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Africa » Egypt
May 7th 2007
Published: May 7th 2007
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TIP: the way to travel from Tel Aviv to Hurghada



The first plan was to go Petra in Jordan on our way down from Tel Aviv to Egypt. But considering dragging around the big dive gear bag we thought it to be a better plan to first go to Hurghada (with a stopover in Dahab for a night or two, for old times sake) settle down there a bit, and then go back to Jordan whenever we need a holiday from Hurghada. We had already spoken to the Egyptian embassy in the Netherlands and in Sweden, but to be sure we'd called one more time to the department in Tel Aviv to see if there would be no problems to cross the border from Israel to Egypt in Taba. But with our European passports this was supposed to be no problem.

So we took the bus from Tel Aviv to Eilat, from there a bus to Taba, where we had to cross the border by foot. First on the Israeli side, having to pay expensive departure tax and standing in line, cause we had the luck to arrive just behind a bundle of tourist busses. Then entering Egypt, of course we were again the ones who looked the most suspicious, and again the bag had to be turned upside down. But when we wanted to get visa stamps they told us they couldn't give us a visa for whole Egypt, only a 14 days Sinai stamp. As hard as we tried, they where not willing. Maybe if we paid a lot of $US we could bribe a travel agency, but this was way out of proportion. Since going back to the place where you just came from is the worst, Eilat was also no option, because that also meant we would have to pay the Israeli departure tax again. So the most acceptable solution was to take the Sinai stamp, go a little bit south to Nuweiba, there take the boat to Aqaba in Jordan, and visit Petra first after all. Then come back in Egypt by boat at Nuweiba again, where they assured us they’d give us the full visa.

Trying to get a minibus to Nuweiba just after the border was our first reminder to the Egyptian mentality. Hassle, hassle and then some more hassle. Inefficiency to the max, ultra time-consuming, always having to haggle about the prices. So it took quite a while and effort to get there and then getting a place to stay in this crappy town wasn’t going to smoothly either. We tried to stay close to the port, nut everything there was just a dump, so finally we got ourselves a hut on the beach, owned by a bunch of friendly laidback Sudanese people. We were told that the boat to Aquaba was to leave around 10 (or 11, or 12) in the morning, so we got up early, shower in the sea, taxi to the harbor. Once in the passengers’ terminal, it became clear to us that this boat was not going to take off very soon. After hanging around there for several hours we got in contact with some guys from Syria, which was convenient for us to translate the Arabic information about the boat departure and things. We also got to know Maxi-Hitler, a huge guy with moustache, dressed in black, with a very loud voice, bullying everybody around in the waiting room. According to the Syrians he wasn’t actually really saying something, there was just a lot of noise coming out of his mouth. It seemed
SyriansSyriansSyrians

M's sisters alternative husband..
to have quite some effect though; he scared the shit out of everybody and kept the order. Around 15.30 the fast boat to Aqaba was leaving (Maxi-Hitler: ‘Lunch! Lunch! LUNCH! (which means fast in Arabic) but we had tickets for the slow boat, and the new rumors were that the slow boat was only to leave at 19h, if we were lucky... But apparently we could update our tickets for 10 dollar, so off we went. We were almost the last ones coming on the boat, and again our passports caused another waiting for 20 min, for the guy who checked us probably never even heard of the Netherlands or Sweden. So finally around 5 in the afternoon we were moving closer to Jordan. Once there, we hooked up with a couple from New Zeeland, shared a two hour taxi drive with them to Petra, and spent the next day in with them too (See next blogg for more on Petra).

After two nights there it was time to move back for our next try to get in to Egypt with a proper full-Egypt visa stamp. This time we got tickets for the fast boat straight away, and it even left pretty on time. So if we were lucky we could make it to Dahab somewhere in the afternoon. But no… First an Australian tour leader girl on the boat scared us that it was only possible to get a just Sinai stamp coming in this way to Egypt! Fortunately she was wrong, and we got our full stamp on the boat (although only for one month in stead of three, but the visa is easily extended once in Egypt). But then when we arrived at the harbor, the boat could not dock because the weather was to bad and the sea to rough. So we had to wait until after sunset before they would try again. Maybe it was 8 or 9 in the evening before we finally landed, but then on land it was crazy. All the people had to get of the boat as soon as possible cause the waves were still tough. Everybody was transported by busses and then we had to wait for the luggage to come in carts from the boat. Once the first cart arrived the whole mass ran there at the same time, jumping on the cars, as flies to shit, going thru luggage like a tornado, police screaming, kids crying. One big mess, but funny funny indeed to see though.

We shared a minibus with a Dutch-American couple to Dahab, and before midnight we eventually found ourselves a room in guesthouse Bishbishi. Because it was already such a detour, and already Thursday we wanted to be on the road again as soon as possible, but there was no boat going next day, only Saturday. We considered taking the bus on Friday, but that took 14 hours (first down to Sharm, then all the way back up to Suez and then back down to Hurghada), but we tossed a coin and it said that we were going to take the boat. The day in Dahab was nice, not what it used to be when we were there in 1999 and 2000, it’s growing very quickly now, but still a good place to stay. On Saturday we made our way to the harbor in Sharm-el-Sheik, but when we got there, they were spreading the news that there was probably no boat going out that day again because of the bad weather. We had to give our number to the ‘agency’ and had to wait for a couple of hours and then they would call us when there was going to be a boat. It all started to feel like one big sign ‘we were not supposed to get to Hurghada…’

Everybody was on the move to get minibuses to Hurghada and we found a driver who wanted to take us two plus a Russian guy in his car to Hurghada for a reasonable price. Since the wind was quite strong we didn’t really think that there would be big chance that the boat was going out, so we didn’t think it was necessary to wait around and took his offer. A crazy man it was. He didn’t want to drive himself, he said he had another job that night to taxi people to Cairo, and wanted us to go with his brother, but he wanted a higher price, but we didn’t. In the end it took about two hours before we were on the road, he didn’t manage to dump us with another driver so he had to take us himself. Then after being almost an hour away from the harbor, we got a phone call from the boat company: the boat was leaving in 10 minutes…. Aaaaaaaahhhhh! Then there were troubles with the car, we had to stop in a small town, motor got fixed, but then the key got stuck in the trunk. It started to get funny though, because the Rus and the driver who both didn’t speak English to well got into discussion all the time ‘You moushkella (problem), You first speak me 700 pound then you speak me more price, then you want other car, You moushkella! Now I speak You, You no good business!’. In the end we arrived at 4.30 in the middle of the night at Hurghada, a 12 hour ride in stead of 1,5 hour on the boat. Finally there our welcome committee, a pissed out of his head Anders and a coffee mug, danced us up from the main road, straight in to our new apartment in Hurghada. So yeah.. If you leave Tel Aviv on Monday morning, you should be able to make it to Hurghada Sunday morning very early.


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