Hurghada

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06-10-08

We were picked up at 7am for 9am transfer by boat to Sharm El Sheikh, when on arrival at the boat harbour we discovered that the ferry had left at 4am, as our guide had not confirmed our departure time we missed the boat. No other boats were going today, so an alternative had to be found. If we couldn't get to Sham today, we would miss climbing Mt. Sinai to watch the sun rise, and miss visiting the Monastery of St. Catherine. Climbing Mt. Sinai was one of the highlights we really wanted to do. We also had to catch the ferry to take us to Jordan.
A 14 hour car trip with a convoy, which left at 12.00 noon, was one option. This was not realistic as Sandra was sick with" Mummy belly". With no available seats by air, at such short notice, we did what all desperate people do and went to the airport in the hope of getting a flight on standby. We were not successful.
The travel agent managed to get business class seats on an early morning flight the next day, which would take us to Cairo. In Cairo they had arranged a motel for us to stay in for the day, before catching another flight which would take us to Amman in Jordan.
With another unplanned day in Cairo the travel agent gave us a car and driver for the day, so we could see what ever we wanted. We had already seen what we wanted in Cairo, but we decided to visited Coptic Cairo and see the last few churches that we didn't get to see on our first visit. We didn't stay too long as we needed to get back to the motel to catch our flight to Amman.
We arrived at the airport to catch our flight to Jordan to find that the tour company had booked 2 business class tickets for the girls and economy tickets for Kevin and I, and you guessed it, Egypt Air would not upgrade Kevin and I. While waiting for our flight Brianna and Sophie took us into the business lounge, we used the internet while the girls drank and ate. Brianna and Sophie were sitting in row 3 while Kevin and I are sitting in row 25. It felt so wrong for them to be in business class while we sat in cattle class, but oh so nice ! We didn't have Sophie talking the whole flight, or Brianna and her fighting. The air hostess assured us they would look after them and reminded us that we weren't allowed to enter the business class section. She didn't have to worry about that, as we were going to enjoying the peace and quite.
We arrived in Jordan at about 7.30pm. and still had a 3 hour transfer to Petra to get us back on track with our itinerary.
So unfortunately we missed out on Mt. Sinai, but hopefully the next day would go as planned.
Due to the guide not confirming the ferry departure time it cost his company, 8000EGP in flights, about 1500 EGP for 2 motel rooms, which we used for about 1 hour, 250 EGP for the driver and guide and then about 1500 EGP for another night at the motel in Hurghada. We were getting about $4 AUS for ever 1EGP (so it cost approx $2800).

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