a curse. Plan for the weather, Cairo will be 93 - 98 degrees in the day and 65 - 75 at night. Remember this is the desert so it is a dry heat but it is still hot. Men should not wear shorts, it is an insult. Drink bottled water as the “bugs” in the local water will make you sick, that includes ICE CUBES.
Learn about the money. An Egyptian pound is worth 20 cents, so your money will spend well. You can get money changed before your trip at the local AAA office at NO CHARGE for exchange. This will save you an immediate 10% on your money exchange costs. Book your air fare well in advance and choose a local airline to get the full cultural experience. We are flying on Egyptian Air from JFK in New York.
I really think I did a great job in planning everything well in advance but to plan for a Volcano erupting in Iceland, come on how do you plan for that?
Well that is exactly what happened. On April 15, 2010 (US Tax day of all days) a volcano erupted in Iceland spewing millions of tons of volcanic ash, actually volcanic glass, into the air. This glass will destroy a jet engine in minutes. Pilots cannot see the ash while flying and with the ash cloud traveling at a height of 10,000 to 30,000 feet Eurocontrol, their version of the Air Traffic Control, Shut down the airspace until further notice.
Iceland…..Egypt…What is the connection? WIND. It seems the wind carried the ash to Europe and on April 16 shut down all air travel into and out of Europe on a line from Paris to Poland to the north. So if you were anywhere north of this line, you were going nowhere. Heathrow Airport in England, the world’s busiest airport, has been shut down for three days so far with literally millions of passengers stranded throughout the world. There is no forecast as to when it will reopen. The last time this volcano erupted was a century ago and the eruption lasted 13 months.
I called Delta airlines, Egypt air is a code share with Delta, and they told me that I was exceptionally lucky. Delta cancelled ALL flights through April 19, and counting, into northern Europe, but since I was flying direct to Cairo from NY I was OK. Whew what luck for once?
The bad news for our fellow travelers is the potential that some folks were either flying through Europe from the US, or may have originated in Europe and they will most likely miss the tour. So as I sit on the Delta flight to NY I count us lucky to be in the air, but wonder how this will affect the rest of the folks on our tour. Well only time will tell.
Make sure you have enough local currency and a credit card before you go. I bought some Egyptian Pounds at AAA as stated above. My travel partner Rick on the other hand had a little problem.
You see he wanted to go to the bank and get some cash to buy from me some Egyptian Pounds. So he takes his debit card, gets some cash and promptly heads to my house to complete the transaction.
Well he left his bank card in the ATM! I tell him to go back to the bank and have them open the ATM and get the card. Good idea. Bad result.
Rick forgot to tell me that the ATM he used was not from his own bank. They did open the ATM and sure enough there was the card but it is bank policy that if the card is not from their bank, for security reasons, they must destroy the bank card. So no matter what pleading ensued, the card remained with the Bank and Rick has no credit card and limited cash for TWO WEEKS in Egypt. So guess who is the new banker???? YUP ME.
So make sure you get your travel money in ADVANCE and plan, plan,plan because if it can go wrong it will.

---