The method: Take on the Sinai Peninsula, then Cairo.
The means: My mommy gave me money.
The main players:
Eric II.
Adventurer and resident nice-guy.
Adventurer and resident nice-guy.
Gaby.
Ulpan study partner and partier extraordinaire.
Eric I.Cheek-puffer and mustache renegade.
The three of us caught a bus to Eilat, a beach side city in southernmost Israel. Two reasons for Eilat's convenience: It's right by the border to Egypt, and it's where you can pick up a visa from the Israeli consulate. But as soon as we arrived, there were immediate complications. We figured out that Sukkot, the Jewish "Festival of Booths", was beginning. That meant the Israeli consulate in Eilat would be closed for an indefinite amount of time.
Which was a definitely a problem, but not exactly a simple one. Stay with me here. Consider Egypt divided into two parts: the part that everyone's familiar with, on mainland Africa, and the remnant on the Asian continent, the Sinai peninsula. If you're coming from Israel, you don't need a visa to get into the Sinai peninsula. You do need one to get into the African part of the country, where Cairo is. And considering that Cairo was our main destination, we didn't want be turned away from that part of our trip.
On top of that, word on the street was that you couldn't get a visa on the Sinai peninsula, either. But Gaby called his mom in the states, asking her to check out what we could do. Once she told us it was possible to pick up a visa at the border, we decided to brave crossing it.
The border entrance.
Vaguely optimistic.
Where you get your money changed to Egyptian Pounds.
And your passport stamped.
No dice on the visa, though.
Which was a definitely a problem, but not exactly a simple one. Stay with me here. Consider Egypt divided into two parts: the part that everyone's familiar with, on mainland Africa, and the remnant on the Asian continent, the Sinai peninsula. If you're coming from Israel, you don't need a visa to get into the Sinai peninsula. You do need one to get into the African part of the country, where Cairo is. And considering that Cairo was our main destination, we didn't want be turned away from that part of our trip.
On top of that, word on the street was that you couldn't get a visa on the Sinai peninsula, either. But Gaby called his mom in the states, asking her to check out what we could do. Once she told us it was possible to pick up a visa at the border, we decided to brave crossing it.
The border entrance.
Vaguely optimistic.
Where you get your money changed to Egyptian Pounds.
And your passport stamped.
No dice on the visa, though.
We asked around at the border about whether we could get a visa in the Sinai peninsula. The answer was pretty much no. I took the hint, supposed that we could come back to Israel briefly for the visa if we really needed to. Eric wasn't having it, though. He was determined to find someone who could point us in the right direction and save us the inconvenience.
After we checked our luggage through at the Taba Heights building--the checkpoint on the other side of the border--we had one last line to wait in. While Gaby and I were in line to get our passports examined, Eric saw a money exchange booth on the side of the building. He got word from two guys there that we could buy visas from them. Gaby and Eric made sure to ask if the visa would get us into Cairo. The guys assured us, yes, it would safely get us there. I still have that ridiculous thing.
After we checked our luggage through at the Taba Heights building--the checkpoint on the other side of the border--we had one last line to wait in. While Gaby and I were in line to get our passports examined, Eric saw a money exchange booth on the side of the building. He got word from two guys there that we could buy visas from them. Gaby and Eric made sure to ask if the visa would get us into Cairo. The guys assured us, yes, it would safely get us there. I still have that ridiculous thing.
It's everywhere you want to be.
We bought them and went to get our passports examined, our final stop before leaving the border. All three of us were kind of breathing a sigh of relief.
It was our turn in line. The man behind the booth took a look at the visa we had, and he gave us a loud "no" about it getting us into Cairo with it. Gaby and Eric went back to the guys who had sold us the visas. I followed them back to the booth, but got to the line one person behind both of them--kind of to my relief. As much as I pride myself on confronting friends when I'm pissed, it always takes a lot for me to open my mouth in the first place. Imagine how I do with strangers. With this one person in line buffering me from the conflict, I was glad to let Eric and Gaby handle business. Gaby raised his voice a little: "Why did you tell us these would get us into Cairo?" The guys in the booth defended themselves, saying it would, it would. The person that was in front of me cut into the argument, telling us that they were legit visas. We just needed them to be verified by a travel agency once we were across. Whatever that meant.
We went outside and waited for our driver to pick us up, which we had set up the day before. While we were outside, we caught some of our friends from Hebrew University. They were a huge group, visas taken care of, tour guide arranged. After we told them our woes, I joked that one of them seemed amused by how screwed we were. Soon enough they left, leaving the three of us to sit and wonder if things would be all right.
Meanwhile the sun was setting. Still no driver.
We waited.
Shalom,
Eric
It was our turn in line. The man behind the booth took a look at the visa we had, and he gave us a loud "no" about it getting us into Cairo with it. Gaby and Eric went back to the guys who had sold us the visas. I followed them back to the booth, but got to the line one person behind both of them--kind of to my relief. As much as I pride myself on confronting friends when I'm pissed, it always takes a lot for me to open my mouth in the first place. Imagine how I do with strangers. With this one person in line buffering me from the conflict, I was glad to let Eric and Gaby handle business. Gaby raised his voice a little: "Why did you tell us these would get us into Cairo?" The guys in the booth defended themselves, saying it would, it would. The person that was in front of me cut into the argument, telling us that they were legit visas. We just needed them to be verified by a travel agency once we were across. Whatever that meant.
We went outside and waited for our driver to pick us up, which we had set up the day before. While we were outside, we caught some of our friends from Hebrew University. They were a huge group, visas taken care of, tour guide arranged. After we told them our woes, I joked that one of them seemed amused by how screwed we were. Soon enough they left, leaving the three of us to sit and wonder if things would be all right.
Meanwhile the sun was setting. Still no driver.
We waited.
Shalom,
Eric
5 comments:
Oh my goodness.
When's the next installment?
Love...
The mama.
P.s. Gramma, if you're reading this entry, don't start! :-P
Hey Eric,
Hear you are really buckling down now and not traveling as much. Guess the vacation is over. Forget The moma's comment. Remember you are in the Middle East and try to take your trips with approved groups because there are a lot of con people out there as well as in the states. I know you have a lot of faith, but God also provided you with common sense. Stay cool and just enjoy. Everyone here is fine and ask about you often. Grandma Buie celebrated her 97th birthday on the 8th of Oct. Be on the lookout for a few goodies. If you need anything special let me know.
Love you much and stay safe,
Grandma and Poppy
cliff hanger?!!!
love the family comments. makes me miss mine more.
peace
my mom is on facebook now :-P isn't that funny? she's in the group 1,000,000 strong for colbert, isn't that funnier?
yeah, total cliff hanger dude.
hugs*
WOW! This would have been really helpful for me to read before I went to Egypt myself...hahaha, we had almost the exact same problem, but we got our visas IN the Sinai...eventually we got them verified..but if I had remembered reading this, we could've saved ourselves a second busride to Sharm el-Sheik...anyway...next time...
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