Out of Egypt

We are in Jerusalem. Finally. The past few days have been a crazy whirlwind of travel and adjustment starting with our arrival in Hurghada to find the ferry to Sharm Al Sheikh was cancelled. We were told (and we believed) that the ferry would be down for a two days and if we waited we could catch it eventually and would be fine. The only other option was to get on a bus (which we had just gotten off of) and ride nine more hours around the Gulf of Suez to Sharm. This was not an option as the ferry only took 90 minutes. We looked around for a place to spend the next two nights and make the most of our time in this coastal town. The next two days were spent trying to relax in a place packed with the worst kind of tourists(Europeans). But we managed to find a few places that weren't so gaudy and of course sunshine is the same everywhere.

Unfortunately, on the second day, we discovered the ferry was not delayed for two days, but two weeks. Utter dismay ensued, as we realized the only way out of Hurghada was by bus. The next day we moped down to the bus station at 7am to await the bus to take us to Suez where we would switch to a bus cutting across central Sinai to bring us to the Israeli border at Taba. We immediately gathered from the Arabs that the Suez bus wouldn't arrive until 10:30. We took a minibus downtown for Sahlab (a creamy hot drink with nuts, raisins, and coconut) and returned at ten. The Arabs told us it would now be at 11:30. So we sat at the dingy station cafe for an hour. At 11:40 we learned it would be ten more minutes. The Suez bus arrived at 12:30. A mob quickly ensued and Kristi and I split up. I jammed my way on the coach to find us seats and she stayed back to get our luggage under the bus. Fortunately, I secured two seats in the back and guarded them from other passengers who quickly realized they would be forced to stand for the entire trip. Kristi arrived and we sat there sweating while the bus got its act together.

The sun was well down, seven hours later when we arrived in Suez: two hours later than normal. There was something seriously wrong with the bus and it wouldn’t top 50mph the entire way. Suez presented a new dilemma. We had to get to Taba, but the only bus was the next day at 3 in the afternoon. We had already decided that we would do whatever we had to to get to Taba that night, even if it meant hiring a car specially to take us there. We haggled the fare down to arbah miyya, khamsa wa ishriin ginea (425LE, $75), and after the crazy day we were glad to just get out of Egypt once and for all. Little did we know we had one more crazy adventure left before the border.

Mohammad worked for the Taxi station boss. And after much talking it obviously fell to him to be our driver for the five hour trip to Taba. We soon found ourselves splayed out in the back seat of an early 80’s Pugot station wagon with him at the wheel, and something was fishy. First there was the detour down a side street. Mohammad parked, told us there was no problem, got out, crossed a set of train tracks, and met with another Arab man, discreetly passing him some folded bills. He came back smiling too much. Then there was the string of phone calls where the only thing I could make out was that something was up. Thirty minutes later, we pulled into a service station and came up behind a Toyota mini bus with two figures perched beside. Mohammad proceeded to explain in Arabic that one of these men was his little brother and actually he would be the one driving us, not in the Pugot, but the Toyota. I think we both experienced an “Ah ha!” moment, because his game was finally unmasked. He was obligated to pay over half of our fare to the Taxi boss but the boss wouldn’t know about the mini-bus, and more importantly the nine to fifteen passengers they would undoubtedly fill it up with on the way back from Taba. After a good show of protest we allowed Mohammad to transfer our bags to the Toyota. Once we got inside an obvious argument ensued outside with the second man. The owner of the bus shooed us out of his bus and drove away. Mohammad took us back to the station wagon with no explanation. We got back into the car. I fumbled with the windows to get one to roll down for the trip and just as we got one down a crack, Mohammad’s brother pulled up, this time by himself, in yet another Toyota mini bus. Oh, so NOT the Pugot? Again? By now the situation was so crazy we were laughing at each other, and complaining LOUDLY to Mohammad. I think he was a bit embarrassed but insisted that now everything would go smooth. One more time, we switched cars, this time saying goodbye to Mohammad and pulling away with his brother Hussain. We soon stopped and picked up another man (“Zoom-leh-ee” Hussain explained, “my collegue”). All the better, Kristi and I concluded. Good to have someone for Hussain to keep him awake during the drive.

We soon learned that Hussain was crazy. The highway through the Sinai desert was uneven, winding, and in many places covered with sand drifts (which we named “sand snakes”). No matter, Hussain plowed ahead at, who knows, 70 miles per hour. All the time passing cars at high speeds, pulling tight corners, turning his headlights off while oncoming cars wooshed by in the other lane, and breaking suddenly on a regular basis. We prayed. I pulled out my Arabic phrase book and frantically searched for how to tell him to slow down. After I explained that he was scaring Kristi, I got him to slow down. A little bit. –An hour went by. Then two. And though our hearts were in our throats and we couldn’t wrench our eyes off of Hussain’s antics, I think our prayers were working, because we were still on the road in one piece. And though we began to trust his driving ability a little more, we never wavered from the opinion that he, as a typical Egyptian driver, was out of his mind.

A little over four hours after leaving Suez, we pulled into the quiet town of Taba on the tip of Aqaba. Hussain dropped us at the border, we rebuffed his pleas for a tip and let him drive away with only the fare. It was 2am. We made our way through customs, out of Egypt—crazy, unpredictable, shabby Egypt—and into a slumbering Israel on the eve of Passover.