Our Wild Journey Travel diary

EGYPT

Friday 14 november - Sunday 16 november 2008

.Quite quickly we left the Libyan side of the border behind us and around 4 pm we started our "entry process" into Egypt. We had already heard about the Egyptian love of paperwork and in the beginning we had a good start but after the chassis number check it all began - running around like in a mental institution...first they send you to get a stamp here, but this one you can't get without other signatures, payments etc...it was like a bureaucratic labyrinth! :o) So finally after 4 hrs and 200 USD lighter we could leave the customs with Egyptian plates! We made our way roughly to Mersa Matruh and found some Olive trees to park the car under for the night...
Salaam Alaikum Egypt!
Mersa Matruh has got a big market, which of course we couldn't resist and we went there early morning to buy veggies etc. After a look to the beach (the weather was not too warm) we found some abandoned holiday resorts along the beach outside Matruh. Here we camped for the night in quite a strong wind. Fortunately the tent and us survived this! :o) As there is not so much to see around Mersa Matruh we headed down 300km to our first Saharan Oasis - Siwa. As you know an oasis in our imagination is a place of calm, peace, stressfree and relaxing - well, we would check out if this is all so true. ..

Monday 17th November - Friday 21st November 2008

We arrived in Siwa in the evening and were amazed by its mud brick architecture, already from the beginning on there was an atmosphere of "laid back mentality". We camped outside in the farms and the next day met Mahmoud, a farmer who traded 2 chinese soups for olives and dates. :o)
Siwa is an old oasis, already being cultivated by settlers long before Christ, its people originally coming from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, they are of Berber origin and even speak their own language "Amizigh". Siwa has a population of 23.000, it is surrounded by high, orange sand dunes, palm gardens and 2 big salty lakes. Its town center is crowned by an old "Shali" fortress, now merely ruins. Most houses in Siwa are made from mud, palm trunks and leaves. All in all a little bit of a "fantasy movie setting". :o)
Siwa's relaxed, friendly atmosphere made us stay here 5 days, time just ticks different in an oasis! We always camped outside the oasis in the desert, making big fires and enjoying the quiet. We just didn't see any gazella or desert fox, but had a cheeky desert mouse that always ran around our camp and even came biting Andrea in the toe! :o) We also got invited for dinner by Ahmed and Helal, 2 Siwans with who we had a nice evening on the salt lake, drinking "Arrak" (illegal date spirit) and talking. We met a few Europeans in Siwa who traded their hectic life in Europe for the quiet oasis life and must say that we fully understand them.
Desert and oasis somehow made us addicted and we wanted to continue our tour through Bahariya, Farafra and Dakhla, but to go the 400km from Siwa to Bahariya we needed a guide and a permit, all in all quite expensive. Fortunately we found someone who went this way with tourists anyway and we just followed him, incl the permits for 350 LE. The road from Siwa to Bahariya is really nice, taking you through the desert on sand, stone or asphalt road. We had lunch with our guide at the foot of the dunes and finally, after 12 hours (sometimes only 20-30 km/h!!!) we arrived in Bawiti, Bahariya's main town. Somehow through the good experience in Siwa we expected the same in Bahariya, but were quite far from it - as soon as we got out of the car we were surrounded by hawkers trying to pull us into their hotels, about 10 people! After a whole day driving we expected something different. We took food in a restaurant with Sandra (Swiss) and Timo (Estonian), the food was half cold, tasteless and expensive. We wished to be back in Siwa! The night we spent just outside the oasis...what a nightmare! :o(

Saturday 22nd November - Monday 24th November 2008

...as quickly as we could we left this oasis towards our next destination - black and white desert. For breakfast we found a really nice place off the main road and in the Black Desert, surrounded by mountains, and sand dunes. Here it looked like all mountains are volcanoes, but when Rene climbed one to have a look into the crater he found out, that they are only mountains, nothing else. The Black Desert is not called like this because of black sand, but because the sand and mountains are covered by black stones, strange stones in shape and material - they sound like metal and look like molten lava or something (some say they are from old volcanic activity, some say they are from meteorites...). Andrea was so fascinated she collected a box full (poor car! :o) ) This part of the Sahara unrolled next to the road till nearly Farafra, which is 300 km from Bahariya and fades into the White Desert, well known for its strange limestone formations and (obviously) white color. We bought bread in Farafra, cleaned our car from the "asphalt incident" (we hadn't seen that they had put fresh, liquid asphalt on the road and drove over it - the car looked HORRIBLE!) and took camp amidst the limestone hills of the White desert. The next morning we found ourselves in a bizzarre landscape of white rocks, our breakfast we took in the middle of "limestone mushrooms" - how nice is that!!! We had a drive around and took a lot of photos in this somehow "mystic" landscape before heading down to our next oasis, Dakhla... Farafra is nothing too special (we were definitely spoilt from Siwa!)...

Tuesday 25th November - Sunday 30th November

...the night before we found a nice place right in a front of a sand dune at the end of a farm, this morning we woke up, made a little fire for breakfast...and as usual, someone came. His name was Ahmed, Rene made him a coffee and he wanted to take us to some hot spring...so why not, we thought, packed up and drove there (1 km). The water there was very hot (45 C), but FINALLY we got a good clean! :o) In the 4-5 days in Dakhla we had a good look around, went to El Qasr to visit a typically ancient islamic village with beautiful old mud buildings, bathed ourselves in Dakhla's hot springs, discovered old abandoned farms and each evening we spent sipping tea in the company of Nasser, Mahmoud, Abed and their friends. They are a group of craftsmen, very talented, Nasser was the only one speaking English and we talked a lot about their traditions, life in the oasis etc etc etc...
Andrea still got on Rene's nerves about camel riding and so we booked a typical tourist attraction - an overnight camel trip with the Bedouins! We left at 9 in the morning and wandered through the mountains with our 2 guides, rocking forwards and backwards on the camels. The feeling to sit on a camel was very nice but unusual and after a whole day in the saddle you can be sure the backside hurts a lot! :o))) Our 2 guides were young Bedouins and unfortunately they didn't talk much about their culture, but more about how poor they are, that they have birthday today and thatthey always get lots of tips (what a hint!!!). This somehow gave us a negative feeling of the trip, we didn't expect complaining but a nice trip! We finally enjoyed the landscape and the riding itself but our begging guides somehow destroyed the nice feeling. What a shame. We didn't give tips! :o)
We planned on staying in Dakhla longer, but due to wrong information about Rene's expiring visa we had to leave on the 30th November and shoot up the 800km to Cairo at night. So we would come back later...

Monday 1st December - Saturday 6th December 2008

Welcome to Cairo - a city of chaos and crazy, dangerous traffic! Through this labyrinth we somehow managed to find the passport office (Mogamma, Tahhrir Square), only to find out that we didn't even need to extend the visas, the information we got was wrong! Bloody hell, all this stress for nothing! :o( But just another example that in Egypt the right hand doesn't know what the left hand does and vice versa. So instead of spending more time in Cairo we decided to move on to Egypt's "Wild West" - Sinai, the famous peninsula of Christian history, diving and drug-producing and consuming Bedouins. Sinai was long time reason for quarrels between Israel and Egypt, now, since 1984 it belongs again to Egypt and due to that, police and military watches this peninsula more than normal. We crossed the impressive Suez Channel by ferry and tried to get inlands from the coastal road but often got turned back by police, we found closed roads (looks like a big sand dune across the asphalt) and only one route was possible for us to take to get to the other side of Sinai. We planned to go to St. Catherine to climb Mt. Sinai, where Moses obtained the 10 commandments from God. In Wadi Firan we looked for a nice spot to camp, but it took only 2 minutes before a man came begging for cigarettes and money. We left straight away, one never knows with how many people he could come back...so we drove right into St. Catherine and took camp in the "Fox Desert Camp", a Bedouin camp with a good price and hot tea! There they told us that our first camp in Wadi Firan was not a very good idea as this valley is well-known for growing opium! So we were lucky not to camp close to an opium plantation!!! :o))) In the camp we met Davor, a Croatian motobiker who also goes to South Africa, and 2 French cyclists, who came from France to Egypt by bike!
The next morning we started our 4 hr walk to Mt. Sinai (2276m) to see this "holy" place. We had to climb back down when it got dark and stupidly enough we hadn't taken any light, at least we had a nearly full moon! :o) Tired we went to bed after Bedouin food and tea...
The next morning we had the Red Sea waiting for us - we wanted to go snorkelling and see corals and fish...on the way there we passed through the "Blue Valley", someone had painted the stones here blue - why we didn't know...probably just to make another tourist attraction! :o) We arrived in Dahab at sunset, did some shopping and found a nice campspot at the tip of the laguna in town...

Sunday 7th December - Tuesday 16th December 2008

The previous night, on arriving in Dahab we found an open diving centre and had asked about prices for a dive...it didn't really cost much and the guide knew how to put a "beetle into our ears" - Andrea was really keen on dicovering the underwater world. Rene was never really concerned with diving, but Andrea couldn't get the idea out of the head and on Sunday evening we signed up for an Open Water course in the "Adventure Spot" in Dahab! :o) But our first few lessons finally were no problem for Rene, while for Andrea it was horror to take down the mask underwater, change equipment underwater and all the different skills it takes to become an Open Water Diver...she had a different imagination of all this, Rene as well, because he found out that he actually liked it! The next day it was the same and maybe Andrea had to realize that diving is not for everybody! :o( But she didn't give up and we must say that we had a really good instructor who knows how to make you calm underwater and said, it's all in the head (you know, one has to get used to different breathing etc...) so Andrea finally finished the skills and got used to "being neutrally buoyant" and even saw a big Napoleon fish in 15m depth. So all the skills done and with our first 4 dives we got hooked on diving...and signed up for another course - the Advanced Open Water Diver...all in all 5 more dives, not much theory and no skills this time, This time we could go up to 30m depth and enjoy "wildlife"! So after these 2 courses we can say WE MADE IT! Yahooooo!!!! :o)))))
We spent a lot of time with the people from the dive center, Moustafa, our instructor, Mahmoud, Mohamad, Toshihiro and Hesham - we felt really comfy there, just like at home! We also found a nice local restaurant with Egyptian prices (NOT overexpensive tourist prices!) and tried Egyptian pizza, Sahlab (Pudding with fruits and cocos), felafel and foul (mashed mixed beans, quite spicy).

Diving in the Red Sea is a really amazing experience, the water is crystal clear, there are so many different corals and fish, sharks, turtles, rays, morays etc etc etc...everyone who wants to go diving should try in Dahab or Sharm El Sheikh.

Finally, after 10 unforgettable days in Dahab we had to make a move back to the Egyptian mainland and continue our trip...

Wednesday 17th December - Sunday 21st December 2008

...after this nice, relaxing time in Dahab it's just sheer horror to be back in Cairo - we had to because of our Sudanese visa, and we had some running to do for this. They want a "travel recommendation letter" of our embassies and for Rene it was no problem to get one, he paid 150 LE and has to come back in 4 days. For Andrea it was a different story, her embassy was very unhelpful and refusing, they didn't want to give her anything and when talking to one consul he even got cheeky and arrogant and just left without a word! So, people, that's what your hard earned tax money is for - ambassadors who go to parties, receptions but when it comes to helping their citizens, they are just absolutely useless! We went back to the Sudanese embassy and pleased them to give us a visa also for Andrea anyway...with luck, because they told us to come back when my recommendation letter is finished and we would see...

As soon as this was done we left Cairo to go to Hurghada to visit Rene's sister who had come there for a weeks holiday together with her boyfriend. She was supposed to bring us some good German salami, bread and other things! Yummy!!! We "flew" these few hundred kilometers and were happy to meet them. They had a suite with 4 beds, "all inclusive" and...ooops...we were in for a few days of luxury, good food all day, a normal bed and HOT showers!!! What a nice break from a "hard" overlander's life! :o) But don't ask how we did it! It's a secret!
Of course, there also we followed our addiction and went diving - this time from a boat! (Andrea liked the instructor! ) In the evenings we were sipping cocktails with Madleen and Martin, Adriana and Sebastian, listening to 3rd class live music! :o)
On Sunday, after a very rich lunch and a cup of coffee we bid farewell and made our way back to Cairo to finish our visa business!

Monday 22nd December - Sunday 28th December 2008

In Cairo we stayed for 2 days, but not only because of the visa (yahooo! Andrea got hers without recommendation letter! Thanks to Yassir from the Sudanese embassy!)
but also because we had a little accident with one of these crazy Egyptian drivers who wanted to pass us from the right without light and anything at night. Rene hit him with our bullbar - now his left backdoor and wing is damaged while we have "only" scratches in the color of the bullbar! Just another quality test for Roman's work! :o)
It took some time to get it sorted in the police station...

The 24th we spent on the road the whole day and went sleep after a pea soup...but the 25th we returned to the hotel, had very nice food, cocktails and a very relaxing, luxurious day! The next day, after a filling breakfast we went towards Al Quseir, apparently a small, not so developped town on the Red Sea. We found a very nice, traditional Bedouin camp with dive centre and stayed a few days to see the underwater world again! :o) Unfortunately we didn't see any shark or mantas...

Monday 29th December 2008 - Monday 5th January 2009

After our diving and a general car clean we wanted to try our luck fishing, we bought calamari but had no real luck, just either too windy, too shallow or no bites...
and to a fishing boat trip our finances said "NO"! So instead, in the evening we walked through this little town, sipped tea and smoked shisha with Makram (a Nubian) in his cafe (for Egyptian prices) and finally met Brigitte and Chris, 2 Swiss in a Jeep Wagoneer 4x4. They plan to travel around Egypt for 2 months and are 2 divers (what a coincidence!) who work and live in Sharm El Sheikh. They were going the same way as we so we said maybe we see them in Marsa Alam around New Year. On the way there we stopped at a jetty to do more fishing but without luck, we lost a lot of hooks and had trouble because of our car on the hotel beach!
In the evening Brigitte and Chris called and invited us to their camp on the beach so we went there and had New Year's together - a little drunk maybe but why not! :o) As a dinner we didn't have the fish we wanted but at least the Calamari with garlic were very nice! :o)

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009 EVERYBODY!!!

The first kilometers in the new year we drove to Assuan to make a reservation for the ferry for the week after. (Normally we expected some information on this from 2 Czech people but they didn't find it important to inform us, even though WE helped them a lot before they started their trip! At least they brought us some stuff from Europe when they came, but we expected overlanders to stick together more and share information - which was not the case! Sad!) So we found everything on our own, even got the court paper (saying we had NO accident in Egypt) and enjoyed some time in Assuan, solving things we needed, having a look at the colourful Nubian culture and architecture and just strolling through the city. We even found REAL bread again, still without salt but at least one can cut slices from it! :o)

And we met Brigitte and Chris again, we camped together and decided to go to Abu Simbel together. So we drove the 280 km in Convoy (this means all cars start together and after 10 km no one cares anymore...) and stayed in Abu Simbel overnight...on the convoy parking - no problem! The entry to Ramses costs 90 LE, we were shocked about the price and the "herds" of tourists going through. So only Chris and I went in while the women waited...The temple was very impressive and in an astonishingly good condition!!! On the way back to Assuan we wanted to have a look at the Amada temples but police didn't let us go, all still because of the kidnapping in the Gilf Kebir a few months ago! :o(

Tuesday 6th January - Saturday 10th January 2009

Our last week here in Egypt had started - we came back from Abu Simbel but in Assuan Chris had a broken roof rack so we had to continue to Dakhla alone. We were happy to get back to this quiet, time-forgotten oasis and still have a look at an old temple, old tombs with well preserved mummies. Cool! The good thing about this oasis was that we could FINALLY take a nice 40C hot bath! And our friend Nasser was very happy to see us here again - we had a nice evening around the campfire and good food with him and Mahmoud. He was sad to see us go on the next day! From Dakhla on we continued back to the Nile, this time to Luxor to have a look at a few of these ancient monuments here. As this costs a lot we had to choose just a few - the Hatshepsut Temple, the Valley of the Queens and the Karnak temple - one of the most impressive and biggest temples in Egypt! From Luxor on we wanted to rush back to Assuan but police didn't let us go at night because of security reasons. :o( So we camped next to a sugarcane field and got woken up by loud farmers the next morning. Today we met 2 Dutch people in a Mitsubishi L300, and 3 Malaysians (1 kid) who all go to South Africa. Altogether we went to the port to load the cars, which all in all took all day! At first we had to pay entry to the port (8LE per person), and had to wait 2 hrs for the receipts, which we finally wrote ourselves!!! After that we paid for the car tickets (2.452LE) and when the customs started taking our car apart we paid 50 LE to be left alone...we have shells, knives, paralyzers etc so it's better not to show that! :o) And at the customs office for the carnet we had another surprise, our "overstay" was going to cost us 1.522LE! Without any discussion! Jesus...we were really pissed off about this Egyptian style of "money-squeezing"...our car is now on a swimming pile of rubbish which they call ferry and we hope to see it in Sudan and not at the bottom of Lake Nasser! :o) Tomorrow we will finally embark on our journey to Sudan and we are wondering what awaits us there...

Sunday 11th January - monday 12th January 2009

..... Altogether we went to the port to load the cars, which all in all took all day! At first we had to pay entry to the port (8LE per person), and had to wait 2 hrs for the receipts, which we finally wrote ourselves!!! After that we paid for the car tickets (2.452LE) and when the customs started taking our car apart we paid 50 LE to be left alone...we have shells, knives, paralyzers etc so it's better not to show that! :o) And at the customs office for the carnet we had another surprise, our "overstay" was going to cost us 1.522LE! Without any discussion! Jesus...we were really pissed off about this Egyptian style of "money-squeezing"...our car is now on a swimming pile of rubbish which they call ferry and we hope to see it in Sudan and not at the bottom of Lake Nasser! :o) And we had to take an expensive taxi back from this godforsaken harbour to the "lovely" hotel (just another example of stealing money!) On Monday morning we got up early enough to have what the hotel calls a "breakfast" (coffee that looks like brown water...) and finally met up with Gerhard and Sandra to take the train to the port. So among many black faces one could see us sitting and chatting happily away! :o) At the port it took another 3 hours before anyone let us go on board. We met Dale, a Canadian teaching in Alexandria, a British and an Irish, a Korean and 2 South African bikers, on the same way like we! We were sweating a little when we had to get the stamp into our "overdue" passports but Andrea's smile had probably thrown the customs officer "off guard" and so we finally embarked on the ferry and secured a place for all of us on deck, which by late afternoon was massively filled with Egyptians and Sudanese of all smells and looks - and we in the middle, wondering how it would be on the other side...the boat left at 5.30 pm after a whole day of waiting!!! We had one voucher for food, well, the cafeteria didn't really deserve this name, but our stomachs were alright. The next morning, after a relatively comfy night amongst smelly feet and bodies on deck we got woken up by the usual "Allahou Akbar" at 5 am. No one seemed to care and we were laughing at all the caterpillars wriggling on the deck floor (passengers wrapped up in their blankets, the whole deck full!) :o))) Just after sunrise we could even see the mighty Ramses statues of Abu Simbel, waving us goodbye from Egypt!
"Ma Salama Egypt!"

What about Egypt ?

..... Better write from Sudan, when emotions are calm ;o) ....