Travel Blog Egypt take 2

On Friday I leave for my second ever trip to Egypt.

I am very excited to head out to the red sea and do some more scuba diving, as this was probably the only part of my previous trip that was not traumatic.

I went 4 years ago to Cairo and Sharm el Sheik. I pulled out some of my notes from the previous trip, this is how it started:

Yikes, I managed to get onto the plane last night and curl up and sleep.
The Arabs are quite forward, I think it is the language barrier, but they just do things like put food in front of you and take stuff away without much consultation.

I have been quite nervous about the trip and rightfully so.
There is nothing here, everything is grey and sand coloured.
And there is a lot of sand.
Arrival at the airport saw 18 Casa’s lined up with military signature on them. We could do with a few of those as jump ships for sure. Skydiving planes in South Africa are few and far between.
There is a lot of security personnel and lots of strange people staring a lot.

The men look at me funny, like a curious look. Not ashamed to stare. But very respectful and smile a lot.

I got off the bus at the entrance with the entire Bafana Bafana team. Damn, these guys are clueless. They all just wander aimlessly around the place.
I saw Ahmed with a sign for me, so I got through the initial check ok.
Then onto passport control.
Lots of people get turned away, some dude was traveling on a British and SA passport and they did not want to accept his British passport and visa.
He was told to go somewhere else and he refused to move without his passport, which they refused to give him.
Eventually, they made me push past him, with Ahmed’s help, got through 3 more security checks. This type of attitude starting to make me nervous...

There are lots of Ahmed’s brothers that work at the airport, doing the security thing with helping people get through the system.
He pointed out 4. No wonder there is a network of note in the middle east.

So I am an hour early for my flight and no one else around. Quite intimidating. The check in and waiting area is completely deserted.

I did manage to find out the Ahmed lives an hour from the airport, by the pyramids.
He travels to work each day with his brothers. Car pooling should help save money.

I asked about the fighting over the way. The wars seem so close in the middle east.
His reply was, "they eat, they drink they fight. Sometimes it affects us, but not much."
Sweet answer.

He was amazing and showed me where to get coffee, find the loo and sent me off to the gate.

Thank goodness I had some dollars on me, so I could pay him for his help. It was all worth it.

On the bathroom, there was a lady that services it to the T.
Hands you a wad of loo paper, practically washes your hands for you and switches on the drier.
The lady was very sweet and asked straight away if I was from SA. And cheerfully bantered on about the SA soccer team.
Of course she wanted a tip too, so a few more dollars were parted with.
This came to be the norm. Paying for safe passage through the ranks of the Arab world...

And so the adventure begins.